If diets worked then you wouldn't have to start a new one every few months!

[marchplane]

I've just returned to the workplace and my colleagues (predominantly women between 30 and retirement age) have spent most of the week discussing weight watchers, slimming world, 5:2, basically every diet under the sun. It is doing my head in.

It's nothing new though and I'd forgotten all about it in the lockdown world as this inane chatter didn't translate over into zoom. It doesn't help that most people (myself included) have gained a few lockdown pounds.

I don't believe that dieting is healthy. Yes they work for the odd person (no doubt those people will be here to tell me!) but very few of them keep it off and most yo yo about all their adult life. Like my colleagues. These diets do nothing to address any psychological reasons they overeat and just encourage a devil and a saint attitude to food. One lady, doing 5:2 had eaten her 500 cals by 10am so is now having fish and chips for lunch because, well sod it.

I'm not perfect but I like to think that I have a balanced attitude to food and I like to exercise, I've worked really hard at it as I had an eating disorder when I was younger. Part of my recovery was to not engage in diet talk so I don't engage in these conversations unless I really have to. I really like my colleagues, they are lovely people generally but there are only so many times that I can be told that I should make roast chickpeas with spray oil, lemon and chilli for a healthy snack every 5 mins!

Well, if you change your diet to lose weight but then go back to how you are eating before when you put the weight on it stands to reason that you would regain the weight you had lost.

For a sustainable weight loss you usually need to change your whole lifestyle and attitude to food and exercise for the foreseeable.

1200 calories is what I have to stick to in order to lose weight. I know because I’ve been there and I’ve experienced it. I don’t understand how I can just have a “sustainable lifestyle change” that isn’t just reducing calories and upping exercise - which is exactly what I would do if I were to go on a diet. I could “allow” myself more calories, to make it more sustainable but I wouldn’t lose weight. If I didn’t deprive myself then it wouldn’t be any different to my lifestyle now and therefore I will stay the same weight!

FWIW I’m not that fussed right now because I enjoy my current lifestyle (I went from having crippling anxiety and depression to be able to go out for dinner and drinks, I learned to bake etc) but if I were to try and lose weight, a “diet” and a “lifestyle change” that would have results would look exactly the same as each other 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Littlepond have you tried strength training?

It won't achieve miracles by itself, but it definitely helps with improving body composition and bone density.

I compete in powerlifting, a lot of the competitors I know have gradually changed their approach to food as they realised how nutrition directly impacted their progress and recovery (while still eating cake!)

Also, strength sports are about what your body can do rather than looks, and the warm up room at women's events sees tiny 50-odd kilo ladies sharing racks with 84kg+ competitors and cheering each other on. It's a lovely and inclusive environment, and many people I have met there had a troubled history with food that strength training has helped with

Just a thought! 😊

And with apps it is easy to count calories. Plus a few tweaks here and there quite simple to have a calorie deficit.

@veryvery

And with apps it is easy to count calories. Plus a few tweaks here and there quite simple to have a calorie deficit.

How is “calorie deficit” different to diet?

I don't personally think 'sustainable' is about eating more calories. It's about building habits to ensure weight loss / maintenance. Like regular exercise, not snacking, only eating desserts very occasionally and not eating many sweets, only having one chocolate for example, not drinking a lot of alcohol, one glass of wine for example and not everyday. It's normal once the habit is formed. You don't expect anything else.

I have lived like this for years. I still have treats such as cake on special occasions. It is nice then because it is a treat. And I will only eat the very best quality of foodstuffs I do indulge in.

1200 calories just seems unsustainable to me. Why not 1400 over a longer period of time for example?

And surely if you know you need to eat 1200 to lose weight but have been unable to sustain that then that pretty much sums it up though? Anyway, I'm glad you've improved your mental health.

Another fan of strength training here. I'm a power lifter and honestly, it's the best thing I've ever done for my physical and mental health :-)

How is “calorie deficit” different to diet?

Its not. Anything you eat can be considered your diet.

I do see what you are saying re calories but counting calories every day forever is surely the same as being on a diet?

Not all diets are meal replacement shakes or high fat low whatever. The 5:2 diet, done forever, is the same as a lifestyle change. As is reducing calories.

Maybe we are just arguing over semantics. I’m just a bit fed up with every time I try and be a little healthier there is always someone who pops up to tell me diets don’t work. So great I’ll just be fat forever. I guess this whole thread just hit a nerve. I’m backing out now.

Well done to all the skinny folk who have a good relationship with food and don’t need to diet.

