Why We Should Ditch This Weight Loss Approach

Before becoming a dietitian, I had a time in my life where I attempted to lose weight on my own. I chose an approach that I thought was science-based, but it turned out to be unhelpful and an unpleasant experience.

After learning more about the most effective methods for health and weight through my education as a dietitian, I now know better. I want to share my story with you so that you can learn from my mistakes.

When I was in university, I had gained some weight. My physical health was the least of my worries, because I was struggling a lot with everything else in my life, and was constantly stressed. Stress alone can take a toll on the body, but in addition to this, the stress was also leading me to eat more.

Meanwhile, I was studying science and was getting started in my nutrition science classes. It was at one of my first few classes where I heard the not-so-helpful advice about weight loss. In one of these classes, the professor's PhD student who filled in for the professor one day taught our class. She told us that "In order for someone to lose weight, they must have a 500 calorie deficit" and she left it there.

It sounded so simple. A plain old fact. It made me start to think that maybe I should give it a shot. "As long as I could stick to it, it could work" I thought to myself. After all, it was apparently based on science.

As I got home that day, I started planning it out. If I need to have a 500 calorie deficit, I need to first figure out how much calories are in my food. I realized I would have to track my calorie intake in order to achieve this.

I was able to keep this up for a while, but not in a healthy way. I was denying myself food when I was hungry. And sure enough, with this hunger came the constant thoughts about food. I started day dreaming about donuts, even though I never liked donuts before.

I became worried about every little thing that could be contributing calories, and was even over restricting nutritious foods such as oils and nut butters.

I kept up with it for a while longer, believing that my life would be better if I lost some weight. But with this approach, my life wasn't getting any better. I now had added another layer of stress and deprivation, on top of my already stressful and deprived life.

This whole pattern of strict dieting blew up in my face the day that it was my sister's birthday. She wanted to go to an all-you-can-eat style restaurant. While I was there, I tried to estimate how much I was consuming, but it was hard when the food kept coming. Everyone else was eating lots of food, and I felt like I should eat more as well. It was a lot harder to control my food intake when I wasn't having the physical constraints from portioning the food myself.

After the meal, I felt super guilty about eating more than I intended to. But it didn't end there. When we went back to our place after, her friend brought her cheesecake. It looked so tasty, and I joined in with everyone and tried some. It tasted so good that I kept eating. It felt like I couldn't get myself to stop. I'm not sure how much I had, but it was much more than 1 piece. Afterwards, I felt even more guilty. The one "slip up" felt so horrible to me at the time.

I realized that the strict dieting was just leading me have less control over my food choices as soon as I "let my guard down." The times where I "let my guard down" were actually activities that were good for me, such as socializing with others. Therefore, it wouldn't have been very realistic or helpful to avoid these activities.

Fortunately, I didn't keep up with this dieting approach for much longer.

Fast forward a few more years, I started to learn about different approaches to health and weight in my more advanced level nutrition classes. I was finally learning approaches that were person-based, not just a general statement based on a statistical number. I discovered approaches that actually work way better and are more realistic and intuitive for human beings.

I gave these approaches a try myself and loved them. They didn't feel like a "diet". I didn't have to spend so much time planning or analyzing my food choices and didn't have to feel so hungry. I felt more in control of my food choices, and was hardly ever overeating anymore.

One of the approaches I learned about was intuitive eating, which is listening to your hunger and fullness cues. Instead of relying on external cues like the amount of food on the plate or the amount of food or calories you are "allowing" yourself, you listen to what your body tells you it needs. After all, our bodies knows what is the right amount. For as long as humans have existed, our body signals are what helps us regulate how much nutrition and calories we consume. This has been around for centuries and has worked for humans throughout history. It's not some new, unintuitive way of calculating our food intake, which we came up with in the past 100 years.

In addition to the intuitive eating approach, I was also learning about what types of food are best to have most often versus foods or beverages to only have on occasion, from a health perspective. This was a much better outlook on food rather than labelling food as "good" or "bad" - it was just simply considering the types of foods that provide you the most health benefits, versus the ones that are best to have just as a special treat once in a while.

Less nutritious foods and beverages, which are "empty calories," are the ones that are best to have just on occasion. By focusing on health and having these foods less often, it also has the side benefit of reducing how many calories I was consuming, without over-restricting and without calorie counting.

In addition to trying out these methods, I was also gradually addressing my coping methods for stress and was slowly improving my life so that I didn't have as much stress in the first place. This included building friendships, improving my self esteem, and having more certainty and security around my career path and my financial situation. This was another huge aspect that helped me to stop resorting to food for comfort as often.

Lastly, I also learned about the importance of physical activity, but specifically the importance in finding activities that I enjoy (rather than viewing it as a chore). Physical activity is important for health and weight management, but not from a "calorie in vs. calorie out" perspective (We actually burn most of the calories we eat just from activities of daily living and the processes happening in our bodies). Even though it doesn't have the biggest effect on calories, physical activity, especially aerobic activity, affects our metabolism and can also help with burning fat (if that is your goal).

Doing more physical activity ended up having benefits on my mental health as well, both directly from the energy and boost in mood that it gave me but also from getting outside and doing more activities with others.

The intuitive eating model, focusing on nutrition instead of calories, stress management, and enjoying physical activity more, were game changers. Despite being non-diet approaches, they can still result in weight loss, especially if the source of the weight gain in the first place was stress eating. For me, this was definitely the case. I was able to lose the weight that I had gained in university by following these methods.

Regardless of weight, these strategies are truly better for the body and the mind. I feel a lot happier when following these approaches and a lot more comfortable around food. Instead of being preoccupied with the calories in food, how much I eat, and having resulting intense cravings for food, I can focus on my life and wellbeing.

Disclaimer:

The content on this document is not meant to replace direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

It is important to note that weight is complex. Metabolism can also affect how quickly people gain weight and how strongly they hold on to weight. If you'd like to read more about this, check out this blog on The Dark Side of Calorie Counting.