Yo-yo Dieting
Have you ever noticed that when you are on the right track with a certain endeavour, particularly if said endeavour has a spiritual leaning, the whole world seems more vivid. Colours are particularly vivid and the depth and layers of the vista are clear. There is a literal improvement in eyesight.
What follows is an epiphany, a relatively earthly one but an epiphany none the less. Read to the end for the real gold.
You know how we love a caveat, or at least feel compelled to love them. Well to that end we have exactly zero qualifications in the realm of nutrition. Moreover, we have collectively lived more days fat than a healthy weight. But a corner now seems to have been turned. This morning scrolling through Instagram a post came up from a particularly chunky Tai Chi teacher expounding the virtues of physically demanding IMA training. If you want to explore this cognitive dissonance further check out the past blog post ‘Is Tai Chi a Soft Option’.
Here are a handful of lessons learned around the fat reduction process. This is very much seen through a calorie counting lens. But aside from those individuals for whom maintaining a healthy weight just comes naturally, it is arguably the only lens that should be used;
As with all things trust your gut, somewhat literally in this case.
A six pack worthy body fat percentage is not necessarily healthy.
Diet should be personalised, some people do great on carbs and others not so much, this is just one example of a personalised variable.
Food is more enjoyable as part of a calorie controlled diet.
Intermittent fasting is not just beneficial for it’s own sake but it also allows you to bias your calories to the time of day you are more vulnerable to binging. For most people this is the evening so skipping breakfast and lunch and having a big evening meal is quite an effective strategy. Breakfast being the most important meal of the day has long since been debunked along with pretty much every well worn generalisation, see comment on personalisation above.
Caffeine suppresses appetite in the fasting period but use this with caution.
Plan your meals early in the day and this will mean you know what to look forward to and stop your mind wandering towards sugar or takeaways.
No foods are fattening, only excess calories.
Do yourself a favour and read about how the sugar industry demonised fats and such attitudes still have an influence over government and public health service advice.
You’ll probably get better advice from social media than from your doctor as turning around attitudes in the medical sector is like turning around an aircraft carrier. Listen to cutting edge science but obviously check the sources, cross reference and pursue with caution.
It is possible that eating treat foods 10-20% of the time is as important as eating healthy 80-90% of the time.
Cheat days are a dangerous game, think more in terms of cheat meals.
Don’t overdo your calorie deficit as at some point you will want to jump back to normal range and this could be problematic. Keto has it’s benefits but coming off it has it’s problems.
If you go over your recommended daily allowance that’s fine within reason, just offset it within the surrounding days.
Running can be boring, walking is fun.
Starting is near impossible without a decent level of self-worth, which is why fat shaming doesn’t work. You are fine as you are and you should hold yourself with self confidence, but the beginning of the rest of your life as a happy healthy person begins in the timeframe outlined below.
On previous weight loss journeys, particularly those really intense ones chasing a particular fighting weight, life is in a kind of limbo until such time as the desired weight is reached. Often the last few pounds are difficult if not near impossible to achieve and this extends the purgatory. It seems obvious that it would be a more sustainable approach to enjoy the process. It suddenly came to us that the time to relax would be after a habit has been formed, that habit being keeping an eye on your calorie intake. A cursory google suggests it takes 60-70 days to form a habit and 66 days kept coming up, it’s a nice memorable number anyway so serves the purpose well. So there it is, the first 66 days might come with the mental and physical struggles of “dieting” but after that just get on with life and enjoy the ride.