The “Diet”

She walks up to her friend and asks her about how she can lose her weight and get rid of that double chin? She tells her that she's been on a diet but recently she couldn’t keep up with it.

Say you haven’t ever had someone ask you for advice for this matter , or say so if you haven’t asked for it from someone.

If you have, in either way, thank you for reading this far. If you have not, thank you for still doing so.

There are two ways you realize you are overweight. You either find it out yourself, or someone else tells you.

Either way the first thing you do about it is start a “diet”. Let’s see how we operationalise this word. What it really means is banning everything you like to eat or what you actually eat and choosing the typical diet food- green and proteins usually? Whole wheat instead of white flour etc? While all of that is a very healthy lifestyle, you are not following it for that reason. You are following it to lose weight. And believe it or not, you might stop following it if you find a solution that allows you to eat whatever you like and not let it affect your weight.

That solution is maybe visiting a professional in medicine. Start with a general physician. Have them check your BMI and conduct general health tests. Sometimes it's all we need to do. There are a lot of medical reasons that cause changes in our weight. Thyroid is one of them. Once you find the reason why your kilos are increasing you can get it treated and shed them off. Even if there isn’t a problem like that and you should lose weight because it may later contribute to a health issue, then it is the doctor that would suggest to you the right way to follow a diet. That diet would be suitable to your own metabolic and health system- probably not a generic pattern. 

If your tests are clear and the doctor doesn’t suggest you go on a diet, maybe think if you’re stressed out? Are you mentally healthy? A visit to a psychologist/psychiatrist can help you examine if your weight is gaining because you're anxious or depressed and not just “sad”. Sometimes we are unable to identify these things and generalize them. Mental disorders cause us to eat less or too much, which again, fluctuates our weight. Our brain controls our metabolism. An issue inside will reflect on the outside. Today mental disorders are widely known with professionals and they know how to treat them. Once the disorderly part of the brain is put into order again, via therapy or medications, you shall probably feel better. 

The next time you find out that your weight isn’t right, I want you to feel happy. Just like a headache or fever, your weight is indicating that you need to take care of something. Rather than taking it negatively and depriving yourself of not just food you love but also the nutrients you need, just see a professional. The road to health will be smoother. 

This article cannot be ended without saying that happiness doesn’t depend on what’s out there, it's about what’s within. If you are healthy, you will be healthy. If you aren’t healthy, no matter how “perfect” you look, you won’t be happy. And healthy means both physically and mentally!