Why Your Diet Fails: 6 Factors That Play A Key Role

I often get e-mails and facebook messages, by people, asking me why their diet doesn’t help them achieve their goals about a better looking, fit body. Most of them think that the only thing, that will make you fit in your graduation costume again is to pick up the perfect diet. As everything else in life though, things have more than one side!

Diet is one of the factors, and even though it is the most important, it is still not enough to get you to a fitter, and more athletic version of yourself! In this article, I will share with you, the six components of success, referring to a fitter body!

Why your diet is not enough?

For the past couple weeks, I have been a little nostalgic about the years I used to play basketball, so I will take advantage of that, and explain you, why diet is not enough!

What does a basketball player need, in order to improve, get better technique, strength, speed? The first and most important thing, even if most of us don’t consider it, is to have the right conditions, the right gym, where he could work out on all aspects of his game. Let’s say that you have the opportunity to work out in the best gym in town! Is that making you a better basketball player? No! You need other stuff- a ball, a coach, ability to control your emotions, probably you will need the support of your friends and family, you will need some competition that will keep you motivated and so on..

In our case, the perfect gym, will be your diet. You have all the information for the best diet. You have the opportunity to follow it, but something is always screwing it up! What is the reason?I consider 6 factors, that influence your success!

What are the 6 factors, that influence your success

1.Diet

Truth is that the diet, gets the most of the credit for your improvement! Fights are won in the gym, but wars are won in the kitchen! The food, you fuel your body with is important, because it determines how your body functions- what hormones will be released, will they create the right conditions for fat burning, muscle growth and etc. But as having the best conditions to work out, doesn’t make you a better basketball player, thus just having the perfect diet, doesn’t make you healthy and fit!

2. Physical activity

In order to win the war, you need small fights, that when put together, lead to the big win. In order to shape an object, you need some active deeds, that will somehow influence it and change it! For people, such activity, is physical movement. No matter if you are a professional athlete, marketing manager, genitor or something else, we all need the same thing-physical activity! In order to provide ourselves with a life span, that won’t be accompanied by a bunch of diseases and incapacity to move, we need to take care of our bodies, make them stronger and fit!

3. Environment

If you have junk food at home, you will eat junk food! If you have healthy food in your fridge, you will eat healthy! You couldn’t control the food in your office, at the street, in the restaurant, but you could control the food at your house!

If you don’t want to catch yourself eating those chocolate cookies at night, it is simple- just don’t buy them! They say that the easier way to resist temptation is to give in to it! How would you give in to it, if those cookies aren’t in your house at all? Probably you will think about them for 10-15 minutes and then you will forget, or in the worst case, you will eat something healthy! 

4. Tactic

There isn’t a basketball team, that doesn’t have tactic. If there is, then they never win, and are always condemned to failure! You need to judge situations, where you will go, what temptations will you encounter. If you expect to go to a party, where there will be only junk food, eat something before you go there! If you go hungry, you are risking to eat a bunch of junk food, which will undoubtedly damage your improvement!

5. Plan

How often do you make excuses, that you are staying off your diet, because you do not have time to eat or cook? Excuses are for people that need them, and people that can be satisfied with failure! If you know in advance, that this week you are gonna be busy, take one or two hours from your Sunday, in order to prepare your food for the week. Boil some eggs, bake some meat, and cut some veggies. Thus on Monday, when you are in a rush, you will just open the fridge and grab food. You will put in plastic containers, and take it with you!

6. Emotional factor

What do you do when you feel sad? When you are happy? When you had a fight with your spouse or your family? When your boss was harsh on you? Do you turn to food, in order to satisfy your emotional hunger? In order o mask the feelings? As athletes, need to control their emotions on the court, if they want to play at their best, thus you need to learn to cope with yours, if you want to get the dreamed and healthy body!

What do you feel, when you go out and your friend order fries and cheeseburgers and you get the salad and the fish? What happens when they order cake for dessert, and you say that you are already full? Do you feel deprived? Overwhelmed and sad? Well, you shouldn’t! You have to learn to control your emotions! There ain’t no place for them in the kitchen! In the kitchen you chose your food with your brain, not your emotions! Accept the fact that healthy eating isn’t something that deprives you, but rather a mean to help you have better, healthier and happier life! Understand that the way you eat, is a consequence of your desire to make something good about yourself!

What is your opinion? Which of the six factors, fails you? What methods do you use, in order to cope with the diet challenges?