A diet burger made from mashed pinto beans, whole-grain (hulled) barley, wheat germ, and seasonings
There is a movement that argues that diets don’t work, and that people don’t have to be lean to be healthy. Diets don’t work, they say, because, when people lose weight on a diet, they almost always gain it back.
Of course they gain it back! What would be the fun of eating lean all the time? There’s a fix for gaining the weight back: Do another diet.
Thus I often say that I’m an experienced dieter. The real trick with dieting, though, I would say, is to not wait too long to start a diet when you need to start a diet. For most of my adult life, my weight has cycled up and down by about ten pounds.
Gaining ten pounds is great fun. One feels lean after a successful diet, and one wants to celebrate. But eventually that will catch up with you, and another diet cycle must begin. The relative length of the cycles, for me anyway, is not that bad. A diet usually lasts for three to six months. Whereas a live-it-up spree can last from two to four years. If I had better discipline, I’d start a diet after gaining five pounds. That doesn’t work for me, though, probably because at five pounds I can still pretend that my belt isn’t getting too tight.
My first rule for dieting is to count calories, aiming for 1,200 calories a day. That’s enough to have a reasonable chance of getting enough protein. It would be possible to have a doughnut-only diet and lose weight on 1,200 calories a day. But that would be miserable, because one’s glucose level would cycle wildly.
It’s the simple carbs that have to go — bread and pasta, for example. Then, each day, one must figure out how to get enough protein and stay under the calorie target. Fiber is the dieter’s friend. You can have pretty much as much low-carb vegetables as you can eat. The fiber keeps the microbiome well fed, and I think that helps keep the appetite under control.
On a diet, you’re going to be hungry for part of the day. But that’s not so bad if you keep the carbs down, and thus the need for insulin. The current trend in dieting is intermittent fasting. I aim for 19-5 — two meals a day between noon and 5 p.m. I’m moderately hungry in the mornings, but I never go to bed hungry.
There’s pasta, bread, and potatoes in my future. But not yet.
Your theory makes sense. Last May my husband decided to loose weight. I asked him what he wanted to do to achieve that. He listed the following: eliminate all sugar, eliminate ultra processed foods, eliminate white foods, except veggies and cheese. He lost 30 pounds and has kept it off. We follow an 18/6 eating pattern which works for us. We eat lean protein, some cheese, lots of high fiber veggies, beans, fruit, especially blueberries and blackberries, nuts. Barley is a thickener for chicken chili.
We don’t feel deprived.
Along with the eating we walk daily.
Hi MHK: I wish I could get away with eating more cheese. I love walnuts; they’re a staple of mine. But I find that I have to cut down on walnuts. It’s 10 a.m., and I’m starting to get hungry. 🙂