"The best diet is the one you can sustain"
We've probably all heard this popular dieters' maxim before: "The best diet is the one you can sustain".
I basically agree. But let's just start with a quick, logistical thing here: the word "diet". The very notion here is that we are looking for something which will be sustainable in the longterm. Changing our ways of eating isn't meant to be a quick fix, something you can just do for six weeks to fix your weight or your health and then go back to your old, unhealthy ways again and call it good. So let's not use the word "diet", as though we're only talking about a short term solution. We're looking for something sustainable.
What isn't sustainable is:
There's a lot of misinformation out there, such as the myth that reducing carbs will cause the body to devour its own lean muscle tissues for energy. This just isn't accurate: the body burns fat preferentially over muscle tissues. (Interested? Read more about this on Dr. Fung's IDM article on fasting and diet and muscle loss/building.) Another argument I've seen used frequently is that keto will cause initial rapid weight loss, but that the weight will be mostly water. This is true of EVERY form of diet, whether it's low-fat, low-calorie, or low-carb. That water is bound to fat cells and needs to come off anyway. After that - again, as with all other major dietary changes - the weight loss slows to 1-3 lbs/week for most people. One of the silliest arguments against keto that I've seen - and I've seen it a LOT lately - is this: "as soon as you go back to eating carbs, you'll gain all the weight back". Who said anything about going back??? Another way of saying that is simply, "as soon as you go back to your old, unhealthy ways, you'll be unhealthy again". No kidding!! This assumption that the people eating this way will inevitably go back to their old ways is rather short-sighted. Speaking personally, I'm in this for life, and finding it pretty easy, honestly. I take the occasional indulgence - always planned for, never just an impulse I couldn't resist, and generally compensated for with extra time spent fasting, but even when I'm not indulging, ketogenic food is frankly delicious. Most carbs are actually fairly bland; we typically enjoy them more for their texture, or as a base for something more interesting. It just involves reimagining what a satisfying meal can look like.
Bottom line: the goal is to find a way of eating which is healthy and sustainable, but watch out for the critics trying to dissuade you from a plan which exactly that! Everyone needs to find something that works for them, but speaking as someone who thought that eating a lot of carbs and sugar worked for her for 38 years, I'm definitely having better success with this way of eating! It's just that it takes a full on lifestyle overhaul, not a few weeks of drastic self-limitation. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
I basically agree. But let's just start with a quick, logistical thing here: the word "diet". The very notion here is that we are looking for something which will be sustainable in the longterm. Changing our ways of eating isn't meant to be a quick fix, something you can just do for six weeks to fix your weight or your health and then go back to your old, unhealthy ways again and call it good. So let's not use the word "diet", as though we're only talking about a short term solution. We're looking for something sustainable.
What isn't sustainable is:
- Eating or drinking food-adjacent products like meal replacement bars and shakes. Think about it: do you want to drink your lunch forever? Or make your breakfasts something like juice + chia seeds? (I just recently heard of someone doing this... all sugar plus a bit of fibre!) Wouldn't you rather have bacon and eggs or something? What to do instead: Eat real food! If it has ingredients in it that you don't know or couldn't identify on the grocery store shelf, maybe don't eat it.
- Starvation. Also known as caloric-restricted diets. These do work, in the short term. But in the longterm, they'll gut your basal metabolic rate and make it harder than ever to lose weight and keep it off. What to do instead: intermittent fasting! While fasting can, at first glance, look a bit like deliberate starvation, it's not the same. The goal with IF is to alternate how much energy the body is receiving, to prevent it from settling into a routine. Sustained low-calorie diets do exactly that: allow the body to adjust, going "oh, we're only getting 1,000 calories per day? Got it, will adjust accordingly" - and they DO. They stop burning as many calories for the very same functions they always performed before!
- Low fat diets. These fail every time, because of a few reasons: 1) the body requires fat. Eating fat is entirely disconnected from the body making fat. The body makes fat when there is too much sugar in the bloodstream for the body's insulin to be able to convert the food we eat into more blood sugar, and stores it as fat instead. 2) foods which have been deliberately reduced in fat invariably make up for it by adding more sugar or artificial sweeteners. This is NOT a good solution, as sugar and its many replacements all stimulate insulin production, which in turn produces more fat. 3) everyone likes fat. Taking the fat out of your eating plan will result in feelings of deprivation. Feeling deprived =/= sustainable! What to do instead: restrict your sugars/sugar replacements, not fat.
There's a lot of misinformation out there, such as the myth that reducing carbs will cause the body to devour its own lean muscle tissues for energy. This just isn't accurate: the body burns fat preferentially over muscle tissues. (Interested? Read more about this on Dr. Fung's IDM article on fasting and diet and muscle loss/building.) Another argument I've seen used frequently is that keto will cause initial rapid weight loss, but that the weight will be mostly water. This is true of EVERY form of diet, whether it's low-fat, low-calorie, or low-carb. That water is bound to fat cells and needs to come off anyway. After that - again, as with all other major dietary changes - the weight loss slows to 1-3 lbs/week for most people. One of the silliest arguments against keto that I've seen - and I've seen it a LOT lately - is this: "as soon as you go back to eating carbs, you'll gain all the weight back". Who said anything about going back??? Another way of saying that is simply, "as soon as you go back to your old, unhealthy ways, you'll be unhealthy again". No kidding!! This assumption that the people eating this way will inevitably go back to their old ways is rather short-sighted. Speaking personally, I'm in this for life, and finding it pretty easy, honestly. I take the occasional indulgence - always planned for, never just an impulse I couldn't resist, and generally compensated for with extra time spent fasting, but even when I'm not indulging, ketogenic food is frankly delicious. Most carbs are actually fairly bland; we typically enjoy them more for their texture, or as a base for something more interesting. It just involves reimagining what a satisfying meal can look like.
Bottom line: the goal is to find a way of eating which is healthy and sustainable, but watch out for the critics trying to dissuade you from a plan which exactly that! Everyone needs to find something that works for them, but speaking as someone who thought that eating a lot of carbs and sugar worked for her for 38 years, I'm definitely having better success with this way of eating! It's just that it takes a full on lifestyle overhaul, not a few weeks of drastic self-limitation. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
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