OPINION: Why USF students should leave behind extreme diets

New year, but not a new me.
Every year is the same. I want to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle but instead I find myself in the same scenario.
I place myself in a 1,200 calorie limit and find myself disappointed when I realize I’m only allotted 200 calories for dinner.
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I thought I was “healthy” because I was staying within my calorie limit but instead I was starving, tired and irritable.
“An extreme diet will likely involve some kind of restriction or deficit,” said Dominic D’Agostino, a research scientist in the Morsani College of Medicine. “When you restrict calories too much, you feel deprived. Your dopamine levels go down and it’s not sustainable.”
I didn’t need to be told this extreme diet was unsustainable, I was a victim of it.
No matter how much weight I lost, it never stayed off. I either gained it back or gained more after starving myself for so long.
D’Agostino said that even if you take on an extreme diet, your body has regulatory effects that will inevitably reverse any effects that an extreme diet brings on.
But the idea to restrict my calories to an unhealthy limit didn’t just appear out of thin air, it all started with the biggest contributor to my screen time – social media.
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I would constantly see fitness influencers flexing their sculpted bodies in the gym preaching their next-to-nothing calorie limit.
These diet fads come in all shapes and forms. If a calorie-deficit diet wasn’t the one I followed, I know I would’ve fallen for another one.
I had this idea that in order to lose weight, I had to cut out my favorite foods, like ice cream or chicken tenders.
In reality, it was as simple as limiting my unhealthy food consumption to once in a while rather than everyday.
“Eating is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle,” said Maureen Chiodini, an assistant professor of instruction in the exercise science program. “It’s never about deprivation. It’s always about moderation.”
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Calorie counting had always been my worst nightmare but instead it could be used as a helpful tool.
D’Agostino said tracking calories for a week or two could allow you to have a general guideline as to how many calories you consume which can then allow you to make the small changes you need.
“The way to success is to make small incremental changes instead of an extreme diet,” D’Agostino said.
These small changes could allow me to live the healthy lifestyle I’ve always desired and this time I could have the results stick.
Losing weight doesn’t have to be this restrictive journey that only ends in disappointment. Instead it should be a movement towards a healthier mindset and a promising future.