Being tricked by fad diets?

Being tricked by fad diets? How would you know if you were? and here’s what to do instead!

Bottom line, all diets have the same objective, to force you into a caloric deficit. Without this you would not lose weight at all.

The difference with fad diets is that they do it while promoting a particular product or service designed to rinse you of your hard earned cash (and lets face it, with everything going on right now we stand need wasting money!). these are often accompanied by an unrealistic and unhealthy weight loss goal.

“lose 1 stone in 2 weeks with our fat loss shake”,”Get washboard abs in time for summer with our herbal tea” Sound familiar?

The reality is that we have all seen these ads for amazing and quick transformations but heres the truth.

You are being tricked by fad diets!

Extreme promises and results require extreme actions and restrictions to achieve.

Many fads run off of this basis.

Whether it be using an appetite suppressant or a laxative. Both of which are extremely unhealthy, Its only once you actually see the detail behind the pretty bow that you start to realise it yourself.

Heres what to do.

Educate yourself!

Hire a reputable coach to teach you all you need to know about health, fitness and nutrition.

Find a reputable fitness Youtuber that you can learn from and take the advice to build your knowledge and nutrition plan.

Do some research yourself. There are many articles out there that give you the facts straight backed with scientific evidence, find these, read them and enjoy your new found knowledge.

For those of you wanting to get ahead of the game right here and now continue reading!

As we already know by now your weight loss results boil down to being and staying in a caloric deficit.

What we need to firstly work out is your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and your activity factor (weekly exercise) which will then lead us to your TDEE (Total daily energy expenditure) to learn how many calories you burn in a day.

These are the calories you burn per day undergoing your usual daily activities as well as exercise otherwise know as TDEE.

Now, to get you into that deficit you have been so patiently waiting for we subtract 300-500 calories from this number. More doesn’t necessarily mean faster results here, remember, slow and steady wins the race!

Start with a 300 kcal deficit, you can always increase your deficit at a later date if necessary.

To speed up the process use this Calorie calculator to help you work out the numbers.

Becoming intuitive.

From here you need to listen to your body. You should increase your calories if you feel consistently hungry and decrease them if feeling overly full. The real answers come from the scale, tape measure and your pictures!

To start off with weigh and measure yourself once per week on the same day at the same time. Keep track of these numbers.

Take pictures once every 2 weeks on the same day at the same time and keep those pictures safe.

Ultimately it’s your results that will tell you whether to increase, decrease or keep your calories the same. Keep an eye on the numbers and they will tell you what to do.

BUT!

Don’t jump the gun on your decisions. Just because you haven’t lost any weight for a week or two doesn’t mean you should drop your calories. Most of the time this stall lasts for 2-4 weeks after-which weight loss presumes, be patient and trust the process.

Building accountability and sustainability

Next we need to build up your accountability systems, these are the things that will help you stick to these calories.

Purchase a digital body weight scale, I like the ones that come with a free app that connects to the scale to keep track of all of your weigh in’s. Like this one Here.

Utilise and app called MyFitnessPal to help you track your food and learn what Macros and calories are in each gram of food.

Purchase a digital food scale this will be useful when you need to weigh out meat or any other foods.

Download a habit app, this will be integral to your success. Creating a habit with a reminder will help you follow through.

Some examples of habits you may want to adopt.

Drink water, exercise, track food, complete 10k steps per day Ect.

See this article on The best habit tracking apps to help you find the right one for you. I personally like an app called Habit Now.

So there you have it! The best ways to avoid being tricked by fad diets!

As part of our team at Movement Health and Fitness you are taught all about nutrition and given the tools and accountability to succeed, whether it be in person in our fully coached gym or as an online client.

If you want more help achieving your goals Click here to apply for our help!