Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective, All opinion(s) written below are my own.
I want to give some background information before I decide to continue with this topic. I have done many diets that I have found reasonable or I think will benefit me, and I agree that some of them do work in the short run depending on the person. I am not targeting any particular diet, and this is just what I think/have experienced with dieting. I have always been a bigger body size, and I have always wanted to lose weight thus, I go on “diets.” I am now a believer that changes you make in your life should be affecting your lifestyle permanently. I do not believe in short term results or the quick fix because if I wanted to make myself feel and look better than I would want to obtain it as a long-term result which a diet does not provide for me.
Lower your calorie intact, eat fewer carbohydrates, have more protein, add more fiber, decrease the amount of sugar, become a vegetarian (I am a vegetarian but people do say this.), become a vegan (I do support the cause of veganism, but I am using this in the context of being a vegan just to lose weight), count your macros, and so many other types of diets out there. To be honest, when I read all these different types of "diets" and I see that they are telling me to avoid different types of food depending on the diet and it makes me very confused. Why? Let me break down my thinking process. I pursue one diet and take into consideration all the information they have given, and I decide it's not for me, so I try another diet. When I try the next diet, I take all the core details of the foods to avoid from the previous diet and I incorporate it with the current diet because I remember that those foods are not good for me. It doesn't necessarily need to be a particular food and can be to "avoid foods with high contents of sugar."So when I do this and let's assume that I have gone through several diets, and they are telling me to restrict or lower the quantity of different food types and it gets to a point where I am unsure what to eat, it boggles my mind. Like am I suppose to eat nothing? The problem I find with food is I find a product with a lower number of carbohydrates and fat but the sodium and sugar is high. I always have this issue, the product is lower in particular areas of the nutritional facts and higher in other areas to compensate it. There is no winning to this situation.
You can debate that I can go into a raw fruit and veggies type of diet or extreme veganism (not trying to offend anyone) I would call it where you avoid everything except natural foods. It sounds like a great idea until I go to the doctors, and they're like my sugar is high, so the doctor would like me to cut down on particular fruits and vegetables because they have a higher natural sugar content. So I get rid of root vegetables and fruit with high sugar content and now I am in a position where I am eating a different variety of fruits and vegetables that can be counted by two hands. See the issue with diets? IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT RESTRICTION. You can say that oh well if you do a 1400-calorie diet, you can eat whatever you want and it just needs to be within that calorie intake. How is that not restricting yourself? Manipulating words to make a diet sound like you can eat whatever you want and lose weight is not fixing the issue. Don't get me wrong, but big boy gotta eat.
Okay, let's say that this diet works out and I lose a lot of weight, and I am content with the results I am at. Then I think to myself, and I got the results I want, so now I can eat normally like I used too before I started the diet because there is no point in restricting myself anymore or motivation to restrict myself. Pretty much, this backfires and I end up at the same position I was at before the diet. Like seriously? Was there a point of me doing this? I know, you must be thinking I have low self-control and I did this to myself, and you're 100% correct. But this is the reality of dieting for my situation, it just backfires in every direction. Side note: dieting is a whole life process by itself because you need to think about everything that you consume in your body and make sure its compatible with the diet you have chosen to pursue. So along with backfiring on results in the long run, it's a complete waste of time for me.
My solution? What I have been doing since the beginning of this year is taking things out/changing things in my lifestyle that I know that I don't require and I make sure this is a lifestyle decision. If I make the decision to keep it out, I keep it out forever. They are not huge changes in my life that will clearly backfire but small changes I can survive with like taking out Ice caps from Tim Horton's from my lifestyle, changing white bread to whole-wheat bread permanently, adding fruits and vegetables to every meal, or drinking more water progressively (I am used to drinking two bottles of water which is equivalent to four cups, now I drink three bottles.) Along with these changes, I have added some sort of physical activity in my daily routine to help me out and I keep this going consistently. I have seen results and these changes are things I can do for the rest of my life without having an issue. I don't know if this will work for you, but it is working for me and it's not complicated to do.
It might seem like I am bashing diets, but this was purely my experience and if dieting works for you then you should totally pursue it, and I am with you 100% as long as I don't think it's dangerous to your health. I wish all of my viewers a healthy and prosperous life.