I’m sure you’ve heard before that diets don’t work, and you’re probably wondering why. There are two main reasons I believe diets suck.
First, they’re too restrictive, with too many rules. When you’re on one, you feel like you’re giving up a lot. It may work at first, but it isn’t maintainable. Eventually you slip up and return to your old ways.
Second, they’re generally far too low in calories. Yes, the number one rule of losing weight is to burn more calories than you consume. That’s true. But if you diet too hard and your intake is far too low, you might only lose weight for the first two weeks, and then it just stops. If anything, you might put weight back on.
When you go too low, your metabolism slows right down as your body goes into survival mode.
I learned this the hard way
Don’t believe me? I discovered it first-hand a while back. I’d taken up a weight-loss challenge with my clients, a race to see who could lose the most body fat. We were all on three balanced meals a day, with reduced but not restricted calories. I was dropping 1–1.5 kilos consistently each week.
Then I came down with a bad bout of gastro. For three days I ate only small portions, living off some muesli, a bit of fruit and some soup, and I was throwing up quite a bit on top of that. After 72 hours on what felt like life support, I was curious to see what my weight had done that week.
To my surprise, I’d put on 800 grams – almost a kilo.
I was shocked. I thought I’d probably doubled my weight loss for the week, but I’d lost momentum and gone backwards. My body obviously thought it was dying because of how little food it was getting. It said to itself, “Right, there’s a famine going on. To keep you alive, I’m going to slow your metabolism down.” And that’s exactly what it did.
With weight loss, it’s all about finding that sweet spot: a mild restriction, not an excessive one.
Find the sweet spot
It’s about finding just the right amount of calories so your body is primed to burn fat. Once you find that sweet spot, you stay there for as long as you need to.
When your weight loss stalls
So what do you do if your body has stopped losing weight because of a sluggish metabolism? If there’s nothing wrong with your thyroid or hormones, and you’re not on any medication, it may be something as simple as lighting that fire again.
I’ve seen people get their fat-burning engine going again simply by taking a break from clean eating for a single meal, a day or even a week. They go out and eat a tasty, high-calorie meal of their choosing. It reminds the body, “Hey, I’m still getting high-calorie food. There’s no famine here.” That can be enough to switch the metabolism back on. I call this a strategic cheat meal.
In other cases it isn’t that simple. The person may need to increase their calories very slowly over a few weeks or months and focus on eating regularly, which encourages that metabolism to finally wake up.
There’s a very real chance you could be eating too little rather than too much.
Stop being a dieter
If you’re perpetually in a state of restricted eating, you’re a dieter. You need to change the mindset and look at your eating habits as a lifestyle. The weight loss will be a by-product of that.
For a smarter way to handle the big meals, read Damage Control.
