While being healthy does not in any way correlate with being thin, remember that we identified in my last post, Picking the Diet Plan That’s Right For Your Part 1 - Loving Your Body At Any Size, that being healthy does, however, correlate with (and result in) loss of visceral fats.
As you consider your options to begin creating a healthier routine, I wanted to help you pick a plan that will actually work for your lifestyle, goals, and personality.
First, don’t forget that we are trying to solve the problem, not simply addressing the symptom of weight gain.
Let’s start by figuring out why other programs haven’t worked in the past and explore what type of dieter you are:
The short cut dieter: You want to lose weight and be healthier but don’t have the time or interest in shopping, meal prepping and finding healthier options for your meals. You are looking for something easy to follow that will give you better health, more energy and weight loss if done correctly.
The rule follower: You LOVE following rules and having a plan laid out for you. If something is labeled off limits, you find it pretty easy to stay away. You like firm boundaries and a solid set of rules to help you feel confident in the approach you are taking to lose weight and be healthier. Given the right set of rules and program to follow, you can stick to your diet pretty well.
The habitual dieter: You have tried every diet and stop and start your weight loss plans often. You like what you like and you have trouble sticking to big changes in your diet. You often question the process and need to feel confident that the choices your are making will actually get you to your goals or you can easily talk yourself back into your old unhealthy habits. You have habits, rituals and emotions closely tied to unhealthy foods and nutrition choices and need a gentler approach and guide to make the changes necessary to live healthier and stick with them. You may also be easily derailed and need extra support from your friends and family to help keep you accountable and motivated.
The hybrid dieter: A lot of us (me included) are a little bit of each at different times of life or even of the week! Coming up with a plan that works for any of your phases is ideal. Make sure you have support and an overall game plan and set of goals that can help you adapt and roll with what life throws your way!
Any of those sound familiar to you? Awesome - now read on for my thoughts on these various dieters and diet plans!*
*This is just my generalization and you, you unique snowflake, may not fit into any of these. In that case, shoot me an email and let’s chat!
Short-cut dieters:
There is no quick fix or easy solution to weight loss and cleaning up your nutrition, but there are a few options that are a bit simpler if you are willing to invest a bit. With each of these, it’s easy to get off track and throw in the towel. So make sure you are ready to commit and forge on if you happen to float off track for a hot minute! Here are some options that may work for you:
Shake and meal replacement diets
Pros: Very effective; Allows you to not have to think too much about what you need to put in your body to lose weight; Incorporate exercise when you can for health, but caloric burn is not necessary to lose weight on these programs; No calorie counting; Focus is on visceral fat loss so you know you are losing unhealthy fats over muscle.
Cons: It’s important to find a program with clean ingredients that come from real and preferably organic foods; They are quite strict - stick to the plan and you will do well - don’t try to make up your own way of using the products for weight loss; Can be a bit of a financial investment upfront; Can be tied to an MLM company so you have to deal with a lot of sales reps and can only order online; Can get monotonous but for people like you, that isn’t a problem ;)
Intermittent fasting diets
Pros: These are also easy to follow and quite effective - depending on the diet, take a half day, full day or two a week and fast to reset your digestive enzymes and give your system a break. This can cause you to change your relationship to food in general as you start to figure out what is hunger and what are cravings; Your appetite may also change as you get used to taking in less food; Allows you to have a plan in place without feeling like you’ve derailed if you have a treat - the focus is a lot on timing.
Cons: If not done correctly, you may end up binging and eating more when you are not fasting; You also need to focus on eating cleaner foods, reducing sugar intake and sticking to a schedule to make sure it’s effective; Given no focus on macronutrients, you may not only be losing fat with your weight loss; Working out MAY be harder when fasting causing you to stop building lean muscle as effectively; If this doesn’t feel good to you, your body may start releasing cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline as it fights to find a balance which will definitely get in the way of your success.
21 Day Fix
Pros: You get containers that tell you what type of food to put in it and when to eat it. It quite simply lays out your meal quality and timing for the day; Decent information about clean nutrition, meal timing and really helps teach you about portion control.
Cons: Again, there is an initial investment upfront; You still have to shop for, make and decide on the foods to put in the containers.
Beach Body
Pros: You have a shake plan (if you choose to use that) and a pretty hard core workout routine to follow. It’s effective, relatively safe if you don’t have any pre-existing injuries, and if you do it, you will get results.
Cons: It can feel discouraging if you can’t keep up or if you get off track for a day or week. You build momentum fast but once you stop, it’s hard to get back where you were. These fitness challenges and eating plans aren’t eased into so you are creating an entirely new routine and lifestyle. So once you finish, or you get off track, it’s hard to find your new normal or how to maintain.
