When The Best Diet is the Worst Diet
If breakfast is your favorite meal of the day — should you intermittent fast?
If you love bread — should you go keto?
If you enjoy variety and trying new things — should you meal prep?
Often, I see people get so hung up on what the supposed ‘best diet’ is. Immediately they start trying it without considering how it will affect their lifestyle, or if they will enjoy it at all. The research is pretty clear on what the biggest predictor of the success of a diet is; sustainability and adherence. Its not how many carbs you cut, its not how many meals you eat each day, its not cutting out meat/dairy, just weather or not you stick with it long term.
Of course some people get lucky when they make a transition to a new diet. This is not the diet alone. Rather, it is how their lifestyle, genetics, physiology and psychology work in conjunction with the diet. The first, second and third question you should ask yourself when considering a new diet is ‘can I enjoy this long term’. I didn’t ask this question to myself when I was starting to get interested in health and nutrition. I meal prepped my chicken and rice, drank protein shakes and had oatmeal. Of course I wasn’t enjoying what I was eating — but I thought it was necessary to get leaner and build muscle, which is bull shit. Once I learned a bit more and discovered you could eat a wide variety of whole foods with the occasional night out or ‘naughty’ meal and still maintain a lean, strong, healthy body, it no longer felt like a chore to be in good health, and I started enjoying life so much more.
For me, the best discovery was energy tracking or flexible dieting, because it allowed me so much more freedom to enjoy different foods and still stay lean. I can track my calorie intake and eat whatever I want as long as a basic protein goal is hit. But that’s just my experience, and as a side note I would caution listening to anyone who bases their advice solely off their own experience. I have seen intermittent fasting work great for some, terrible for others, the same with keto, paleo, vegan, carnivore and just about every other style of eating.
The takeaway from this post should be to research and consider a diet before starting it. You should research the actual success rate and if the people who do succeed have similar characteristics to you. Then consider the lifestyle change the diet will impose — and if you can honestly sustain it and enjoy it long term. Weigh up the pros & cons, plan well, and choose what you need, not what you want.
As always you can contact me at https://www.formativenutrition.net/ for any nutrition advice.