Why so many fad diets on the forum lately? page 11

[magnolia1973]

I don't think it is the fastest or even best way to lose weight. It is the healthiest way to eat and repair much of what made most of us fat in the first place. The fastest way to lose weight is an unsustainable program which generally means you will drop 20 lbs real quick, stall, get annoyed at starving and go back to how you ate when you were gaining.

Following PB means likely slow loss and changing body composition that means not a lot of reward on the scale at times. The other big benefit is that as the fat slowly exits, you are renourishing yourself and stepping away from the food patterns that made you fat. I get the feeling you only lose it once this way.

[DeeDub]

Wife and I eat, protein and some veggies every meal, again, how hard is that?

Bread is delicious. So is pasta. So are many other verboten items.

I make the sacrifice because I feel it is the best path for me -- but there is no question, it is a sacrifice, there are all kinds of foods I *love* that I no longer allow myself to eat, and it is anything but easy. Especially after doing it for more than a year or two.

And of course the ultimate irony is that not allowing oneself to eat available food is anything but natural (or primal or paleo or etc).

[paleo-bunny]

I don't think it is the fastest or even best way to lose weight. It is the healthiest way to eat and repair much of what made most of us fat in the first place. The fastest way to lose weight is an unsustainable program which generally means you will drop 20 lbs real quick, stall, get annoyed at starving and go back to how you ate when you were gaining.

Following PB means likely slow loss and changing body composition that means not a lot of reward on the scale at times. The other big benefit is that as the fat slowly exits, you are renourishing yourself and stepping away from the food patterns that made you fat. I get the feeling you only lose it once this way.

+1.

Everyone I've watched lose weight faster than me through conventional low-calorie dieting has put it back on again almost as fast, and some have made themselves very sick in the process, e.g. they've wrecked their thyroid or developed gallstones.

Big benefits for me as well as the fat loss have been building muscle and core strength, and normalising my immune system. I caught my first cold in about 18 months recently and I'd almost forgotten what it was like to feel sick with low energy. Interestingly this cold came shortly after a couple of deviations - eating some oats in a flapjack and a 1-hour chronic-cardio circuits class.

[Gorbag]

We must remember that dieters will sooner or later stall on all kind of diets - so changing up things is nessecary from time to time - even on the most solid ways of eating. A short time fad diet, if well designed, can give a new imput to reach your goals when things stalls...

[sbhikes]

I don't think it is the fastest or even best way to lose weight. It is the healthiest way to eat and repair much of what made most of us fat in the first place. The fastest way to lose weight is an unsustainable program which generally means you will drop 20 lbs real quick, stall, get annoyed at starving and go back to how you ate when you were gaining.

Following PB means likely slow loss and changing body composition that means not a lot of reward on the scale at times. The other big benefit is that as the fat slowly exits, you are renourishing yourself and stepping away from the food patterns that made you fat. I get the feeling you only lose it once this way.

This is so true. Both paragraphs.

Throughout this entire process I took every step with the idea of seeing what it would do to me. I mean, at first all I cared about was losing weight, but I was curious about all the other health claims people were talking about. So I tried some of the things they talked about and observed not what the scale did but how it made me feel.

So I first tried not eating any grains at all during the week, only on the weekend. I ate sweet potatoes with cheese for lunch. I was shocked at the way this made me feel. I felt hot, like having hot flashes. It was kinda cool. I thought it felt like something good was happening to me or waking up inside me so I thought, hmm, what else to try.

So then I tried LCHF (low carb, high fat) and wow, did that ever affect me. Firstly, all the cravings and thoughts of food I always had evaporated instantly. I was dazed and confused, with an empty mind and nothing to think about. Holy crap! You mean, I'm not just a weak-willed compulsive overeater? Did the food I was eating control me? Is that why I couldn't control it? So I stuck with low carb high fat because that freedom was worth all the low carb flu and inability to talk I experienced for the next month.

On and on, I tried new things. Eating more liver. Eating more eggs. Different foods. The hot flashes continued. I thought they were telling me, hey! More of that please. Eventually they dissipated and I hardly ever have them. Meanwhile an awakening began to come over me. I soon realized I was happy all the time and had more energy. I wanted to exercise not because it was medicine I needed to take to lose weight (or at least not gain as much) but because I just wanted to move.

I took more walks and made them mild instead of the death marches I was used to. Wow, that actually did something positive, too. I started running again, but not as a death run, just for fun and getting sun on my skin. I rode my bike to work for fun. Everything was fun. No counting the miles, no pushing as hard as I could. Just fun. Now I had even more energy and happiness.

Lately I've tried weight lifting. That has brought me even more positive feelings. I feel more confident, stronger, sexier, more energetic and hungrier. It has awakened yet more healthy feelings inside me. I'm still shocked there can be more. I'm probably going to have to bring back the sprinting that I quit a while back.

With every new thing I get a new burst of health, happiness, vitality and radiance. I just keep going. Whatever I try, if it adds real value, I keep doing it. If it doesn't, I cut back or cut it out. The whole weight loss thing ended up being really quite incidental.

I'll admit that I was disappointed that I didn't turn out super skinny, but the other improvements have been so amazing that I actually told someone the other day when she asked if I was still doing paleo and when was I going to quit, that I said I was never going to quit. I don't want to be who I used to be. The changes are so deep inside me that it's not about weight, it's about becoming a completely different person, a healthy, happy, confident person.

