I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but newsflash… DIETS FAIL. Why do they fail? Mainly because they are unrealistic and are a poor long-term strategy. How do you win? Make your nutrition part of your healthy lifestyle.

The hype isn’t reality

How many times have you jumped on the newest diet trend and took an L? Why didn’t you stick with it? Because it was pretty ridiculous and something that’s impossible to implement 365 days a year, right? Diets fail because they force you to completely change your lifestyle and eating habits. I’m not saying that all change is bad, but when you remove an entire macronutrient from your diet to fit a certain diet it makes it extremely difficult to adhere to it. There are diets that cut out carbs while others cut out fat. Listen, don’t believe all the hype – you need to follow a lifestyle that will create success.

What can you do?

For starters, stop listening to internet gurus who tell you it’s healthy to completely cut out an entire macronutrient or drop your calories so low that your body goes into starvation mode. Something that I have seen many people utilize successfully is intermittent fasting (IF). While this is technically a “diet” it’s more of a lifestyle. How does it work?

Intermittent fasting is great for those of us who live a crazy hectic life. We are always on the go, always working, always rushed. Many don’t have time to sit down and eat and that’s where they fall into the trap of grabbing unhealthy fast food choices. With intermittent fasting, you give yourself an 8-hour eating window and a 16-hour fasting period. Many will begin eating at noon, go until 8pm, and then stop and fast until noon the next day. There are many health benefits to this which we can probably write an entire article on (and maybe we will in the future).

The 8-hour window allows you to fit in as many meals as you want in order to take in your calories and macros for the day. You can make that 8-hour window wherever you want. You could go 2pm to 10pm if it works better for you. The nice thing is, with a busy schedule you can consume two meals or more (depending on your schedule) a day and not only get health benefits, but also drop body fat. Crazy right?! The reason why this works so well is that it’s a lifestyle. You aren’t cutting out macros or depriving yourself of certain foods, you’re simply shrinking the window of when you eat and expanding a window where you fast. It’s much easier to follow than any other “diet” I’ve experienced.

Stop thinking you need to try the next big hyped diet. Remember, diets fail. Find something that you can implement into your lifestyle so that you don’t need to think about how difficult it is to go out to eat or go grocery shopping. Those diets cause you to want to binge and eat everything in sight – not ideal. Focus on working your food and meals around your lifestyle. But again, being as busy as we all are, I see a huge benefit to trying intermittent fasting. It might take a few days to get used to not eating “breakfast” in the morning (heck you could start your window in the morning if you really wanted to) but once your body adapts, it’s smooth sailing and you’ll never look back.