Rule Follower dieters:
If you can follow the rules, you can be successful! Again, be careful of the all-in approach with these. Make sure you have a healthy mindset and feel ready to tackle your goals or this can end up feeling punitive and restrictive which leads to making it really easy to jump ship.
Whole 30
Pros: Teaches you about clean eating and helps removes toxins that can build up in your system; effective for weight loss if you can stick to it!
Cons: Quite restrictive; Not sustainable for many; timing of meals and snacks is not a focus; Can often be uncomfortable; Sometimes hard to go out to dinner or to a party; Lost weight often returns (and then some) when finished and you go back to your old habits.
Weight Watchers
Pros: Easy to follow point system that is widely used and known; Well laid out - just do it and you will see results.
Cons: No focus on ingredients or food quality; Possibly too restrictive on carbs causing you to stay away from whole grains and complex carbs that are SO good for you! No Focus on meal and snack timing so it can be hard to stick to or uncomfortable because you will continue having cravings and possibly not address unhealthy habits.
Count Calories
Pros: Lots of apps make it easy to track your food intake with a large database of popular food items; very effective if you do it right; You have complete control over what you eat.
Cons: Room for user error in terms of under estimating portion sizes or overestimating caloric burn from exercise; No focus on ingredients or food quality; No Focus on meal and snack timing so it can be hard to stick to or uncomfortable because you will continue having cravings and possibly not address unhealthy habits; For the uninformed, you may not have the best approach to finding the right foods and timing to keep you satisfied and feeling great.
Keto, carb free, sugar free, no alcohol, etc, etc.
Pros: All the hot diets or knocking out a food group will be a good option for you and can be quite effective to drop weight; There are usually a lot of options in the grocery store and at restaurants for these diets as they are popular.
Cons: These often lack sustainability for most people (and for optimal health many shouldn’t be done for long periods of time); these diets don’t make room for your favorite treats which make it easy to get off track, frustrated and give up; You still may not be addressing habits that can come right back as soon as you stop the diet.
All of these plans can be very effective but they are also very much an “all-or-nothing” approach. So you haven’t solved the issue of changing your lifestyle or mindset.
When you choose to diet, you are reaching for a goal and often given an effective way to get there, but with almost every diet plan, you are at risk of not having an exit strategy or having dealt with the why’s of how you gained the weight in the first place.
So when you are selecting a diet plan, make sure you already have an understanding of what your lifestyle needs, how you may be gaining weight without realizing, and what the habits and mindset barriers that are getting in the way of your weight management so that when you get the weight off, you know how to keep it off!
This is why, for the habitual dieters, we want to take a different approach so we can stop dieting, get unwanted weight off and move on with the fun stuff of life!
Habitual dieters:
You will probably try or have tried many of the above options but they won’t or don’t seem to stick.
You will do best with a customized program and a coach/network of support to help guide you.
Pros: These plans can be adapted to your needs and concerns and can include your favorite treats while addressing unhealthy habits and patterns; You will troubleshoot and finally address old and unhealthy patterns that have been standing in the way of your goals; You will have the confidence of a professional watching your diet and choices and letting you know if what you are doing is working or making changes if it’s not; You will create healthy habits and routines that will fit with YOUR lifestyle and needs; You will have support and motivation as life happens, things change and routines get adjusted so you can make sure to stay on track and not get derailed; You will succeed and you can finally stop dieting and start living the life you want.
Cons: Finding a professional that you trust and can be open with is key! These programs can be pricey but they will work and will save you money (and health!) in the long run!
Hybrid dieters:
You will have various needs at various times
You will do great with a lot of the above programs but will need accountability partners, the support of your friends and family, and a trusted professional to be able to reach out to for questions and changes as they come up. We can make a lot of programs work for you - it’s all about making the right choices, having a coach to help, or having the confidence and will power to stick to your plans, adjust and keep going!
Alright! That’s what I think! How about you?
And how do I know all this, you might be asking? Well, it’s part experience working with a huge variety of people and personalities and finding successful approaches for each of them, it’s also part research and reading late into the night about this stuff (Im a huge nerd about healthy living!) and it’s part based on my own experience as I struggled through years of disordered eating and body image issues.
Hit me up with any questions and I’m happy to nerd out with you about any of this!
Stay awesome,
Shannon
Ps. For a thorough review on various diet plans out there, check out this article by Consumer Advocates for a ton of great information.