Diets do work…and they don’t work too.
The health and fitness industry probably isn’t serving you, the people looking to improve your health and fitness, as well as it could because of endless in-fighting, straw-manning, and practitioner’s unyielding desire to be right.
I have said this before but it bears repeating - there are many methods that work. Some methods however work better for some people and have fewer negative effects and/or more positive effects for those involved.
The inability for practitioners, trainers, coaches, nutritionists, and the nebulous group of people who simply espouse a particular methodologies rules as gospel (I’m looking at you keto) to think critically and to use political jargon here, “cross the aisle”, only keeps us all camped up on our own ideology islands. In turn, this leaves the people we came here to serve and support stranded at sea - left to drink the water around them which only ends up increasing their thirst (and by thirst I mean disenchantment and yo-yo-ing in and out of motivation).
As we’ve discussed before (link to methods article here) there are biological principles that apply to us all and, and as with exercise, there are no “must-do” health/diet methods/exercises.
Instead, we can take the most applicable parts of the HAES method, the most important aspects of macro counting, the best practices of mindful eating, (the best part of any method here), and make a recipe for the individual (that’s you).
Failure to look at the unique aspects of the individual, the preferences, the environment, the social support network, the history, the limiting beliefs, the ethnicity, the biological age, the metabolic age, the gender, insert literally any other specific factor for the given person here leaves people out in the cold and forced to believe that they are the issue when in fact its the quality of care being given that is letting them down.
Methodologies are neat and tidy. They make nice marketing materials and they make SUUUUPER sexy ads (especially this time of year) ANNNND they work for less than 1% of the people ANNNNND that 1% has an even harder time keeping weight off after their initial success. This is in my opinion not because nutritional and dietary interventions don’t work, but because sweeping blanket statements laden with judgment and expectation do not consider the individual despite the methodologies used (consuming fewer calories by mitigating ⅓ of the available macronutrients for example).
All this to say, if you are a health and fitness professional - please work to consider other facets outside of your own biases as you’ll be much more effective at serving your clients and theyll appreciate you more for that than anything else. If you are an average Joe/Joanne looking to improve your health and fitness, look for people who can help you determine which methods work best for you rather than square method pegs in round lifestyle holes.
Thanks for reading.
