Diets Work – So Don’t Go On One

Any personal trainer can tell you, clients with a weight loss goal definitely outrank all other goals and reasons combined. If I have a client who wants to lose weight and it’s a reasonable goal, then of course I’m going to structure their program to achieve that outcome. However, I prefer to think of weight loss through exercise as a happy side effect, rather than a primary motivation. As a trainer, I feel like my job is to make my clients’ lives easier by making them stronger, leaner, less injury prone, more confident and able to handle daily tasks and movement without even noticing their body is operating in its prime state.

So, you want to lose weight and you’re pretty confident your workout plan is optimized to help you reach your goal? That’s a great first step. What you have to remember (and what my husband Fran has learned in his recent quest to shed pounds) is that what and how you eat has a huge impact on your success. What you eat, your portion sizes, your understanding of what works for your body (and what doesn’t) – it’s vital to get a handle on your eating if you want your training effect from working out to have a real impact on the way you look and feel.

Everyone has been super-supportive of Fran’s weight loss goal, especially since he’s been brave enough to be sharing the process with basically everyone he knows and an awful lot of strangers, too. The number one question he’s been asked has been, “What diet are you following?” It’s a fair enough question – he’s been in a fairly consistent workout routine for a while now, so it wasn’t lack of exercise and movement holding him back from losing weight. And it’s true: Diets work. You will lose weight if you follow a diet.

But of course, there’s a caveat. Diets work, and you will lose weight, guaranteed….so long as you continue with the diet. If you go back to a less-than-healthy eating plan after your fabulous diet’s weight loss result, or even just let a few key habits formed by the diet slip, then you’ll most likely just put it all back on again. A lot of the time, you might even add a few extra pounds for luck.

So, what are you supposed to do? First, my advice is to forget the idea of a diet with prescribed meal plans, or daily calorie counting, or cutting out food groups. Instead, if you want healthy, lasting weight loss which you can maintain, think about overhauling your lifestyle instead. Before you even think about how to tackle your eating habits, it’s worth it to take some time to see what your current habits are like. You’d be surprised at how much you aren’t aware about how/when/why you eat.

The first thing I’ll have a client do when they want to change their eating habits is to keep a food journal, for at least ten days (I like to make sure we can see the difference between weekdays and weekend eating habits). Include amounts/servings, time of day, any liquid calories, and hunger level. For a complete lifestyle overhaul, it would be a great idea to also jot down exercise, emotional state and sleep habits in the same journal. It’s vital to not whitewash your journal – if you’re writing it for your eyes only this is going to be a lot easier to control than when someone else will be reading (and in your mind, judging) your habits. Be honest. Don’t judge yourself. You’ll have good days, bad days, great choices and terrible ones. It’s okay.

Once you can see in black and white your current eating habits, you can gain a really clear picture of what can be changed, without it negatively impacting your life. For example, if you really feel like a life without chocolate is a life not-lived, and you cut out chocolate completely from your lifestyle, what do you think is going to happen? You’re going to fall off the wagon at some point – HARD – and go into a chocolate binge overload, and possibly give up on any and all healthy changes you’d managed to make.

The key to ending up with a healthy lifestyle that suits you, where you barely have to think about your daily food intake and exercise because it’s so ingrained, is two-fold:

1. Introduce small changes incrementally.

Every week, try changing one habit. The first week, maybe you can cut back on excess liquid calories. Once you have that under control, try adding an extra serve of vegetables to one of your meals every day. When that becomes a habit, think about changing your eating-out habits (eg: cocktail OR dessert, not both; skipping the bread basket; having 2 appetizers instead of an appetizer and a main). The idea here is to make a small change, live with it for a while, ensure it’s become a habit, then move onto the next change.

You’re not going to lose massive amounts of weight every week doing this. But the changes you’re making in small steps will lead to a slow, sustained weight loss over time that you are able to keep off and maintain.

2. Make sure your lifestyle choices are uniquely suited to you and the way you live.

This is a major reason why it’s hard, if not impossible, to remain on a specific diet for the rest of your life.  Those diet books and plans you hear about, or try to follow are generalized plans, not specifically catering for your exact situation. Just a few things to take into account before you make changes to the way you eat could include:

• Do you cook? Can you cook? Do you even want to cook?
• Do you have to dine out a lot for your job? Do you have control over choosing the places you eat out at for work?
• Why have you fallen off the wagon with previous diets? What was it that you missed too much, or weren’t able to incorporate into your life?
• Are there certain times of day when you are consistently hungry (not just bored)?
• Is there anything cropping up in your food journal that you just eat because it’s there, or you don’t think you’d miss if you didn’t have it again?
• Do you get grumpy when you’re hungry, or crave high-calorie, low-nutrient foods when you feel like you’re starving?

See what works for you. For Fran, his biggest breakthrough has been planning his meals and snacks for the day, whether it’s just having something prepared, or knowing what he wants to order at a work function. A personal trainer I worked with once finally realized that she got hungry every two hours, like clockwork. She ignored it for a while, thinking she should wait and eat at prescribed times of the day, then end up over-eating, or making poor choices. Finally, she shifted her eating schedule and got a little cooler bag she throws in her purse or backpack with much smaller meals she’d eat every couple of hours, whenever she feels hungry. She lost weight without even really trying within a couple of weeks of this shift. One of my clients cannot stomach the thought of breakfast, and has never eaten breakfast as long as she can remember. She doesn’t eat until about 1pm, has a healthy lunch, and then overeats in the evening. I had her try out drinking a low-fat smoothie in the morning along with her daily coffee, since for her the idea of solid food before the afternoon was never going to work. She noticed that on days she manages to get her smoothie in, her other meals during the day are normal portions, and she feels less likely to over-eat at night. Everyone is different!

When you take the time to make small changes and stick with them one by one, the results may not be overwhelmingly fast, or your weight loss may stall for a little while was you work out the kinks. The best diet tip, in my mind, is not to just give up! If you feel like you’re not losing weight fast enough, it’s usually a sign that you’ll ultimately have success, as your body adapts to your new habits.

Have you successfully lost weight and kept it off? What worked for you?

What are your thoughts of the traditional “going on a diet” approach?