1200 calories just seems unsustainable to me. Why not 1400 over a longer period of time for example?

You can do whichever you want. I'm fine with1200 a day or less. I run about 6 miles a day too. I'm no more hungry in fact probably less hungry than when my eating was causing me to gain weight. I'm slim now with a BMI of about 21. The key is to make the food interesting and eat it with lots of non starchy veg or salad and don't eat many starchy carbs. But totally doable.

Diet is just what we eat; not a short change in habit - a life long one.

I agree with you OP. Diets teach people to obsess over what they eat for a short time. Most (particularly those where you pay a subscription) are designed to fail so the dieter keeps going back when they inevitably fall off the wagon, often dumping on more weight than before.

Lasting, sustainable lifestyle change works.

Absolutely. It has to be a lifestyle change.

I don't know what people mean when they say diets don't work. Of course they work but they're really difficult to stick to.

The main reason people fail to stick to them, imo, is that they don't find the right motivation. People think they want to lose weight to look better but if their looks were that important to them they wouldn't have gained the weight in the first place.

The people I know who have lost weight and kept it off have changed their lifestyle and diet completely due to a much stronger motivation. Either a serious health scare that really shook them up or, more often, a new found interest in a sport which motivated them to get fitter and stronger, so they could perform at a higher level.

Diets do work and are not the issue. Millions of people have proven they work.

The issue is when folks stop dieting and go back to their old eating habits and don’t amend them for their new weight and to maintain. They then gain the weight back.

But this doesn’t mean the diet didn’t work. It did. But it’s not a magic trick where you can eat what you wish after and the weight won’t come back on.

YANBU. The only difference between a diet and a 'lifestyle change/way of eating' is that the latter is supposed to be permanent. But just calling it a lifestyle change doesn't actually stop you falling off the wagon. So for most people, their so-called lifestyle change will have turned out to be just another diet. As will their next lifestyle change, and the one after that...

I mean... sure, some diets/ways of eating are easier to stick to long-term than others, as was always the case, but essentially the 'it's not a diet it's a lifestyle change' is just a re-branding exercise by the diet industry to fit in with the popularity of wellness/lifestyle influencer stuff imo.

I'm as guilty of it as anyone - low carb was meant to be a lifestyle change for me, as was intermittent fasting. Nope, they were diets, which I didn't stick to long-term!

A poster (on another thread about diets) said weight watchers was great, she'd used it lots of times and it always worked .

Well done to all the skinny folk who have a good relationship with food and don’t need to diet.

I'm slim now but 3 years ago I was overweight(BMI 27), had just finished cancer treatment, had had a mastectomy and suffered from frequent bouts of sciatica. I took up running, got a FitBit, started logging my food and exercise. And I know which I prefer! Cancer is a funny thing, I think it motivated me to change my lifestyle. When considering reconstruction, which I didn't go for I thought, 'What will make me feel better about my body?' And the answer I came up with was losing weight, getting fit and eating healthily as possible.

YANBU. Of course diets don’t work but people want to “feel” like they’re doing something to combat their weight problem and they can’t be arsed to exercise.

A lifetime of punishing myself and denying myself luxuries for an extra six months of drooling and soiling myself in a nursing home.
No thanks.

Of course diets don’t work but people want to “feel” like they’re doing something to combat their weight problem and they can’t be arsed to exercise.

It is possible to do both! And more effective than just doing one or the other. Look at what athletes eat, that is usually not junk food plus there are many specialist diets out there to optimise performance.

I think it would be better to say "diets don't work long term"? As in, yes, you lose weight, but will you keep it off?
That's why some of us say it has to be lifestyle change. Not just restrict to lose, but think beyond that. Build good habits, learn your portions, learn to exercise.

@DilloDaf

A poster (on another thread about diets) said weight watchers was great, she'd used it lots of times and it always worked .

Oh yeah. This🤷🏻

A lifetime of punishing myself and denying myself luxuries for an extra six months of drooling and soiling myself in a nursing home.

Sciatica and other health problems can be pretty punishing. Plus speaking as someone who has been on the receiving end of a cancer diagnosis I can safely say I am not ready to pack it all in just yet.

I think I need to change my thread title to diets don't work long term. Although I think that's quite clear from the rest of my post.

They do work as a stand alone concept. So someone who restricts calories, carbs etc... will lose weight. They are a short term, quick fix. They do not work as a long term solution to weight loss for most people. But if they did then a whole billion pound industry would be unnecessary.

Christ, that's some dedication to only eat 1200 calories a day
and run 6 miles a day.