Diet vs. no diet

[JayRock]

I've tried many diets with good success, but with my life as a parent and trying to juggle two jobs, (both in personal training) it is just becoming too difficult to seriously maintain these diets. I'm pleased with my body now, would like to lose some bellyfat (at 14-15% bf now) but it's just not as important as it used to be. I'm curious to know if anyone here has had good results with just eating clean, as in balanced diet, and maintaining a good training schedule for lifting and cardio? Most diets have a 80-90% relapse rate anyways, especially for people who don't really need to lose much weight at all, it just seems more realistic and practical to skip out on the diets. Anyone else relate? (i'm not dumping on dieting, I understand that many people benefit from them and can remain true to them, but not everyone is the same in this area)

 

[Srt4Muscle]

IMO eating clean works just as good as anything if you actually can count calories. that sounds lame to some people but you'd be surprised at how fast your calories get above 2500 when your not paying attention, clean or not. i work over 50 hrs a week, easy and have 2 kids myself, diets are expensive for one and two you cant put the whole family on a diet. now im no expert and im barely learning how to cut for the first time right now but i just thought i would put my 2 cents as another busy father.

 

[JohnRock]

Most people don't know what it means to eat clean, despite what they claim. If you really do eat clean and exercise on a regular basis, it's almost impossible to be overweight at all. A diet is just whatever you eat. "Crash" diets are a bad idea for obvious reasons. If you're eating a sustainable, clean diet, you're doing it right.

 

[Torobestia]

I think a lot of people have pretty bad misconceptions about diets in general. You might think dieting is about "eating 6 times a day, egg whites for bfast, chicken breasts throughout the day with a cup of rice and some broc on the side." Honestly, everyone diets, and you can either have something along the lines of a clean, structured diet, or an unclean, unstructured diet.

The difference between the 2 (or 4, really) is that at one end of the spectrum you eat healthy foods, and/or you count your calories -either literally with a log, or you ballpark it within maybe 5%. So from day to day, there's some sort of regularity in your food intake, you are hitting some sort of calorie or macro goals, and you are eating foods that are nutritious. Of course this is not to say your diet is necessarily healthy from a holistic sense since eating only chicken, eggs, bananas, broccoli, and rice is nowhere near a well-rounded diet, but you're not eating lots of foods that have empty calories or lots of sugar (fried foods, candy bars, etc).

At the other end, you don't count your calories, and/or you don’t watch what foods you eat. So maybe you skip some meals, eat a few candy or protein bars here and there, a dinner maybe, cereal for breakfast, etc. Most people fall into this category. They don’t care what they eat in a meal, or what they eat throughout the day.

I think in the end you are very driven to fall in the first category. Beyond following the steps I laid out, the differences are small and are based on your preferences and lifestyle. Start at the top, just watching what you eat and trying to eat with some regularity and you'll be fine. This can mean just throwing together some sort of mega-protein shake for breakfast (protein powder, fruits, peanut butter or EVOO or EVCO, etc), preparing a chicken salad or something for work, and eating some meat and veggies for dinner, eat some almonds over a snickers bar ... whatever, but the point is to not needlessly obsess over the details. But do take care of your health!

 

[Torobestia]

Most people don't know what it means to eat clean, despite what they claim. If you really do eat clean and exercise on a regular basis, it's almost impossible to be overweight at all. A diet is just whatever you eat. "Crash" diets are a bad idea for obvious reasons. If you're eating a sustainable, clean diet, you're doing it right.

I was trying to write something this concise ... unfortunately it didn't come out that way, lol

 

[EasyEJL]

I've tried many diets with good success, but with my life as a parent and trying to juggle two jobs, (both in personal training) it is just becoming too difficult to seriously maintain these diets. I'm pleased with my body now, would like to lose some bellyfat (at 14-15% bf now) but it's just not as important as it used to be. I'm curious to know if anyone here has had good results with just eating clean, as in balanced diet, and maintaining a good training schedule for lifting and cardio? Most diets have a 80-90% relapse rate anyways, especially for people who don't really need to lose much weight at all, it just seems more realistic and practical to skip out on the diets.

look at the definition of diet

[h=2]diet[/h]
1. food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health: Milk is a wholesome article of diet.

2. a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person's physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease: a diet low in sugar.

3. such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing Invalid Link Removed: No pie for me, I'm on a diet.

4. the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group: The native diet consists of fish and fruit.

5. food or feed habitually eaten or provided: The rabbits were fed a diet of carrots and lettuce.

So maybe what you say applies to definition #3, maaaaaybe #2. Eating to a specific fat loss diet is hard, and there is rebound and low success but thats because people ignore #1,#2,#4 and #5. Your diet is what you eat. Crafting something specific to lose fat is one thing, having a controlled diet is critical to stay in shape.

so maybe your failure has been in targeting a short term diet in trying to establish a long term goal. Instead make it simpler, make it some way of eating you maintain day to day and forget about a specific short term goal. Then in a month or two if you aren't making some headway on bodyfat adjust intake quantities some, or drop a few treats/cheats out of the month.

 

[ZiR RED]

Semantics of the word diet aside...eat clean, have a general idea of how much you should be eating to achieve your goals, and train. The start of it is really just that simple.

Br

 

[EasyEJL]

the semantics are an important part. if he goes from being on a specified diet to eating "randomly" and unplanned then his ability to hit his goals is limited. If he's always on a preplanned diet, even if its not something limited then that starts to fade. Learning to eat and creating a long term dietary strategy is what is critical.