A public health researcher at the University of Buffalo recently looked into the question of why follow through on diets is so difficult.
He found that maintaining a diet is a "thinking" event requiring planning, scheming, will power, etc. which are all cognitive skills.
But follow-through on a diet requires good "feelings" in order to be successful. If one doesn't enjoy the foods in a diet, the diet will fail. A successful diet needs to have a very strong emotional component. If the "thinking" and the "feeling" of a diet are not congruent, the health change will fail.
So the key issue, in designing a new diet, is much more than what's healthiest to eat....but also what are the most enjoyable as well as the healthiest foods to eat.
He found that maintaining a diet is a "thinking" event requiring planning, scheming, will power, etc. which are all cognitive skills.
But follow-through on a diet requires good "feelings" in order to be successful. If one doesn't enjoy the foods in a diet, the diet will fail. A successful diet needs to have a very strong emotional component. If the "thinking" and the "feeling" of a diet are not congruent, the health change will fail.
So the key issue, in designing a new diet, is much more than what's healthiest to eat....but also what are the most enjoyable as well as the healthiest foods to eat.
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