Maybe I'll try a fad diet someday to get more weight off, but at this point I actually look in the mirror and like what I see. I went out and bought a new wardrobe yesterday. I actually did feel like I was ready to let go of my fat clothes, that I've become a beautiful woman. All I have to do is stand a little straighter and I can see the men checking me out as I go by.

The tl;dr; is that if primal or paleo had been only about a crash diet and maximum weight loss, I never would have seen such a huge change happen in my life, a huge change that I know I can keep up with. It's not going to magically stop working tomorrow.

[magicmerl]

Good stuff, sb.

[Betorq]

Bread is delicious. So is pasta. So are many other verboten items.

I make the sacrifice because I feel it is the best path for me -- but there is no question, it is a sacrifice, there are all kinds of foods I *love* that I no longer allow myself to eat, and it is anything but easy. Especially after doing it for more than a year or two.

And of course the ultimate irony is that not allowing oneself to eat available food is anything but natural (or primal or paleo or etc).

Excellent bread is delicious but most is dreck I see out there, & pasta I find pretty dead & heavy leaden on my tum tum. The less I eat grains (3-4 times the past year, trying to be open-minded), the less I like 'em when I do sample some grains, even buckwheat my old fav.

I recall native peoples from the South American rainforests, when introduced to western tinned & packaged food, breads, sweets & all kinds of modern yum - they didn't even think it was food stuffs. Didn't smell like food I guess, as I know it sure wasn't looking like anything fresh or food-like they know from experience. I assume it would give them the runs or maybe they're too smart & wouldn't even eat it. I'll take my fatty salmon pieces, chicken livers & fermented foods galore & screw missing pasta & bread. I crave basically just fats, proteins, & green veggies & salads if I don't eat enough of them for a few days in a row. I have been enjoying some big ol' multi-berry yogurt smoothies lately for quick breakfasts.

Paleo/primal is part of me now. I may venture here & there a bit dietarily as I travel a lot & cannot or am unwilling to go to extremes sometimes to get a hunk or meat or a fatty fish (though I've been daily feasting on cheap off-cuts of fatty salmon for weeks since landing bac khome). Often I fast in response when I travel, too much fasting I know but I don't get hungry like I used to & burn fat so readily now. I've become quite lean & ripped but have lost a lot of the bulky muscle it took me months to put on (hard gainer), but I'm now a muscular, cut, skinny waisted dude again like I was in my extreme yoga days in my early & mid 30s. Can see my six pack belly again (surprised myself last week looking in a mirror), but without any extreme exercise or much exercise at all lately (don't hate on me- it was always there under my thin layer of persistent belly fat). I've just not eaten a lot of calories the past couple of months & I'm always walking a lot (now mtn biking too), doing some pushups & pulls up, some yoga when it strikes me to get a sweaty exertion on.

I fly out for Hawaii in 1.5 days as winter sucks here on the main land. Be swimming in the ocean soon & riding another mtn bike up & down the verdant hills of Kailua-Kona. Then onwards to Kauai end of Dec for another stay w/ a friend.

Life is good, things atrophy or renew & people break down & perish, or they evolve, improve, persevere, strengthen. And here we all are, witnessing it all & doing it, this thing we call life. Fad mono diets indeed! What a trifle it would be to eat the same food(s) for a week or two, though I'll be eating loads & loads of cheap ahi & other local poke' daily there.

[Betorq]

Kudos SB. I agree & am happy for and with you. I'm so busy living & enjoying this life, this body, I don't see why I would go back to grains or sweets, or off this superior way of freedom, ease of mind & body & natural happiness.

Is my life perfect or all my dreams come true? Far far from it - I have loads of real problems.

But I have a wide perspective now & a happy, gentle pause & pulse in my life energy - emotionally, hormonally/metabolically, mentally it feels nice to be alive & mobile. And I know goodness when I feel it in my life & this is a very good feeling I've regained in my life, feels like youthful vigor but w/ aged maturity - very cool. Now to find or be found by a lovely lady to sync & share it with... Been getting attention from the fairer sex lately since landing back in my Norcal. Some overt attention, some covert on the sly flirt, nod & wink, so that feels nice to know the pheremones-mojo is still working too, ha. Thanks PB

[magnolia1973]

We must remember that dieters will sooner or later stall on all kind of diets - so changing up things is nessecary from time to time - even on the most solid ways of eating. A short time fad diet, if well designed, can give a new imput to reach your goals when things stalls...

I actually disagree (for the most part). Do we stall, yes. But usually the issue is bad foods slipping back in or our body just taking pause, for most people. I bitched and moaned all summer as my weight loss stalled... and chocolate and ice cream consumption increased. Cleaned that up, weight loss. The last few weeks have been a scale stall, but I'm getting smaller.

Treat your body right, consistently and it will heal itself, including shedding fat to the point that it is in a healthy state. Now, vanity weight- chasing an abnormally low body % probably does not work that way and it seems like just about anyone here who is unhappy with PB and following it carefully is trying to shed fat that the body thinks it needs to be healthy. They aren't fat or overweight people.

[Sabine]

not allowing oneself to eat available FOOD [emphasis mine] is anything but natural (or primal or paleo or etc).

I have been trying to re-train myself, and see, that just because I would put items into my mouth, they tasted good, and they digested in some fashion, does NOT mean they are FOOD for me.

This is not easy. In spite of the fact that I feel so much better when I avoid them, 40 years of custom and conditioning are a formidable foe.

One of the things I do, walking through the bakery area at my grocery (to get to the cheese!) is imagine little floating poison symbols on all the items. As if I were walking through a deliciously-scented pesticide zone.