Not going to lie, the title of this blog is click bait.
Sorry.
You probably had your suspicions already because you might have seen similar things littered across the internet. “The last diet you’ll ever need” is the bold proclamation.
The promise that this time you’ll stick to it and furthermore you’ll maintain the results you see.
I work with a number of clients who aren’t what would be defined as unhealthy. Just people who are looking to go from good shape to great shape often in time for an event like a holiday, wedding, birthday or something along those lines.
It’s actually very normal for weight to fluctuate through the year by a few kilos here and there. If this is you then this blog might not be entirely relevant.
However, if you’re targeting more significant weight loss and your weight is fluctuating up and down by 10% or more in a constant cycle of “on it” or “off it” then maybe you are the person who needs to read this.
SUCCESS RATES OF DIETS
Ever since the popularisation and commercialisation of a multitude of various diets and diet strategies in what has grown into an industry earning Billions each year (Americans spend $60 billion dollars annually on dieting products) there have been certain trends that have developed.
When we look at the success rates of diets, the bigger problem in people who are looking to lose more significant amounts of body fat is their ability to maintain what they’ve achieved.
Sustainability is a bigger problem than the ability to actually achieve fat loss in the first place.
Did you know this? Most people don’t.
This means that a large number of people are achieving fat loss, they’re just not maintaining the results they see over the longer term.
By estimations, some 80%+ of people who lose 10% or more of their body weight will regain that weight back over months or years. They often end up heavier than when they started their initial diet!
WHY DIETS FAIL
There could be a number of reasons for this happening and those reasons likely vary from individual to individual.
Reasons like the diet you’re doing has a start point that is just so far removed from anything you can realistically sustain. And, there’s no exit strategy from that diet onto something more resembling a balanced, healthy lifestyle.
There’s also a lot of information that suggests that as you lose weight your body actually begins to operate in ways that make maintaining that weight loss more difficult.
Just to quote one article based on research relating to this…
“People who successfully lose weight get really hungry. More than anyone had ever expected that they might. The body prompts us to eat about 100 calories more than usual for every 2 pounds or so of weight lost, researchers found.” – How Your Appetite Can Sabotage Weight Loss by Brenda Goodman, MA.
Sounds pretty doom and gloom, doesn’t it?
DIETS CAN ACTUALLY WORK
Well, you shouldn’t throw in the towel before you’ve even started just yet because people DO successfully lose large amounts of weight and achieve the balanced, healthy lifestyle we’re really chasing in the long run.
I’ve seen it happen time an time again! I should also say this is not a criticism of short term dieting strategies!! Not at all. I’m not a fan of this “2lbs a week weight loss is optimal and anything more than this is too fast” approach.
There’s enough information out there now to strongly suggest that this just isn’t the case. In fact, there’s some information to suggest that for some people, higher rates of weight loss in the early stages of dieting have better success rates in the long run than lesser rates of weight loss.
3 TIPS FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS
Okay so you’ve maybe got to this stage and are thinking “cool, I get it, where’s my 3 tips!?”
Well, your patience will now be rewarded as here are my 3 tips that I’ve personally implemented with a number of weight loss clients who have lost massive amounts of weight AND kept it off…
Educate yourself.
If you’re working with a Personal Trainer then this should be a learning process and not just some guy or girl helping you achieve “beast mode” for a couple of hours a week. You want to be developing an understanding of fundamental principles that will empower you and allow you to gain a level of autonomy to take control and make the right decisions for you in any given situation.
Measure behaviours over physical change.
This one is for those of you who have maybe achieved the type of results you were after and are now looking towards ways of staying accountable in the long term that goes beyond the scales or tracking progress through pictures.
Focus on inclusion over exclusion.
Psychologically its way easier to focus on what you should do today over what you shouldn’t do. You’ll tend to find when you adopt this approach that one benefits the other anyway. Things like “drink 3L of water” are easier to focus on than “don’t drink any fizzy juice”.
The basic principles that dictate weight loss are fairly simple. Through diet and activity levels you need to achieve an energy deficit.
If you do this you’ll lose weight.
If you can then avoid reentering a phase of creating an energy surplus that causes weight to regain you’re onto a winner. The reality of practically applying these basic principles is not so simple.
So, my hope is that this blog might have helped you gain even just a little insight into why that is. Even helped you identify a few steps you can take to sustain the results you achieve!
