Avoid falling into unhealthy habits during food-heavy months

Tamara Kelly
Staff Writer 

With the holidays around the corner, staying fit and losing the extra weight that tends to accumulate can be a struggle. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to slim down and take off those unwanted pounds. Here are five unhealthy and unproductive ways to attempt changing your body.

Skip meals  — Instead of eating a well-balanced diet and scheduling time for food, skipping out on a meal may seem like an alternative. However, several studies have proven that it doesn’t work. The human body needs a set amount of calories per day. When we skip meals, our body can go into starvation mode, resulting in the desire to overeat because of those missed calories.

Extreme Low-calorie diets and fad dieting — Suppressing an alarming amount of calories is similar to skipping meals, all of which may hinder a dieter’s headway. While many have huge successes with fad dieting, this is not always the healthy way to get to the desired weight.  These types of diets tend to focus on all- protein or carbs only, failing to produce a well-balanced set of nutrients. Ignoring that, several of the food groups are often overlooked. Making sure that all five food groups—vegetables, fruit, protein, grain and dairy—are represented will give the body the needed nutrients.

Drugs, laxatives, and diet pills — It may appear to be the ‘easy way’ to lose weight without any effort or stress, but can have damaging effects on the body. Drugs or uppers like speed appear to be a quick fix, yet ravage the heart and brain, doing more harm than good and leave a body with permanent damage. Laxatives cause dehydration and deprive the body of nutrients. And who wants to be spending a majority of their time in the bathroom? Diet pills are similar to the use of uppers. While they’re legal and milder than speed, they raise the heart rate, speed up the nervous system, and cause dangerously high levels of blood pressure.

Bulimia—Vomiting up a meal is another harmful approach to weight loss. Forcing the body to throw up causes dehydration, swelling in salivary glands, damage to the esophagus, and eventually results in tooth decay. Like dangerous pills, it is also a habit-forming practice that can be difficult to break without help.

Excessive workouts – Exercise is good, but in this case, “more is better” is not sound advice. The body needs to rest in between workouts. Even professional athletes know this. Forcing the body to work past its breaking point can cause not only a physical strain but a mental one as well.

Take into account all that the body does and the simple steps that can be managed to keep it working well by eating healthy and losing weight. The best advice is always to eat more fruits and vegetables, and take the weight loss process slowly and steadily.