In a world filled with various different types of diets, how are we supposed to know which diet is best suited for us for fat loss?
We see so many diets that are polar opposites too like: some people consume no meat (vegan) while others consume only meat (carnivore), some people consume higher carbs (paleo) while others consume no carbs (keto), and they all protest that their diet is the best, or the healthiest or more superior.
The thing about all these diets is that they all work for losing weight, but how?
If you look at each diet you'll notice a pattern, they all eliminate food groups. Whether it's the elimination of either: meat, carbs, dairy, processed or refined foods they all have some food group taken from their diet.
What does this mean for fat loss? Well, they all reduce a significant amount of calories. Eliminating food groups from your diet is going to severly lower your calorie intake which can then lead to weight loss because you're not consuming as much as you used to. You're now expending more calories in a day than you are consuming which is the only way to fat loss.
But why don't these diets last? I mean, they seem to work for fat loss, due to the elimination of a certain food group, so why can't people stick to them long-term?
Plain and simple, they have eliminated the food they normally tend to enjoy and they find it difficult to maintain and adhere to their diet because they want to eat the food they eliminated. You see, people enjoy eating meat, carbs and dairy. The problem is misinformation. We have been misinformed from certain accounts or articles from social media that certain foods are bad for us. Now we think we have to eliminate these foods in order to lose weight and be healthy. That's not the truth (unless you have allergies or an intolerance to a food group)!
People don't want to diet because they believe they have to give up the foods they normally enjoy; they think they have to give up social events, date nights and other aspects of their life in order to lose fat so they don't even bother with dieting. And for the good majority of those people who do try these diets, once they eat off their plan they feel guilty, they feel like they have failed and they now don't bother try to lose weight. This can then lead them to going back to their regular way of eating and put whatever weight they lost back on again...... it's insane and one of the most common issues I see with my clients, friends and family.
If you lose weight and then put the weight back on again and repeat this cycle over and over, you're unfortunately creating more fat cells which can then make it harder for you to lose weight in the future. This is called YO-YO dieting and it's one of the reasons why there are so many overweight people today.
So how do we stop this?
We need to be more open minded and less gullable to articles and social media quacks. If you ever see a post that says XX food is toxic or bad for you, delete and keep scrolling. People have to be more open minded to the fact that calories are the common denominator here. You only lose fat when you consume less calories in a day than you burn.
If you are more open minded to the fact that calories are what matter most, you won't have to eliminate any food groups.
If you don't like, or if you are allergic to certain foods then, yes, eliminate them, but that's the only reason why they shouldn't be in your diet.
I understand that people enjoy a life of being either vegan, vegetarian, keto, paleo or whatever else they choose to be, that's fine, if it works for them long-term, awesome, congratulations to them. But just because it works for them, doesn't mean it will work for you.
Another thing, when people actually do see results on keto, paleo or whatever, they seem to become extremely biased to that diet. They'll then believe all the misinformation that's being said and will argue anyone who doubts otherwise. This causes mass arguments on social media and people being cyber bullied. It's frightening!
Anyway,
If you're the type of person who enjoys all different types of foods you should follow the 80/20 rule.
80% of your diet should be: meat, fish, eggs, dairy, wholegrains, beans, peas, legumes, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables.
20% of your diet should be either: pizza, burritos, fast food, candy, cakes, alcohol, pastries, refined or processed foods (if you enjoy that stuff of course).
20% is basically one or 2 meals a week that are not exactly nutritious, but don't break the calorie bank!
Once you have found the diet that works for you, you can now maintain that diet for a long period of time without eliminating any foods at all. The more you can adhere to your diet, the better you are going to do and the chances of you giving up or failing significantly decreases.
The beauty of this is that when you know what you're going to eat each week you can either increase the calories in that diet to gain some weight if needs be or decrease the calories to lose fat if you have to.
Again, the more open-minded you are to calories, the easier this whole process is going to be.
So, to answer the very first question,
"How are we supposed to know which diet is best suited for us for fat loss?"
The best diet suited for us for fat loss is one that we can maintain, sustain and adhere to for a very long time without the elimination of our favourite foods.
Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read my blog!
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