AIBU to have found the 2 best diets ever that WORK?

[Ambushedbycakeinmydreams]

That's it. I now have the formula for successful and doable weight loss. Here they are, there are 2 methods that I can say absolutely work. But please don't tell me that "they don't work because people often put all the weight back on" - it's not the fault of the diet; diets will only work if you stick with them.

1. Fast 800 Keto After 7 days - 2" lost from my waist; down by a dress size; suddenly regained a lot of formerly worn clothes. Pros - fast results, very motivating Has science behind it so has integrity (Dr Mosley and his GP wife) The food recipes are easy to prepare and the food is gorgeous - I'm so enjoying the food.

Cons - the first phase is hard as though the food is excellent, the portions are small (but you do get used to it after the first week or so).

2. Slimming World Pros - allows you to eat a diet where no foods are excluded, so you can tailor it to personal requirements eg incorporate a bit of alcohol, chocolate, etc you get my drift. Easy to follow - no need to count calories.

Cons - weight loss is invariably slower eg average loss for me a few years ago was 1 - 2 lbs a week.

I did SW a few years ago, lost nearly 2 stone and then Covid hit so no meetings or weigh ins to help keep me on track. And then I did all the Covid stuff too eg lots of baking and bread making (and put over half of the weight back on).

Currently now on Fast 800 Keto to shift the aforementioned weight gain.

@PinotPony

I'll never understand the obsession with losing weight. Your bathroom scales literally show the gravity you are exerting on the planet! Yes, it's a useful indicator of progress but should only be part of the calculation.

Each pound of muscle on your body burns 100 calories a day. Each pound of fat on your body burns 10 calories a day. If you drastically reduce your calorie input, your body will start shedding the high calorie burning muscle before it loses fat. Yes, the scales show you are losing "weight" but you're losing all the good stuff. Your metabolism slows down and you become a skinny fat person!

At age 20 I weighed 8 stone and was a dress size 10. Twenty five years later, having learnt about nutrition and training, and recovered from being overweight in my 30s, I weigh 9 stone and am a dress size 8. My wedding dress fits me better today even though I weigh a stone more! I eats loads of healthy food to fuel my strong body.

That's why WW and SW are a load of tosh. If I lost 3lb of fat and gained 4lb of muscle, some sanctimonious cow bag would tut at the scales and tell me I'd failed that week.

THIS IN SPADES ^^

People who crash diet and lose 5lbs in their first week, it’s all water and muscle. Much much better to work on exercise, protein, consistency

Of course it was aimed at you, @Ambushedbycakeinmydreams . You have just confirmed what I said. I think you don't really understand about food at all. You can have tons of good stuff in your diet, but if you eat all the rubbish too, then it's a poor diet. You obviously got in some kind of food rut, which is why you're getting excited about the meals you are eating, and my point is, that's not a feature of a diet, those are not at all unusual foods, and not a sign that it is a good diet, it's a sign that you were in a food rut. It's not a sign that the diet itself is amazing. Any diet where you eat so few calories is going to make you lose weight. Did you mean to posted AIBU?

@PinotPony

I'll never understand the obsession with losing weight. Your bathroom scales literally show the gravity you are exerting on the planet! Yes, it's a useful indicator of progress but should only be part of the calculation.

Each pound of muscle on your body burns 100 calories a day. Each pound of fat on your body burns 10 calories a day. If you drastically reduce your calorie input, your body will start shedding the high calorie burning muscle before it loses fat. Yes, the scales show you are losing "weight" but you're losing all the good stuff. Your metabolism slows down and you become a skinny fat person!

At age 20 I weighed 8 stone and was a dress size 10. Twenty five years later, having learnt about nutrition and training, and recovered from being overweight in my 30s, I weigh 9 stone and am a dress size 8. My wedding dress fits me better today even though I weigh a stone more! I eats loads of healthy food to fuel my strong body.

That's why WW and SW are a load of tosh. If I lost 3lb of fat and gained 4lb of muscle, some sanctimonious cow bag would tut at the scales and tell me I'd failed that week.

Is that too but true? Cos I have110lb of muscle (genuinely, I know that's weird) so I would burn 11000 cals a day and I'm still fat haha. That can't be accurate

@Looneytune253 Ok, you got me! It might not be as high as 100!

But the point still stands that muscle does burn more calories than fat.

At 5 years following weight loss around 95% of people will have regained all the weight to within a pound or two.

Exactly. At that percentage, it's ridiculous and futile to say that people who fail to lose weight are just weak. On that basis pretty much everybody is weak. It's not weakness, it's just the way humans are. Your brain/body/survival system doesn't want to be in a calorie deficit. Not enough food equals less energy, less nutrients, lower ability to survive. We haven't evolved past the urgent drive to access high calorie food, even though it's all too easy to get hold of now. If you try and fight that innate drive, you sooner or later almost inevitably fail - it's as simple as that.

