Chances are that if you’ve ever tried losing weight, you might have thought to yourself ‘which diet should I follow?” A major news outlet, the U.S. News & World Report, ranks the best diets every year in an attempt to help people choose which one to follow. But here’s the thing about a diet: you have to stick with it to find out if it works.  If you get bored by the lack of variety, or confused by what you’re “allowed” to eat, or you become frustrated because you “can’t”  have certain foods, chances are you’ll  ditch it. For these reasons and more, diets often don’t work and many people end up gaining back the weight they lost once they stop dieting.

The better approach to losing weight is to think about your current eating habits and then figure out which ones might be less healthy, and how you can realistically change them. For example, do you end up buying fast food several times a week because you’re too busy to pack a healthy lunch? This can be solved by deciding to make your lunch each night before you go to bed. Do you go for long periods of time during the day without eating and then overeat when you do sit down at mealtime? This can be solved by keeping some portable snacks such as fruit in your backpack or near the front door to grab on your way out so you can have a healthy snack until you’re able to have a meal. Some of these tips may sound silly, but you’re much more likely to stick with changes when you’re the one who comes up with the ideas, rather than some stranger telling you to “eat this, don’t eat that!”  Simply changing your habits and planning ahead could be the “perfect diet” for you.

If you think you might need some help in making healthy habit changes, ask your health care provider about meeting with a registered dietitian. He or she can talk with you about your current eating habits and help you find realistic ways to make some permanent improvements.  Eating healthy for the long haul will help you to lose weight and can also help improve your PCOS symptoms.

-Dietitian Katrina