Whether you’re working on renaming the word because of past experiences, or you’re trying one for the first time, there’s a lot of baggage that can come with the word diet. And especially with the rise in diet drugs, that’s only going to make your relationship with food worse.
But it doesn’t have to be or stay that way. There’s a reason diet’s don’t work, but let’s break it down real quick.
Diet is really just what your food intake looks like. People have started naming different ways of eating, usually restricting something one way or another, and calling it a diet.
And if you’ve done any of them, all of them, or just seen all the different ways, I understand why there may be some apprehension around the word.
But my goal today is to explain why, no matter what diet you’re following or looking at, how the restrictive part of it is why it’s not working for you.
Diet is just the food you’re eating. And I want to help you see a different way of approaching it, so you can FINALLY see the results you work so hard for.
How I Went From Fearing to Not Questioning Food
I’m probably a lot like you if you’re reading this. I would scroll and search for hours to try and figure out why I wasn’t losing weight with my extreme diets. I was counting my calories, working out, doing my fasted cardio and anything else people would recommend. And still nothing.
How frustrating!
But it wasn’t until I stopped doing that and started listening to my body more that I started seeing the results.
I’m sure that’s also annoying though. Because what does that even mean?
Listen to your body when it’s telling you all it wants is junk food? All it wants is to sleep forever and do nothing when that’s not an option either.
If that’s you, then check out How to Stop Food Cravings in 3 Days (Without Restricting Food). I break this down fully and have a free workbook to use when you join my Diary.
But finish this post and then check it out!
1. Restrive Eating and Cutting Foods Out
When you want to lose weight, yes, calories in equals calories out. So reducing the amount of food you’re eating will help you.
But, cutting foods out entirely or going too far below recommended calories is where the negative effects can happen. And I used to do that. Thinking if I went under the calories I was given, then I’d lose the weight faster. But that didn’t happen.
Not sure if you know this, but if you go too far under your calories, your body goes into starvation mode. It holds on to anything it can in order to survive, because survival is the main goal of the body. Not weight loss.
And the same goes for cutting foods out entirely. There is something to be said about moderation, even with the “bad” foods.
Fats help the body’s hormones and basic functions, protein helps with muscle building and recovery, carbs help give you energy, vitamins and minerals help with everything else.
In the most simple form, you need a bit of everything to help your body survive. And also for your mentality.
The “bad” foods are good for your soul.
But if you’re still working through listening to your body and finding what foods work best for you, join the Diary and get access to my Burnout Recovery Experiment where you get sample pages of my tracking journals. I’ll break down how to take the experimental approach and ACTUALLY find and trust what foods work best for you.
2. Overtraining on a Low Calorie Diet
Training and working out is important to any healthy life. But just like a restrictive diet, overtraining can be a problem. With proper nutrition, sleep and overall balanced life, you can push a bit more in your training without a lot of struggle.
And if you’re wondering if your current routine is even right for you, then check out The Best Workout for You.
However, you clicked on this blog post and got to this point. So you’re not seeing results with your current program. You’re most likely under-eating with your training.
And because of that lack of nutrition, your body isn’t able to recover properly.
So the fasted cardio, two-a-days (if you got into that training style), or whatever training program you’re following is not allowing you to recover as much as you’d hope. So you may even be burning through the muscle you’re working so hard to create.
If you start increasing your calories, even a little, and pay attention to how you’re feeling with that increase, you’ll be able to tell if that’s a big indicator for your limited results.
Upping your protein to get 20-30 grams per meal will tell you if you need more for recovery.
And upping your carbs before or after training will tell you in you need more for energy.
3. Stress and Sleep
This is a BIG one that we all tend to just accept as a fact of life. We don’t get enough sleep in general and what is there NOT to be stressed about.
But this can and does have a big effect on how much or little results you achieve.
Studies will say 6-8 hours of sleep is needed, but new ones coming out specifically about women say that 10 hours each night may be more accurate.
