What’s the first thing most people do when they want to get fit?
Exercise more and fix their “diet”.
It’s pretty common practice to attack these two areas as a means to getting in shape.
Would you agree? You’ve probably done this yourself, just like me.
You’ve probably also realized that there are many options when it comes to diet and exercise. In the gym, exercise can be used as a means to burn calories during a training session and build lean muscle to burn more calories throughout the day.
But the biggest impact on results comes from what a person eats.
For that reason, this post will be focused on diets. The different types and what they require.
My hope is to increase your knowledge and awareness of each type. Therefore allowing you to make the best decisions for yourself.
All diets work.
They all help you lose weight. However, keeping the weight off is the hard part.
Let’s dive in. Here are the different types of diets.
(these summaries were written after reading “the Diet Fix” by Yoni Freedhoff, I highly recommend reading it)
1) Good/Bad diets have very clear rules. Avoid this and avoid that. They are simple and don’t need to track calories. Instead, you simply avoid entire food groups.
2) Scientific and pseudoscientific diets attack specific foods inside of food groups. Some of these base their claims off of some science while others argue the “common sense” principle.
3) Counting diets and programs assign points and numbers to food. You are given an allotted amount for each day and your job is to track and consistently hit that number. This diet includes calorie tracking.
4) Crash diets are meant to be temporary. These diets are designed as a temporary fix and usually require very little food to be eaten up until a specific date. These are not long term diets.
5) Exercise diets aren’t necessarily focused on food but rather focused on long high-intensity workouts with the expectation of losing weight.
6) Magic diets are your pill, powder, or potion diets. Or the new exercise and zero effort and zero diet change program. People do these hoping that the weight melts off.
7) Eat smarter diet is the ever so popular (and usually the one everyone recommends) “eat smarter diet”. While this one seems intuitive somehow people still fail.At the end of the day, all diets work.
When implemented, each one of these diets will help you lose weight. However the problem is not losing weight, the problem is keeping it off.
Maybe the answer is not in the diet itself.
I believe that a person’s relationship with food and the habits that surround their actions with food is key to good nutrition. Good nutrition is different from a diet.
What is good nutrition?
This is what most people are seeking.
The kind of nutrition that improves body composition (achieves adequate body fat), promotes good health, improves performance, and ensures a good quality of life (enjoyment of food).
Building good nutrition goes far beyond following strict rules and restricting guides.
Good nutrition is built by improving habits, increasing education of food and habits surrounding it, and restructuring one’s beliefs about food.
I’m am not a fan of diets.
Personally, I think diets suck.
I would much rather have someone focus their time and energy on improving their habits around food and thus create a relationship that matches their own unique needs and goals.
All the while having “good nutrition” as our guiding light.
If you are looking for help on changing your nutrition habits, check out our services and how we work with people just like you. Read more by clicking here.
