How much time do you spend worrying about your weight?
It's always the same, Monday morning comes as goes as does another diet. New research has indicated that the average Brit will in fact spend 14 years of their life on a diet.
It appears we’re still a nation of yo-yo dieters, with the research, conducted by Philips, predicting over one in 10 women will spend a massive 18 years of their life slimming down. That’s four to five months each year.
The time when most people choose to shape up is after the Easter break, when the summer months start to loom, with 66 per cent of the population confirming that once the Easter eggs have been eaten they start to concentrate on losing the pounds.
The threat of skimpy summer clothes and bikinis are one of the more obvious incentives for women to adopt a healthy eating lifestyle. Yet magazines with slim celebrities also have an impact with one in four saying they’re affected enough to do something about their own weight when reading their favourite titles.
Diet & Nutrition expert Rachael Anne Hill comments: “It’s clear that the arrival of spring also brings pressure for people to shape up for summer. People would be much better adopting a healthy lifestyle all year round, without concentrating their efforts on a few select months.”
Men are also adopting this slim down for summer attitude with one in three spending 2-3 months a year eating healthy foods and working to get that summer body.
Men are also much more likely to stick to their diet plan with only one in four giving up earlier than planned. Women aren’t quiet as successful with one in three falling off the diet plan wagon. The main reasons given for this are boredom (32 per cent), and a lack of discipline (21 per cent).
Diets such as Beyonce’s maple syrup diet, Scarlett Johansson’s low-calorie diet and even Kirsten Dunst’s alkaline diet, all contribute to the craze that makes up the summer diet frenzy.
Hill continues: “The problem with fad diets is that they are not sustainable, which can lead to people failing and having continued problems with their weight. Taking a long-term view and having a healthy eating plan that can easily be incorporated into you own lifestyle will be much more successful in the long run.”
The top three challenges those surveyed said they face when trying to eat healthily are:
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