What diet/way of eating has actually worked for you?

[Alexandra84]

As the title suggests, what actually worked for you?
I think I’m over complicating things. High protein, fasting, healthy fats, low fat, low carb, keto, 5:2, shakes, jabs etc etc…it’s all spilling in my head and I’m actually taking all the bad bits of each diet and combining to just have a hugely unhealthy way of eating.
I don’t have a lot of headspace to make sense of complicated systems, v busy job, 2 high needs kids.
I just want a plan to stick to, knowing that slowly but surely, it will work.
Any ideas appreciated.

I’ve a high stress life, when I stopped all ‘hard’ workouts and switched to walking and reformer Pilates, along with just eating less the pounds are finally dropping off. I think in my case running, heavy weights and high inflammation causing workouts were not doing me favours. Also eating yoghurt, extra eggs, masses of protein etc etc, was just too much food for me. Small portions of whole food and if I’m not hungry not forcing in food because it’s been prescribed in a diet.

Mounjaro and a high protein - low carb diet is working for me currently. Plus extra exercise in the form of walking, kettle bells and occasional swimming.

My doc reckons I am probably insulin-resistant which is why I was struggling no matter what I did before.

Mostly high protein, low refined carb (not low carb), mostly cooked from scratch etc or unprocessed fruit, cheese. Not low fat. Then one 24 hour fast a week. I'm also sober but that didn't change my weight much when I quit drinking.

Everything changed in perimenopause. I could have done it without the fast before that but with a level of intuitive eating.

I'm the lightest I've been for about 5 years now. Losing a steady 1-1.5lbs a week.

The Human Being Diet, Petronella Ravenshear

Sensible with enough guidance and rules to get you started but not overly complicated to follow through and then keep it up

Two things worked for me.

1. Weight loss: Cut out all junk food completely, three small meals per day. Only fresh fruit and veg with protein and minimal carbs. A reward each night of a square of dark chocolate. Lost 2-3lb per week steadily until I'd lost two stone.

2. Weight maintenance: 16:8. I only eat between 13.00 and 21.00. Some would say that I skip breakfast but I just have it later (at lunchtime) followed by a snack at 17.00ish and dinner at 20.00ish. I can eat whatever I like at mealtimes.

I do lots of exercise as well (30 mins cross trainer and 4 miles brisk walk every day without fail, plus whatever mini exercise I can do eg taking stairs instead of the lift which I do whenever I have the chance).

Have kept the weight off for ten years now.

A question, why didn't your doctor check? My HbA1c was at 5.8%, 6.0% is prediabetic in the UK (5.7% is considered prediabetic in other countries). It was getting that result that convinced me to give intermittent fasting a go because it has good evidence with insulin resistance.

The thing I found weird though is my lifestyle was already pretty healthy. My diet didn't change that much after that result (albeit I did cut some of the refined carbs which were still there), I was already tee total and exercising 5-7 days a week. But none of that was working.

From the reading I've done it appears perimenopause does impact your insulin resistance and how your body metabolises glucose in general.

Some people end up cutting down to crazy low calorie levels, I just couldn't spend my whole life hungry but one day, I could cope with.

Did my GP offer any of this advice? Did he heck. He just gave me the eatwell guide and told me to move more. I pointed out I was already moving plenty and eating in a more healthy way than the eatwell guide. Didn't want to know.

Without judgement, as if intermittent fasting had failed I think I'd be on MJ by now, I did see an article recently which suggested women in their 40s and 50s are the biggest purchasers of WLI medication privately. Which is telling me something absolutely massive which is not being admitted by the medical community. Whatever you've been recommending for men and younger women does not work in perimenopause.

But that's not like the medical profession is it? Seeing women my age as invisible? 😂

Calorie counting, but paying attention to eating pretty clearly (so not using 1,400 on pasta and chocolate every day). I don't bar any food types but have them in small quantities and they make up a small percentage of my overall diet.

Cutting out all the processed foods- no e numbers, wird ingredients and sweeteners. Mainly vegetarian and eating lots of pulses, combined with regular exercise.

It's a lifestyle and you won't loose weight quickly but you'll feel better all round.

Me too. This has really worked for me and is more of a sustainable lifestyle approach than a "diet" to endure. It's just a basic approach that my calories in are 500-1000 less than calories expended, have steadily lost weight this way.

Hi Lemonthyme, she did.

I was given my hba1c as a number not a %, and it was 47. Diabetes starts at 48. So I am diagnosed pre-diabetic and od also developed hypertension (now controlled by meds).

Although I'm buying the Mounjaro privately my doc is monitoring me - I go back for more bloods in June as it takes several months for the hba1c to change apparently.

I'm hopeful that mine will have gone down a bit!

Eating less it's boring but it works.