If you’re able to jump to that, amazing! But even trying to get better quality sleep can make a huge difference. I can tell when I scroll before bed versus reading. Or even if I had a more productive day with less stress, I tend to sleep better and have deeper REM sleep, which I lack a lot and am working on too.
And same with stress. I sleep less the more stressed I am, and also am on high alert all day. Increasing my heart rate, creating more cortisol in my bloodstream (the stress hormone that limits weight loss), and just wearing on my body more and more each day.
So the more you can control and reduce your stress, the better it is for your long term and short term health.
That can be reducing your scroll time, learning to say no, being aware of how much caffeine you have in a day, to even more extreme measures like job change if needed or reducing certain kinds of people in your life.
All this depends on where you’re at personally, but also affects how your body responds to weight loss and the foods it’s eating. So I’d be open to trying more drastic measures if you’re sleeping 4-5 hour a night and stressing from the moment you wake up to the moment your head hits the pillow and even after that.
4. Short Term Goal
The other main thing is that you’re seeing your diet as a short term goal, not a long term change. And that’s where real progress happens.
You see, the short term goal can work, but if you’re wanting lasting change, then it’s pointless.
Short term is usually restrictive, not sustainable and wanting a quick fix. You may lose the weight, but once you go back to “normal” life, everything comes back. That’s where yo-yo dieting happens, where you’re constantly starting and stopping restrictive diets for a quick change when certain life events happen.
But when you approach it as a lifestyle change, then it becomes a way you live and are. It’s focused on sustainability and something you can keep, change with time and make your own.
It won’t be as fast, but it will last, unlike everything you’ve done so far.
So just like with everything, it’s a mindset change.
5. How to Change It
So you know how I said the main goal of the body is to keep it alive? Well, when you start feeding it enough food, and the food it wants, get more quality sleep, reduce your stress, change your training style if needed and work on doing the things you want to in life, your body is no longer in survival mode.
Our bodies are hard-wired for survival mode, and not in the modern time period. It’s used to feast and famine, do and don’t have, in current mortal danger or not.
It doesn’t see food as readily available, especially when on a restrictive diet. It thinks we’re going through a hard time and isn’t sure when we’ll be able to eat again. So it holds onto any excess weight it can in order to get to feast and abundance again.
This is what we need to work towards. Getting our body to trust us and feel safe to let go of the excess weight it’s carrying. Once it trusts that we don’t have to worry about a famine anymore, it will let go of the weight it doesn’t need.
This will take longer, especially if you have some other underlying healing to work through. Anything that causes the body to stress and fear, will limit the weight loss.
That’s why it’s important to take a holistic approach. And that just means checking in with every part of your life, and working to make it as balanced as you can.
And yes, life never goes as planned, but if you have a solid base, a simple schedule you can rely on, that does wonders! This can be really consistent sleep, setting boundaries, getting whole foods as much as you can, spending time with people you love and enjoy, moving your body in ways you look forward too, and trying to find the good in life, as much as you can.
Now, all of this is well and good, but how are you supposed to start taking these steps to change? I’d love to offer a simple starting point. It’s my Food Experiment journal.
I actually created this years ago, and will one day get it updated because I self-published it mostly from a word doc, and it deserves to be a little prettier!
BUT! It’s still the base that I used with all my clients. When you’re working on tracking food and being aware, I couldn’t find a journal that didn’t include calories. And I had specific things I wanted my clients to check and be aware of. So I made it!
However, if you’re tired of doing it yourself, questioning what you really need to focus on or if you’re on the right track, then book a 1:1 coaching call with me.
I’ll answer all your questions, see where you’re at and where you want to go, and together we’ll come up with simple steps to get you started on the right track.
Change and balance is possible. And a world where numbers don’t rule your life, is truly when the fun starts happening!
Your next reads:
How to Stop Food Cravings in 3 Days (Without Restricting Food)
The Best Workout for You
Leave a Reply