The Best Diet

    I am going to begin by ruining the suspense. The best diet is the diet you can stick to (easier said than done). A great thing about nutrition is that there are many approaches and sources of information available. Although this definitely qualifies as a downside as well. The internet is littered with an assortment of diets, methods, fads, and weight loss tips with varying credibility. How a certain diet or dieting method is chosen varies among individuals and ranges from celebrity endorsements to reading scientific literature on nutrition. The bottomline is that with the internet we have an abundance of information for almost anything and this includes nutrition. So how do we make the right decision when it comes to nutrition and our weight loss goals?

Make your diet a lifestyle

    It may seem obvious that a diet that can actually be followed through would yield the greatest results. Yet, many people are still suffering with what is termed as yo-yo dieting. Yo-yo dieting is where an individual diets down and then reverts back to pre-diet habits. This causes the person to gain weight and sometimes even more than when they started dieting. This phenomena is rather common in the general populace. The mindset of dieting should be revised in order to prevent yo-yo dieting. Nutrition should be viewed as a lifestyle change rather than a 6 or 8 week fix. Learning to eat in balance and make healthier choices is much more beneficial than constantly having to lose and gain weight in cycles throughout the year.

IIFYM (If it fits your macros)

    The term “if it fits your macros” is being thrown around a lot throughout the fitness community within the last few years especially. This method entails counting your calories and macronutrients (Carbohydrates, fats, proteins) in order to lose weight. Essentially by using a website, such as myfitnesspal.com, people are able to track their dietary intake almost instantly. This method works for many as the method preaches being flexible (often called “flexible dieting). A great advantage of flexible dieting is that you can fit in certain foods most diets restrict such as donuts, pizza, hamburgers, and other foods deemed to be “bad”. This method allows your diet to have more adaptability since there are no rigid rules outside of hitting the total calories and macronutrients. Realizing that you are not limited to eating kale and plain chicken breast for the rest of your life is an empowering realization to many people. This diet allows you to eat healthy and still fit in the occasional dessert. A large con of this diet is that the quality of food sources is not assessed or particularly encouraged. This is not to say that flexible dieters don’t eat healthy diets. Consuming fruits and vegetables can be beneficial for generally every individual.

The “I don’t want to count calories” Diet

    This method is one some people use to varying degrees of success. Personally, I found that weight loss can be achieved still very effectively without meticulous tracking. That being said, I would not recommend this method to everybody. A cornerstone to any diet is consistency and discipline and this method is no exception. Generally, when trying to lose weight you would make an effort to clean up your diet. This means consuming more fruits and vegetables, eating out less, preparing your own food,eating leaner meats, eating more complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, and cutting back on some of the treats. This method worked really well for me since I ate relatively the same meals and snacks every day. The meals consisted of a protein source like meat or eggs, a carbohydrate like rice or sweet potato, and a vegetable source. By eating relatively similarly day to day, and weighing in every 3 days, I was able to track whether i was eating too much or too little. If the scale goes up simply eat less. If the scale goes down too much you can afford to eat more. This method is much less precise than the one mentioned above and has greater variability. The effectiveness of this method stems from having high self-control and consistency.

    There are many ways to apply either of these diets in order to make them a lifestyle. Flexible-dieters can eventually evolve into the latter category by becoming more self-conscious of what they are eating. Realize that there are many factors that should be considered whenever starting a diet that were not mentioned in this article. Factors such as appropriate weekly fat loss, medical conditions or medications, activity or exercise, and many factors all play into whether or not a diet will be successful. A subsequent article will follow on how to specifically apply the flexible dieting method in terms of setting macronutrient ranges and total calories.