What does a "lifestyle change" mean to you?
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Creating permanent new habits with regards to eating and exercising.3
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lthames0810 wrote: »"Lifestyle change" is one of my pet peeve phrases when used in reference to weight loss. Eating differently is just a change of habit.
I think lifestyle is much more comprehensive than that. Having a baby would do it. Getting married (or divorced) or moving away or winning the lottery or losing your job might do it, too. Big life alterations that happen to you.
Right ...
I made a "lifestyle change" when I quit my job, gave up my apartment, tossed and sold half my stuff, packed up the rest, moved 2 provinces over, put it all into storage, then cycled around Australia for the next 3 months, then returned to where my stuff was stored and started university ... and 4 years later got my second Bachelor's degree.
That was a collection of lifestyle changes which influenced and shaped what would happen next.
And what happened next was that I married a man who I had gotten to know in Australia (we'd met in France earlier), and I got rid of half my remaining stuff, and moved to Australia to live in a very rustic shack out in the middle of nowhere after the bushfires had destroyed quite a large part of Victoria.
That was a bit of a lifestyle change.
But dieting for a few months to bring my weight back to normal again ... that's just eating a bit less.
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Used to be an asthmatic, obese couch potato prone to anxiety attacks
I now haven't had an asthma or panic attack in over 2 years, I'm within my BMI range at a lean Body fat%, generally active and a gym and weights addict
Total change in lifestyle, and I enjoy it and it feels natural not forced8 -
lthames0810 wrote: »"Lifestyle change" is one of my pet peeve phrases when used in reference to weight loss. Eating differently is just a change of habit.
I think lifestyle is much more comprehensive than that. Having a baby would do it. Getting married (or divorced) or moving away or winning the lottery or losing your job might do it, too. Big life alterations that happen to you.
I don't care for the term myself, but I think for many, choosing activity and appropriate food choices can represent a major lifestyle change. If someone were to go from mostly sitting and eating to much more activity and a focus on healthy food consumption, that could be a comprehensive change.5 -
It means the changes I'm making are forever. Not a diet. Not temporary changes... FOREVER!1
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SugarySweetheart wrote: »It means the changes I'm making are forever. Not a diet. Not temporary changes... FOREVER!
awesome! do you feel you've been making those changes?0 -
It means, to me, a change I've made which I've consistently sustained for a minimum of 5 years. If it's been less than five years, I wouldn't bother labeling it.
That's interesting! Why 5 years? If I think about it I don't think I've been in the same place (location wise) ever 5 years so I'll have to think on that more.0 -
Shadowmf023 wrote: »Creating permanent new habits with regards to eating and exercising.
cool, what habits are you happy to have permanently?0 -
goldthistime wrote: »sunnybeaches105 wrote: »A BS platitude
It's not my favourite expression (I used to think, "Oh really? You're planning on eating at a deficit for the rest of your life? Good luck with that"), but once I started slowing the weight loss process way down (losing 1 or 2 lbs a month), it got a lot less silly.
So after nearly 10 years of keeping 100 pounds off I guess I can say I made a lifestyle change
I said that all along because I hate the word diet. I never dieted, I changed how I lived and how I looked at food. Once that weight loss slows down things get much more real. I always say losing weight was the easy part, keeping the weight off is where the real work begins 4 -
Well, I don't like calling it a lifestyle change. Change is too extreme of a word to be sustainable for me. I call it lifestyle modification. Now what does this mean to me? Making small modifications to my diet and activity that would allow me to stay within calories without having to make a paradigm shift in the way I'm eating. Basically the way I do it is that I imagine myself already maintaining a healthy weight, then ask myself how would I act?
Examples:
- I don't see myself as someone who would train for 2-3 hours a day so I don't. I keep my workouts manageable 20-60 minutes. I don't enjoy lifting weights, so I don't. I discovered that I enjoy running, and I can see myself doing that long term, so I run a few times a week when I'm able.
- I don't see myself removing any food from my diet, so I eat it all. I can see myself being able to moderate higher calorie foods and balance them out against the rest of my calories keeping to a weekly budget, so that's what I do.
- I found skipping meals, or even having low calorie overall days, to be an easy quick fix for a higher planned dinner, so I do that sometimes.
- I found that planned small weight gains followed by quick weight losses are fine, and I plan to keep doing that into maintenance whenever the situation calls for it, like during the holidays.
Basically, I try a bunch of stuff, and when I come across something that feels easy and natural to me I add it to my dieting arsenal.5 -
For me it means making changes to lose weight that I'll be able to keep making in the long run. Ideally, the only difference between losing and maintaining should be eating a little bit more food... Diet and exercise should overall stay the same.
In more concrete terms, for me it meant not killing myself at the gym for 2 hours every day (as I'd never be able to sustain that), not cutting any food out, but realizing that I'll never be able to just pig out on food whenever I feel like it... so I made the decision to learn to eat reasonable portions.
