Diet works or it doesn't work, what does that mean? page 4

[JoanieL]

I was once going to write a book called: All Diets Work; No Diets Work.*

IOW, whether SAD, Primal, Paleo, Grapefruit, Leeks, Potato, etc., if you burn/use more energy than you take in, barring relatively rare metabolic diseases, you'll lose weight. Conversely, if you "diet" with the idea of it being a temporary thing, and you don't learn how to keep from going back to your old habits, even if you lose weight, you'll most likely gain it back.

In that sense, "diet" is used as a temporary term, as in, "I'm on the Fillintheblank Diet."

However, if your diet (now used as a permanent term) is filled with healthy foods that don't make you bloat, break out, have pain, etc., it will always work for you because you've designed it (perhaps using a blueprint as a framework) for you.


*Didn't write the book because I'm lazy and thought the whole thing was too trite.

[Leida]

4 to 6 weeks for me is a golden rule to see if any adjustment is giving me a desired result or not.

[gopintos]

How is one determining whether a diet works or it doesn't work? I hear many times people say "I tired this diet and it didn't work for me". How does one determine that? Don't you have to wait 30 years or so to see if you haven't developed some disease that you would normally expect to develop? There is no miracle after a month or a year. So why so many claim this or that diet is not working for them after trying to eat different for 2 months or half a year or two? What's the timeframe criteria?

I havent read all the answers, so I apologize if this has been said. I think part of it depends on what is the goal or purpose of "diet" in the first place. If it is dieting like most people refer to, as in I am going on a diet in order to lose weight, I think part of it comes from lack of knowledge along with the instant gratification.

What I mean by that, most ppl know they should eat less sweets for example. What they don't realize when they start to do that, (cutting carbs) that there might be the chance for carb flu, so then they wonder why they feel so bad and think it isnt working. Or when they do start to lose weight, and maybe add in exercise, they do not know that that might actually make them gain a few pounds from water retention. So they hop on the scale, because that is all they know to do, and they see a weight gain even though they have been eating this and this and exercising X amount of time, and they just get discouraged and say, what's the use?

JMO. I often wonder how many times I was ready to round the corner before I gave up. But I don't think I was actually ever serious enough though to even care. Once I became serious, I craved and searched for knowledge. And now I find that the more I learn, the more I dont know, so I am still just as confused most of the time, but I never give up

[cori93437]

How is one determining whether a diet works or it doesn't work? I hear many times people say "I tired this diet and it didn't work for me". How does one determine that? Don't you have to wait 30 years or so to see if you haven't developed some disease that you would normally expect to develop? There is no miracle after a month or a year. So why so many claim this or that diet is not working for them after trying to eat different for 2 months or half a year or two? What's the timeframe criteria?

Another here who DID develop a disease from eating the normal "non-diet" foods. Actually multiple diseases. It only took about 25 years instead of 30 to develop that particular autoimmune issue however, and another 13 to develop the second autoimmune disease because research had not yet linked the first one to the ever poplar and "healthy" grains.

I think that a few months to a year is actually perfect timing in which to possibly see a miracle occur.
I have. A disease that I have lived with in intense pain for 15 years, and had 10 surgeries for, has finally subsided... because I removed the component from my diet causing the autoimmune reaction. Grains.
This diet did that.
And I lost a bunch of weight too...



So, maybe you'd like to rethink what is healthy or unhealthy about the diet you are already eating. Diet doesn't have to mean a specialized plan you know, it just means the food and drink a one consumes regularly or habitually. What you are eating could already be causing you illness. And if you eat grains, especially GMO grains, that is almost guaranteed.
Troll on, dear KathyH... Troll on.