Keto, paleo, vegan, intermittent fasting… which diet is best for weight loss?
If you’re stepping into the new year wondering, “What diet is right for me?”, I’m glad you’re here.
Because I’m about to make your life a whole lot easier. (You’re welcome!)
Researchers have asked the question: What is the best way to lose weight? And the results are in.
Whether you go on a low carb diet, restrict calories or practice fasting, all diets are about all equal when it comes to weight loss.
You can lose weight by eating pasta. You can lose weight by intermittent fasting. And you can lose weight by eating every 2 hours.
You can lose weight by running. Or by walking, swimming, dancing or lifting weights.
The truth is that all diets work. As long as you can stick to them.
But most diets are utterly unsustainable.
Which is why I believe:
The best diet to lose weight is…. no diet at all.
In fact, the best way to lose weight is to not even focus on weight loss.
Think about it for a sec.
If dieting and hating your body helped you lose weight and keep it off, wouldn’t you be at your goal weight by now?
What would happen if you stopped trying to control your weight and instead, focused on health?
What you’ll find is that your body will naturally find it’s own happy, healthy weight – it’s sweet spot… No struggling or obsessing or restricting needed.
Know this: your body wants you to be a healthy weight…
At your healthiest weight, you have more energy, your hormones are balanced, your mood is lifted – and your body wants that for you.
The problem with pursuing weight loss is that having a pre-conceived ‘goal weight’ can throw you off course and muck up motivation.
You see, weight loss isn’t linear. It’s curvy and complicated. Sometimes, your weight goes up even if you’re being ‘really good’. So if you are only eating and exercising to lose weight, you’ll lose motivation when you hit the inevitable weight plateau or regain weight along the journey.
OR you’ll reach your goal weight and then slip back into old habits only to regain the weight again.
What I’m saying is that making weight loss the goal makes you more susceptible to inevitable speed bumps and humps.
And as you live in the real world – and don’t have a personal assistant/nutritionist/chef/nanny – there are plenty of those.
There’s always going to be another birthday, party, easter weekend, long weekend, wedding, work party or Christmas event on the horizon.
This is why all-or-nothing doesn’t work.
The first thing to realise is that your body – not the Instagram model with the fake bum – is the real nutrition expert.
Your body will feel hungry when it needs more energy and tell you when it’s eaten enough. And it will crave exercise and salads if you stop making it feel like a punishment.
Diets make it hard to eat intuitively and listen to your bodies internal wisdom because they cloud your brain with rules and restrictions.
It’s time to stop listening to crappy health advice and wellness wankery, and time to start tuning into your wonderfully, intelligent and intuitive body.
So this year, I’m giving you permission to stop recording everything you eat in an app (as though it can measure your worth when it sure as hell can’t). It’s OK – and beneficial – to stop counting macros and cutting out whole food groups.
Instead, it’s time to adopt a new healthy habit… one at a time. Bit by bit.
The best way to lose weight:
Step 1. If you are in the depths of the binge-diet cycle then you NEED to fix your relationship with food FIRST.
You won’t be able to build healthy habits successfully if your guilt over eating a chocolate bar leads to self hate thoughts and then polishing off another 10 chocolate bars, 2 tubs of ice cream and an extra-large pizza (most likely in that order…!) Once you do the necessary work to get to the stage where you eat what you want when you want with NO GUILT and see food as food, not ‘good’ or ‘bad’, this is when you can start to make small shifts in your habits to become healthier.
If you are stuck on that sh*tty circle of restriction/diet – binge – self-hate – guilt – shame – repeat… then get in touch here, I can support you through this and show you exactly how to end this for good and get your life back!
Step 2. Choose a healthy habit. Start small and then build.
You see – once you’re in the habit of going for a short walk (when it feels effortless and fun), you can gradually talk longer walks, or go more often… Set health – not weight loss – goals and let your weight find it’s own sweet spot all by itself, no hustling needed.
Step 3. Make it enjoyable
There is nothing wrong with your willpower. But you’ll only ever stick to things that you enjoy. So find ways to make little healthy actions enjoyable so that they never feel like a chore.
Step 4. Keep it gentle
In my mind, goals can (and should) be gentle. They don’t need to be accomplished perfectly from day one. So if you haven’t made much traction with your new healthy habit for the month after you first tried, you haven’t failed. There are still 11 more months (plus the rest of your life) to keep practising and improving.
Step 5. Keep adding more habits as you go.
Ditch any that don’t support you anymore. And in a year from now, you’ll look around and realise you made major changes and they have all stuck around.
With time, your body will find it’s own healthiest weight – wherever that is.
It’s a long term process, but it’s really a lifestyle change.
I hope that this is the year you choose to be the healthiest and happiest version of yourself – not the skinniest.
So…
- Stop avoiding carbs, because they are your body’s preferred source of energy.
- Stop quitting sugar, because making foods ‘off-limits’ only makes you crave them more.
- Stop counting calories and recording everything you eat in an app, because it’s depressing, unsustainable and sure as hell won’t measure your worth.
Instead… Swap THIS for THAT:
???? “I want to lose X kgs by…” –> “I want to walk 1-2 more times a week”
???? “Don’t eat sugar” → “Crowd in more veggies. Aim to eat 1 more serve/day”
???? “Eat less junk food” → “Turn off the TV/put down my phone when I eat any food”
???? “Cut out carbs” → “Normalise forbidden foods so they become less tempting”
These resolutions are much more positive, achievable and enjoyable.
Now it’s your turn.
What healthy habits do you want to start this year? Grab a pen and jot down a few simple healthy habits you can start right now.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Go for a 10-minute walk when you get home from work to help you get headspace and set up the ritual of daily, enjoyable movement.
- Practice waiting to feel hungry to eat instead of eating because it’s a mealtime.
- Add in an extra serve of vegetables to your day until you’re eating 5+ a day.
- Start your day with a simple kickass breakfast to start on the right foot – aim for a yummy combo of whole grains, protein, healthy fats and veggies (e.g. wholegrain toast with scrambled eggs, avocado and a handful of spinach)
- Order your groceries online so you save time.
Want to eat healthily without dieting or obsessing over food this year? Get in touch for a free coaching call and we can discuss which would be the best plan of action for you!
