Cherry was looking for an alternative to dieting. She described her experience over the past couple of decades:
I have yo-yoed with weight loss for 20-30 years now I can’t seem to lose weight and keep it off… I started WW with walking 6-10 miles every day and lost 32 lbs in 21 weeks. I have not lost any weight for nearly a month since I’ve added in Zumba classes and c25k and cut back walking 4-6 miles 4 days a week. I may have damaged my metabolism.
Like so many of us Cherry must be feeling frustrated. How sustainable is her approach and what will happen when she stops?
With so many people tired of yo-yoing I thought you’d appreciate some information about popular diets, and try to explain why what you’re experiencing isn’t your fault.
Whether you’re enjoying WW, SW or any other diet right now, it is likely that it’s doing a lot of beneficial things for you which is great!
What Popular Diets Do Well
So many of us have tried at least one diet – and even had success with several – but always ended up back where they started. But it’s not all bad news. The reality is that most popular ‘diets’ have several common factors:
- They create an awareness of what you are eating.
- Simply by paying attention to what and how you are eating can result in improvements in health, body composition and performance.
- They make you focus on food quality.
- It doesn’t matter what system you are following, you will be seeking certain foods and avoiding others.
- They control calorie balance by the awareness created.
- Choosing more nutritious, filling foods will result in improved body composition and health.
- ‘Diets’ generally take you away from processed junk food, and thus have help to eliminate nutritional deficiency.
- Often trends in diets also subscribe to some form of regular exercise.
Read more on how to lose weight without dieting and what makes good nutrition here.
What’s The Best Diet?
I’ve changed my tune since 2008 when I first started helping clients with nutrition coaching and fitness advice. I have learned to take a ‘nutritional agnostic’ approach, which means that I can help you get the most benefit from the ‘diet’ or ‘method’ you prefer.
We can take an outcome based approach to your nutrition and ask ‘how’s this working for me?’. Based on what’s happening – how it’s working – we can make informed decisions.
Sometime we want to be told a black and white answer such as ‘X diet is the best’, and so it can perhaps feel frustrating if you ask me ‘what’s the best diet’ or similar questions, and the answer you receive is ‘it depends’. So many diets have lots of great aspects to them, and there is no perfect diet.
The best one is the one that works for you, and that allows you to achieve the following fundamentals:
- You will not have to think about great nutrition – it will become natural, a way of life
- It will not come to an end – you can do it forever
- You can properly control energy balance.
- It provides nutrients your body needs
- Result in improved body composition, health and performance
How’s That Diet Working For You?
I haven’t worked with a single client or met a prospective client that has achieved any long term weight-loss by following a popular diet.
In the end it doesn’t matter what diet it is… points, macros, paleo, keto, zone… Whatever method people follow tends to end eventually because it’s too difficult or too uncomfortable, or takes too much effort to do forever.
As I mentioned already, good nutrition won’t come to an end and won’t be something you think about. It will be automatic.
People feel like a diet works because they lose weight for a period of time. Then old habits creep back in and the weight comes back on. When this we tend to say ‘oh, I need to get back into the diet’. Se we re-subscribe to whatever diet or method got us the initial results, and the cycle continues.
But in actual fact losing weight for a year isn’t long term, and this return customer is great for business! Clients feel it worked so they go back.
Skills Are What You Lack. And What You Need
Those that do maintain weight loss, learned how and what to eat. They learned skills!
I can help you quit the diet cycle. Together we’ll develop your nutrition and lifestyle skills by guiding you through a 12 months skills coaching curriculum which will help you achieve your goals in line with your vales.
You’ll stop worrying about diets, achieve your best health, performance and stay in shape even when life gets busy – with the skills in place to lose weight, improve your health, perform at your best and maintain it.
If you’re feeling frustrated by diets and nutrition, and looking back you’ve been ‘dieting’ for decades, you’re now ready and open to the idea of making small changes then you might like to request a discovery call with me.
During our call we’ll work together to:
- Create a clear vision for the ideal life you’ll be living when you are your ideal weight.
- Identify challenges and obstacles that may be getting in the way of your weight loss so that you can start to address them.
- You’ll leave the session with a renewed belief that you can achieve your vision and the energy and motivation to finally lose all of the weight you want – for good.
Not ready for personal support? No problem – here are some resources that will help:
Hope this helps,
Nico.