Health – Diets, fads and New Year’s resolutions

I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions. Maybe I am too cynical, but it seems like a cheap promise made on the spur of the moment (and maybe just from some over-indulgence in New Year’s cheer).

It has a similar flavour to the concept of dieting and, interestingly, the two concepts often meet at the same time! Needless to say, even with the best of intentions, the follow-through is often lacking. After 20 years of watching people promising the moon in my clinics, I have adopted a subtler approach.

Essentially, I suggest that when we make changes, especially with respect to health, gradual is better in the long run. The caveat to this is if you have a life-threatening condition, of course. Ultimately, we are talking about a lifestyle change, as opposed to a radical dietary change and the results are typically slower, but they are more permanent.                                     

When I talk about gradual changes I am not referring to being half-hearted and inconsistent, but more about changing one or two things at a time that may be critical to your health.

So, for instance, if you are drinking alcohol every day and are concerned about your weight or have low energy levels, in this instance a good change may be to only drink alcohol moderately on the weekend, and not at all during the week.

The idea being that you don’t deprive yourself too much and then, in time, resent this choice and go back to old habits. But the balance here is that you make enough changes to actually get some tangible benefits. The benefit has to outweigh the difficulty of the change, or it will be harder to stick with it.

Here are a few tips:

•    Tell a friend or, even better, embark on the new changes with a friend

•    Find some appropriate ways to measure the results of your new lifestyle. Look at all the possible benefits.

•    As you begin to feel the benefits of the new lifestyle, you can use this momentum to think about and implement new changes to feel even better.

•    Take the time to acknowledge how well you have done and reward yourself. If you have saved money from a change, then spend some of that money on a reward that will benefit your health, like a massage, a weekend away or dinner at a nice restaurant.

Eugene Sims, Warkworth Natural Therapies
www.wnt.co.nz