I lost 7 stone in a year a few years ago just eating healthily, cutting my portion sizes and exercising a lot. I worked really fucking hard. My overweight friend tried to berate me one day when I’d lost all of the weight for eating a banana because it’s ‘ssooo many calories’ while she tucked into a 50 calorie ‘diet’ bar with Christ knows what chemicals inside it. She never did lose the weight fwiw, she’s used SW on and off for years.

I gained some back when I had 2 DC in under 2 years so finally tackling it this year. Lost 24 lbs since January 3rd again just exercising hard and eating well. No need for faddy diets.

@Fairislefandango

At 5 years following weight loss around 95% of people will have regained all the weight to within a pound or two.

Exactly. At that percentage, it's ridiculous and futile to say that people who fail to lose weight are just weak. On that basis pretty much everybody is weak. It's not weakness, it's just the way humans are. Your brain/body/survival system doesn't want to be in a calorie deficit. Not enough food equals less energy, less nutrients, lower ability to survive. We haven't evolved past the urgent drive to access high calorie food, even though it's all too easy to get hold of now. If you try and fight that innate drive, you sooner or later almost inevitably fail - it's as simple as that.

So by this thinking we’re all destined to be overweight and shouldn’t try to prevent that? Makes sense.

@AllOfUsAreDead You're talking bollocks. You can't eat 5 chocolate bars a day and syn them. Most people can have 5-15 syns a day and a chocolate bar would have around 10 syns in it.

Can I ask, those who do 800 calories diets - do you exercise as well? I'm contemplating giving it all a go but not sure what to do regards exercising, will it just make me feel more hungry and need more calories?

Pretty much any diet works if you follow it 🤷‍♀️

They go in fashions - if we were in 1992, you’d be worshipping at the alter of Rosemary Conley

[quote SkinnyChaiLatte]@AllOfUsAreDead You're talking bollocks. You can't eat 5 chocolate bars a day and syn them. Most people can have 5-15 syns a day and a chocolate bar would have around 10 syns in it.[/quote]
Syns…. Oh God.

Good that they work for you.

Personally, I've found it far more successful to do a bit of exercise for my own mental health/it feels good plus some strength and generally eat things that aren't ultra processed (but not cut them out altogether, as there are still days when only a GF pizza base with chorizo, tomato, cheese, mushrooms, onion and chilli oil will do - or the protein shake in the morning taken purely because I don't do food at 5.15am).

Seeing as I've gone from supermorbidly obese to a kilo off overweight since last May without feeling hungry, uncomfortable, restricted, dizzy, tired, headachey, or in any way unpleasant, I think it's working rather well.

I have (lightheartedly) given it a nickname. It's Eat Better, Move More.

Eating better for me means what I actually want, what looks pretty on a plate, what has multiple vegetables, the protein I fancy, the fat I fancy, however many carbs I feel I need, the flavours I feel I need. It means thinking of how to add one (or two, or three) extra vegetables sometimes. Of how if I feel like I need two huge jacket potatoes, I bloody well have two jacket potatoes with whatever filling I want. And as many olives, red pepper and onion as I want in the tuna mayonnaise because I really like olives, red pepper and onion in it. And how avocado toast tastes so much better with smoked bacon and a fried egg on top at the weekend.

Move more is fairly self explanatory. Not by much, as injuries aren't fun. But any moving is better than no moving. And if it involves a bit of daylight and fresh air, even better.

If I could just manage to chuck in sleeping for more than 5 hours a night, everything would be awesome. Then it would become my ultimate goal lifestyle;

Eat Better. Move More. Sleep Well.

Is there really no part of you that understands how utterly stupid this post is?

"X,Y & Z worked absolutely perfectly for ME, so of course it would work absolutely perfectly for YOU (a completely separate genetic entity with a completely separate familial history and an entirely different set of life circumstances)"

They are diets which work for you. Everyone's bodies are different and there is no one size fits all when it comes to diets.

@GayParis

Is there really no part of you that understands how utterly stupid this post is?

"X,Y & Z worked absolutely perfectly for ME, so of course it would work absolutely perfectly for YOU (a completely separate genetic entity with a completely separate familial history and an entirely different set of life circumstances)"

Umm, I'm not entirely clear on this - are you ripping into me for saying what works for me (and what didn't/wouldn't) or into the OP for saying what works for her?

If it's me, I'm not saying it will work for anybody else at all. But I don't think I'm that special or unique.

@SartresSoul no it’s not a case of not bother to prevent weight gain. It’s a case of pointing out that as a treatment for obesity diets have appalling outcomes within five years.

It would be far better if GPs gave out sports club subscriptions instead. Movement and activity improves everything all round and improved muscle tone means better glucose control which is important for preventing and controlling diabetes. It also has wonderful cardiovascular effects,

There are a lot of people who also have eating disorders …diets are a disaster for them and they’d do better wih proper MH a support to examine why they eat.

Eat less and move more is wonderful for preventing obesity but it has poor results once obesity occurs. Once that’s happened it needs different and multi pronged approaches.

