Diet and fitness FADS you’ve tried before...

I did the “Mayo Clinic Grapefruit Diet” too!

Regarding WW (which I have done and lost on), I have mixed feelings but personally come down on the side of fad and here is why:

(1) they change the system every few years bc they need to keep you subscribing and interested, so I didn’t like that what I had learned was constantly being replaced with new methods I had to learn;

(2) the point system, while similar to counting calories, really isn’t the same. WW wants to steer you towards “healthy” eating so they reward you by artificially lowering the point values of some foods (think free fruits and vegetables and now some proteins), and artificially inflate other foods (something low calorie but high sugar or fat). I hated that a piece of toasted bread (dry) could be like 5 points which might be 25% of my points for the day but I knew it was only 90 calories so it didn’t make sense to me;

(3) as someone else said, there is mystery around their points formula so it becomes hard to just adapt when eating out at non-chain restaurants;

(4) I felt there was no focus on maintenance or creating habits that were sustainable for a lifetime. Their entire business model is to create loyal lifelong members who diet, lose weight, stop going, gain weight, and then come back. I probably did this 5 or 6 times. There is a great WW episode on the podcast “Maintenance Phase” if you are interested (hosted by Michael Hobbes of the “You’re Wrong About” podcast for anyone who listens to that);

(5) In the end, despite losing weight several times successfully on the various programs, I never really did learn how to eat forever. I didn’t know how many calories it took to fuel my body every day, what kind of calorie deficit I would have to create to lose, how my body worked in relation to the food I ate.

I love CICO bc I feel like I understand my body so much more. I used to feel if I went over my points for the day the whole day was lost. Now I know if my TDEE is 2000, and I was shooting for 1750 calories, but I ate 1900, I still ate at a deficit so I’m still having a good day. Or if I ate 2300 and was up a pound on the scale the next day, now I know I couldn’t have gained a pound bc 300 calories is not 3500 calories above my TDEE, which puts my mind at ease. it’s all science and fact gathering about your body.

My mum tried the Cambridge Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, and (I can’t believe no-one’s mentioned this one yet) the ‘F’ Plan Diet. I really loved some of the meals she cooked us from that book - especially the fruity ‘bran cake’ - and I still like to add a can of baked beans to my chilli-con-carne when it’s my turn to cook up a batch, much to my husband’s disgust.

Lots of people have mentioned WW, but not Slimming World - a similar points-based system with ‘free’ foods and ‘syns’ (and is the one my mum has stuck with for years). I did lose a stone (14lb) on this but I didn’t keep it off. I do worry that all the ‘free’ foods are what keeps my mum from reaching her ‘goal’, and that maybe it’s deliberately designed that way...?

So, I’m not treating MFP as a ‘dieting’ tool, like I did last time round: the changes I am making now will be ‘for keeps’.