By: Matt Weik, BS, CSCS, CPT, CSN
How many times have you heard someone pushing a diet that is “supposed” to be the next big thing? A diet so amazing that just hearing the name of the diet flow off your tongue has you immediately experiencing body fat just melting off your body? It’s like… MAGIC. Right? It’s “The ONLY diet you’ll ever need!”
*facepalm*
You’ve just been duped (again). It’s cyclical. You start one diet, and as soon as you stop seeing results, you jump on the next overhyped and ridiculous diet. If that was truly the only diet you’ll ever need, why did it fail?
What’s the one thing they all have in common? THEY DON’T WORK. There’s a second thing they all have in common, but I’ll touch on that a little later in the article (you don’t want to skip over it).
Let’s dive into diets and why nearly every diet doesn’t work for the majority of the people out there.
The Lack of Science Behind Diets
Do you know what I look for when I want to try something new? Science and research. If it sounds too good to be true (like “this is the only diet you’ll ever need”), it probably lacks any scientific backing. Sure, people might say there is science behind it, but what they refuse to tell you is that either what was found is marginal at best, or they pull some odd fact out of somewhere and try to associate it and attach it to their diet.
Look, like with anything, there is no one size fits all. There is not a single training method that gets every single individual in shape, and there is not a single diet out there that will work for everyone. If there were, we wouldn’t be talking about 47.5 different diets out there (the half is for the person out there brainstorming the next dumb idea for a diet that is only halfway finished).
Research is constantly showing us new information about health, fitness, and nutrition — so listen to it. The fact of the matter is people base their decisions solely on what is published online, in the newspaper, or on the news. It’s all bogus hocus-pocus. If you don’t see scientific studies attached to a diet that is specific to that particular diet, don’t waste your time.
So, the next time you hear, “This is the ONLY diet you’ll ever need,” move right along and pay no attention.
You Need to Think Bigger Picture
Everyone wants a quick fix — the magic pill, essentially. Something that they can utilize that will provide them with maximum results for minimal effort. Unfortunately, nothing works unless you do. And that brings me to a critical point regarding this topic. Getting the health and fitness results you desire comes from a lifestyle change — not some fancy fad diet that doesn’t work or is impossible to adhere to long-term.
Most diets these days have you cutting out entire food groups, dropping your calories ridiculously low, fasting, drinking this concoction, and eating that combination. They don’t work. Do you know what works? A lifestyle change.
How many of you sit and watch hours of television each night? How many of you eat a snack while watching television? How many of you have no idea how much you eat when you sit down on the couch to watch a show because you aren’t monitoring how much of something you’ve consumed? Your first mistake is sitting on the couch to watch hours of television. It all falls apart from that one choice.
I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve worked with who said they don’t have time to exercise, yet they watch more than three hours of television every night. Watching the Kardashians, for some reason, has become more important than our health, it seems. You can easily fit in a workout during that time, DVR all your shows, and then watch them while blowing through all the commercials to save time. Or better yet, do cardio while watching your shows — then you can kill two birds with one stone.
People make excuses about why they can’t exercise because they haven’t made it a priority yet. When something is a priority, it finds its way into your schedule, and you commit to completing the task at hand. It’s about consistency. Exercise isn’t difficult. It takes effort, but so do most things in life that we want to achieve. So, why do people treat exercise and nutrition any differently and think that there is one thing that will fix all their problems?
The only diet you’ll ever need doesn’t exist. It’s a lifestyle and behavioral change you need.
The Second Thing All Diets Have in Common
When it comes down to it, every diet out there has one commonality — a reduction in calories. Period. Sure, they might remove this from the diet or remove that from the diet, but regardless, they all put you in a caloric deficit. And sure, that can help you lose weight, but at the end of the day, if you don’t change your behaviors, the weight will come right back as soon as you stop the “diet.”
How do we fix this? It’s simple — a lifestyle change. Eat less and move more. Stop sitting on your butt. Put down the fork. And make better choices. The kicker of this all is that you know what you need to do to reach your goals, whether that’s losing weight or putting on lean muscle mass. You know how to do it. It’s just a matter of making it a priority and dedicating yourself and making that commitment.
There are no fancy workouts. No fancy diets. Just consistency over the long term. Stop believing the hype when people say, “This is the ONLY diet you’ll ever need!”
Things done consistently over the short term will amount to huge wins in the long term. Stop believing everything you see online. There is no such thing as a magic diet you should be using. Simply watch your calories, remove unhealthy food and choices from your life, and stay consistent. The results will follow.
Simplify the Entire Process
Dieting doesn’t need to be bland and boring. You don’t need to consume chicken, brown rice, and steamed broccoli at every meal in order to get results. In fact, here at MuscleSport, we despise such things. That’s why we created Lean Whey.
Why not make dieting fun, exciting, and delicious? Our customers rave about how they look forward to their shake during the day, and we’d have to agree with them.
You can use MuscleSport Lean Whey however you wish. Some people start their day with a healthy shake and add in some frozen fruit, healthy spinach, and even some natural peanut butter for some healthy fats. Others save it as a post-workout treat like a reward system, while others use it between meals to help them stay full and not hit the vending machine or convenience store.
Your diet shouldn’t be something you dread. MuscleSport Lean Whey simplifies the process while making it delectable and fun.