The thing I did differently between losing and maintaining is that I did more lifting when I was losing, but I realized that it wouldn't be sustainable for me because I hate it - I do more cardio now because I enjoy it more. I've been maintaining for 2 years (gained a couple pounds back but measurements haven't changed).1 -
In April of 2011, I decided it was time to start watching my portion sizes, eating more whole foods, and becoming more active throughout my day. I made those changes, and lost about 60 pounds over 13 months.
The new habits stuck, and 5+ years after initiating the changes, I'm still at my goal weight. I'm still eating more whole foods than I used to. And, I'm still more active throughout my day.
I changed my entire relationship with food and activity. Isn't that a lifestyle change?4 -
sunnybeaches105 wrote: »goldthistime wrote: »sunnybeaches105 wrote: »A BS platitude It's not my favourite expression (I used to think, "Oh really? You're planning on eating at a deficit for the rest of your life? Good luck with that"), but once I started slowing the weight loss process way down (losing 1 or 2 lbs a month), it got a lot less silly.
Talk to me in 5 years. If you're still on track then yes you changed your lifestyle. My point is that it's work. I'm sticking with BS platitude the vast majority of the time.
Hello
Well, technically 4 and a half. Do you need me to get back to you in a few months?3 -
To me it means changing my habits in regards to food. It can be as simple as eating only 3 slices of pizza instead of 5 slices (not overeating) or avoiding all red meat, but changes need to be made. I find it very difficult to break 40 years of habits.0
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lthames0810 wrote: »"Lifestyle change" is one of my pet peeve phrases when used in reference to weight loss. Eating differently is just a change of habit.
I think lifestyle is much more comprehensive than that. Having a baby would do it. Getting married (or divorced) or moving away or winning the lottery or losing your job might do it, too. Big life alterations that happen to you.
Well, it has to be a lifestyle change though... I mean for people who want to keep the weight down.
3.5 years ago I was playing video games all day, didn't cook, didn't exercise, ate junk food pretty much all day.
Now I quit video games, I go crazy if I don't stay active, I cook, I eat less than 200-300 calories worth of junk food a day... If I splurge one day, I typically make up for it the next couple days.. If that's not a lifestyle change, I'm not sure what it is.
It was gradual though! Didn't happen overnight for sure.3 -
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I have never said that. I don't mind correctly using the term diet (reducing caloric intake for the purpose of weight loss). My goal was to lose slowly making as few changes to my lifestyle as possible, because I really love my life.1
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amusedmonkey wrote: »sunnybeaches105 wrote: »goldthistime wrote: »sunnybeaches105 wrote: »A BS platitude It's not my favourite expression (I used to think, "Oh really? You're planning on eating at a deficit for the rest of your life? Good luck with that"), but once I started slowing the weight loss process way down (losing 1 or 2 lbs a month), it got a lot less silly.
Talk to me in 5 years. If you're still on track then yes you changed your lifestyle. My point is that it's work. I'm sticking with BS platitude the vast majority of the time.
Hello
Well, technically 4 and a half. Do you need me to get back to you in a few months?
Congrats, you've gotten past platitude along a handful of others on here. Of course, you said yourself that you don't like or use the term.
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lthames0810 wrote: »"Lifestyle change" is one of my pet peeve phrases when used in reference to weight loss. Eating differently is just a change of habit.
I think lifestyle is much more comprehensive than that. Having a baby would do it. Getting married (or divorced) or moving away or winning the lottery or losing your job might do it, too. Big life alterations that happen to you.
Well, it has to be a lifestyle change though... I mean for people who want to keep the weight down.
What about those of us who spent most of our lives eating reasonably well and exercising lots and remaining slender ... and just drifted from that for various reasons for a few years ... and are now back to that again?
See I'm looking at it as "getting back to normal" again ... not a lifestyle change. This ... what I'm doing now in the way of diet and exercise ... is back to the way things used to be. Back to normal.
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sunnybeaches105 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »sunnybeaches105 wrote: »goldthistime wrote: »sunnybeaches105 wrote: »A BS platitude It's not my favourite expression (I used to think, "Oh really? You're planning on eating at a deficit for the rest of your life? Good luck with that"), but once I started slowing the weight loss process way down (losing 1 or 2 lbs a month), it got a lot less silly.
Talk to me in 5 years. If you're still on track then yes you changed your lifestyle. My point is that it's work. I'm sticking with BS platitude the vast majority of the time.
Hello
Well, technically 4 and a half. Do you need me to get back to you in a few months?
Congrats, you've gotten past platitude along a handful of others on here. Of course, you said yourself that you don't like or use the term.
I don't see what the problem is with the term when looking backwards to be honest.
Sure the whole I'm going to do this half-arsed cos it's a lifestyle change not a diet doesn't really help.
But when looking back at your life over the last few years and realising that who you are now is different from who you were then, then surely that is exactly what it says on the tin - it's a lifestyle change2
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