The modern diet is what makes people overweight. Practically everything is packed with carbs as carbs are used as cheap fillers. Even so called healthy brown and seeded breads have a high carb content.
Rice and potatoes all used to bulk out meals are just starch which again is carb and just turns into sugar the moment it hits your digestive tract.
Pasta again is just carb and used to bulk out a meal. Pretty much every main food source eaten these days is just to high in carb and the volume we eat it at is just too much.
The body doesn’t need carbs at all. It can get everything it needs from protein, fats and fibre yet even diets like slimming world are still promoting the eating of carbs.
Diet foods and the increase in the labelling of meals as “no added sugar” is just another con to make us think it is better for us as when you read the nutriental value on the labelling it is still packed full of carb and carbs = sugar.
The only way to lose weight and keep it off is a life style change count carbs not calories. A serving of rice should be two tablespoons max not the silver foil container full you get from the takeaway and again with pasta and potatoes or even better yet just don’t eat them.

@Proudboomer

The modern diet is what makes people overweight. Practically everything is packed with carbs as carbs are used as cheap fillers. Even so called healthy brown and seeded breads have a high carb content. Rice and potatoes all used to bulk out meals are just starch which again is carb and just turns into sugar the moment it hits your digestive tract. Pasta again is just carb and used to bulk out a meal. Pretty much every main food source eaten these days is just to high in carb and the volume we eat it at is just too much. The body doesn’t need carbs at all. It can get everything it needs from protein, fats and fibre yet even diets like slimming world are still promoting the eating of carbs. Diet foods and the increase in the labelling of meals as “no added sugar” is just another con to make us think it is better for us as when you read the nutriental value on the labelling it is still packed full of carb and carbs = sugar. The only way to lose weight and keep it off is a life style change count carbs not calories. A serving of rice should be two tablespoons max not the silver foil container full you get from the takeaway and again with pasta and potatoes or even better yet just don’t eat them.

[Looks at sushi, prawns, sesame, tomato and cucumber in lunchbox, down at significantly smaller figure compared to 10 months ago and to the online order of another 5kg bag of sushi rice on second monitor]

Only two tablespoons, you say? And no potatoes or other sources of carbs?

Well, I suppose 10 prawns and 10 sticks of cucumber with a pinch of sesame seeds would make me lose weight. But I'm not a fan of EDs. Been there, done it, got the fucked front teeth nto show for it.

Improved muscle tone means better glucose control which is important for preventing and controlling diabetes.

I did not know this!

This is not a criticism of anyone or anything. Just for info:

Mosely did not invent low-carb diets - they've been around for 50, 60 years. Look up Atkins Diet, John Yudkin's work, South Beach Diet, Dukan diet etc etc. Fasting has been around for millenia.

Mosely qualified as a doctor but is no longer registered, at least according to this: www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/showbiz-tv/who-michael-mosley-real-doctor-22864823 He works as a journalist and presenter.

Mosely based his ideas on the work of Dr Roy Taylor of Newcastle, who has worked with Diabetes UK : www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-fast-800-diet
Before writing the Fast 800 book, Mosely also wrote the Fast Diet book with another journalist, Mimi Spencer :
www.waterstones.com/book/the-fast-diet/dr-michael-mosley/mimi-spencer/9781780722375

'His ideas for the Fast800 book*, I should say. According to that BBC article.

The keto initial weight loss will be water weight as it's diuretic, however, I agree with you that it is the way to go and a very good diet otherwise!

So by this thinking we’re all destined to be overweight and shouldn’t try to prevent that? Makes sense.

No, not at all. Plenty of people don't get overweight in the first place. For whatever reason - genes, upbringing etc they start with and stay with moderate eating habits and so they never get into the yo-yo of dieting.

For many (probably even most) people who do get overweight, 'trrying to prevent that' and mucking about with their metabolism, weight set point, insulin response and relationship with food actually ends up making them more overweight than they were to start with. So yes, it's quite possiy true that if they'd never started trying to diet back in their teens/20s they might well be lighter, or at least no heavier, than they are umpteen diets later at 40 or 50.

@Fairislefandango that’s definitely true for some of my friends

They either undereat ;diet/fast/keto etc or overeat (lots of treats, takeaways, pizza, burgers etc

When they are in the diet bit of the cycle they will tell me that eating bread or rice is “pure sugar” and toxic, then a few weeks later they are back to eating carbs. Not rice or bread but pizza and croissants

I always think it must be exhausting and keep my counsel. But yeah, imo diets mess up People’s mindset about food

I have one friend who goes through the entire diet-feast cycle within a day, every day. Skips breakfast, eats some lettuce for lunch, then by 4pm “cracks” and has a biscuit… followed by the entire pack.

It’s hard to watch. Not sure how those who managed to never diet did it tbh, maybe upbringing? Luck with metabolism?

I lost 7st following Slimming World.

I also gained an eating disorder and massive issues with my self-esteem.

Slimming clubs are toxic cults.