Mounjaro to get the weight off and now to maintain, eating much less and weighing myself most mornings and taking action at first sign of weight gain.

5:2 worked but I couldn't keep it up long term. I did learn a lot about eating right from it though, Mediterranean diet and low-ish carbs particularly and I still use recipes from the books.

The only thing that has worked recently is using mounjaro, then maintaining without taking it by eating high fibre, high-ish protein and watching amounts and calories very carefully, along with exercise, and weighing myself 2-3 times a week. Nothing barred from the diet (though I have very few UPFs) but being very careful.

I'm also now trying a 24 hour fast a week (to see if I don't have to count everything as much, plus there are other benefits).

Literally do I really need this in relation to things that I overdo such as bread and crisps, so eating a lunch, do I really need the crisps? Do I need a can of Fanta with it? I’ll have it a different day instead. I drank loads more water and forced myself to have a yoghurt or fruit at night instead of all the crisps and chocolate! I didn’t change my eating that much, still had breakfast lunch dinner, fruit and veg and yoghurts but the bread and crisps and sweets and fizzy drinks dropped to just weekends and I enjoyed them more. Saying that weight is back on, pure comfort eating as work is killing me and I don’t get home until late regularly and feel I deserve it, which is ridiculous but I’m so tired!!

Look up blue line. It’s worked for me and I’m not hungry. Basic rules are you give up flour and added sugar. So, no bread or pasta, cakes, biscuits etc, tonnes of veg and salad, some fruit, protein at every meal. No snacks. I cheat a bit with some low cal wine.

I wish I could do this, my energy out calories are about 1500 a day with exercise, to get 500-1000 under I would be looking at calories in of 600-1100 a day which is tiny. Woe is me.

But I agree, for me what has worked in the past is calorie counting and keeping to a little under calories out, I just loose very, very, very slowly.

I hope you are tall OP!

1. Eat mainly single-ingredient minimally processed foods
2. Eat 2 meals a day, nothing in between, aka intermittent fasting
3. Add some longer fasts (24-48 hrs), for quite a few months.
4. Keep carbs lowish, without being obsessive about it
5. Shifts to mindset, e.g. stop thinking of cake as a treat, a reward, essential to celebrations, something I deserve etc. Start recognising it for what it is - a foodstuff which is metabolically really bad for me, and to which I am addicted
6. Treat my dysfunctional eating behaviours as an addiction (rather than a free choice, a set of bad habits I could easily change, a moral failure, or all the other things people sometimes believe)

Healthy balanced meals including protein and carbs with every meal. A treat two or three times a week (piece of cake/couple of glasses of wine/take away)

Correction, sorry, it’s Bright Line, not blue line! Still works, though.

Keep carbs to a minimum, eat lots of protein and veg. Simple as that, always works.
Like anything it’s just sticking to it. I think people over complicate things because they are wanting a miracle solution

Varied daily exercise - running, Pilates and yoga works best for me.
Eating less and no junk food or sweet foods. An eating disorder due to grief ‘helped’ in this respect. (Not recommended) But now I don’t use dinner plates - I swap them for side plates, portions are naturally smaller but don’t look it. If I go out I ask for a child’s portion or stick with starters only.

Not dieting, strength training, and running work best for me.

I do track my food, but I pay more attention to protein, carbs and fat than calories. Calories typically tend to be naturally lower when you eat real food anyway.

I eat to complement my fitness rather than lose weight. For example, before a run, I make sure I have a meal containing mostly carbs, I do add protein to it to complement my strength training, and because it is satiating. After a strength session, I will eat a very high-protein, low-fat, lower-carb meal.

It also helped when I accepted that this is not a diet, it's a lifestyle, and there is no end date.

My life is very chaotic at the moment and I find the easiest thing is just to eat the same stuff every day.

I have:
a banana and oatcakes for breakfast
teriyaki beef jerky mid morning
beans on toast for lunch
a packet of iced gems mid afternoon
salmon or chicken and veg for dinner
bendicks bittermint with a cup of herbal tea after dinner

it probably could be healthier and more exciting but I do not have time to think about calorie counting and this makes the food shop extremely predictable.

I will go back to meal planning when things calm down!

This, pretty much. And don’t drink calories.

Plus daily weight/resistance based exercise and long walks with a weighted vest.

I had to do very low fat while waiting for gallbladder removal. That's the only way of eating that resulted in weight loss for me. I'm currently trying a low fat version to see if it would be similar. I haven't weighed myself in a very long time, but I'm only about 3 weeks in and my tummy is noticeably flatter and some clothes are feeling/wearing more comfortably. The VLF diet is something like sat fat below 3 or 5%. VLF takes commitment, whereas just low fat means I'm still having some things that are healthy fats, but nothing that's an unhealthy fat.