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And that’s the problem.
The question itself doesn’t allow for the correct answer to be revealed. The question of “which one,” will be dissected and argued for 3000 words or more on every blog page. And then a comment war will break out adding another 10,000.
EVERY GOOD THEORY USES AT LEAST 1 CORRECT APPROACH
I’ve mentioned in this blog post that there are 3 main approaches that can be used effectively to lose weight.
Traditionally when we think of dieting, the idea of deprivation via calorie deficit comes to mind. Get ready for pain – eat less than you need everyday and suffer through it until you lose weight.
Eating less calories will help you drop weight but it also makes you miserable. And, as your body adapts it gets harder and harder to sustain resulting in most people just giving up. Their quest for quality, diet information resumes and most of what they find are fad diets which again, contain some aspect of the 3 approaches. That partial truth “makes sense” and so we give it a try.
Here are some examples of what I mean:
KETO – The Keto diet works well and people lose lots of weight on it. Zero or almost zero carbs is the main approach. The issue that many people have with this diet is that eating that much fat (i.e. heavy cream, cheese, sausage etc.) every day is taxing to the body as fat takes a lot of energy to digest. Also, people eventually end up missing carbs (enjoyment?) too much.
VEGAN – The problem with the Vegan diet is that it’s not well defined other than the restrictions on meat and animal products. That means one person could eat pure sugar all day long and be a stout Vegan. Another could eat nothing but greens and low-glycemic index carbs, take supplements and be pretty healthy. Many people are somewhere in between with a good percentage of them not even taking it on for weight loss but for personal reasons.
PALEO/LOW-CARB/MEDITERRANEAN – These diets are overall pretty healthy ways of eating and are generally good for weight loss. Their shared foundation is low carbohydrates, no sugars or processed foods. Excellent if you don’t mind never having desserts again but you don’t have to be that strict in order to benefit from these. Again though, the problem lies with adapting to these diets and plateauing. Combining these diets with the 3 approaches to change things up works well.
You see what I’m saying. Basically there is no “key” so to speak, no one diet or method that is the answer to weight loss.
ORIENTATION
So how does one lose weight? By focusing on your insulin levels. Not by measuring them but by doing the things consistently that are known to keep their levels low, or at least from spiking, most of the time.
That means using any combination of the following:
– Eating low carb
– Fasting; Intermittent fasting or trying a diet like the 5:2 diet.
– Eating less
– Exercise
There’s a lot more about this in some of the other articles in the blog. The main takeaway is to stop thinking diet and start thinking insulin.
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THE EATING LOVE GUIDE (FREE)
The Eating Love Guide has helped many people regain control of their eating patterns, resulting not only in weight loss but also better health and improved self-esteem. To read it online, click here.
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