Dietary infidelity is the surest way to divorce you from your lean nuptials. Even the most faithful intentions will be derailed if a diet provides as much satisfaction to our tastebuds as a sundried flip-flop. The psychology department of The University of Minnesota analyzed 31 studies on this topic. The fatal errors consisted of constructing diets around deprivation, self-control and thought suppression.
Ever had thoughts like the diet meme below?
Telling yourself you can’t eat your munchies and trying not to think about food are battles that simply can’t be won. Willpower might be finite but the solution is simple: construct a healthy, calorie controlled diet around your lifestyle and foods that you enjoy, rather than copying the latest diet fad. Take the time to learn to cook, too, because it’s the only way to create a marriage of healthy food and a fit bodyweight that’ll keep you around long enough to ward off sickness and embrace health, until death do you part.
The sustainable diet
On top of that, you want a nutrition plan that you can maintain and sustain for the rest of your life. Being flexible has been proven in the literature to keep you going. Ultimately, your nutrition will need to match a lifestyle that you’re happy with, rather than a nutrition plan that fits somebody else lifestyle and isn’t who you are. As long as you follow the simple, scientific rules of staying in a calorie deficit or maintenance (burning more calories than you consume on a daily basic), then the diet you end up settling for largely doesn’t matter as long as it makes you happy.
So, which diet or nutrition protocol should you go for? That’s the tricky part that will take some experimentation. It will take trial and error before you find one that you’re both comfortable with and can sustain. Remember that diets are not one size fits all, not black and white, but rather tailored to the individual. Even WBFF World Champion and Optimum Nutrition sponsored athlete Shaun Stafford has gone through this process, “It really took me years of experimenting to figure out what kind of diet and nutrition worked best for me year round but now I feel like I’m in a good place to sustain my physique”.
So, what are you waiting for? Get experimenting.
