Among the many things a new dieter asks is “How long should I diet?” The common answer is to stick to the diet until the ideal rate is reached. But this is simply untrue.

Individuals who lose a few pounds through dieting seems to gain the same weight (and more) after going back to their old eating habits, no matter how long they sustained their diet. Dieters would naturally want to know how long a diet takes for its benefits to stick for good.

There’s good news and bad news for the new dieters out there. The bad news is that there is no such thing as diet duration. Dieting is a lifestyle change by itself, which means you should stick to this diet for life. If you want to stick to your ideal weight, then you’d better stick to your diet.

But there’s good news, too. Staying with a diet can be easy. The main reason why so many dieters fail at their diets after only a while is because they go through all the drastic lifestyle changes all at once. Believe me, no one’s that strong. Instead, try to break into your diet slowly and steadily. Here are some tips to help you stick to your diet much more easily.

Take small, but keep growing.

Start your diet by doing small easy feats. A good way to start off your diet would be to cut off all forms of soda and replace this with water, natural fruit juice, or low-fat milk in the first couple of weeks. A typical can of soda contains around ten teaspoons of sugar (definitely quite a lot, don’t you think?). Sticking to your diet will be more doable if you’re in charge instead of following every ‘diet guideline’. Once you achieve one sacrificial task, impose another manageable limit. Then another, and another. Changes in your lifestyle should never come in bulk. It’s easier to manage them when you achieve one task at a time.

The key is exercising.

Dieting on its own can help shed all those extra pounds eventually. But with exercise, weight loss will be exponentially faster. Exercising for at least an hour every day for five days a week can prevent you from gaining all those pounds back in case you’d revert to your old nasty eating habits. Go to your preferred gym and try incorporating cardiovascular exercises, strength training and flexibility routines throughout your workout. Also, incorporating fun exercises like dancing, kickboxing and Yoga can also encourage you to stick to your diet.

Let yourself go a little

Always keep in mind that no matter ‘sinful’ a kind of food may be, it can always fit into your diet as long as it’s taken occasionally. Just eat more healthy food than ‘junk’ foods to balance your intake.

There will always come a time when even a flawless diet is bound to be disturbed. Missing a workout on a busy schedule from the office or drinking a toast for a friend’s wedding is just some of the many instances which are quite impossible to avoid. But don’t get so worked up over these stumbling blocks. Try getting back on the right track as quickly as possible. If everything goes well, your weight will still continue to drop.