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Signs Your Diet Is Working
Health | April 20, 2019
With so many diets to choose from, each with their own variations, it’s any wonder if a perfect way of eating truly exists. How can we ever know what’s going to work best for us if there always seems to be a new trending style? And furthermore, how do we know if any of those diets will work for us? If you’re scratching your head while trying to find your perfect match, then read on, as I’m going to explain the signs that can help you understand whether your diet is, or isn’t, working for you. This can be applied anything from paleo to vegan to keto to everything in between, so this isn’t about discriminating against or choosing one diet over another. It’s a blueprint for you to use as you start customizing your lifestyle according to your unique needs.
Now, let’s get started.
Sustainability
Right off the bat, you should be thinking about how long your diet can be maintained. Do you think that you can continue eating a certain way, whether it’s low or high carb, fat, or protein, 365 days a year? A sustainable diet is something you can see yourself doing in the long run. Most diets work… as long as you can sustain them. If the future includes this diet of yours, then great! But if picturing yourself on it as you get older makes you miserable, then the chances are that your diet is not sustainable. For instance, I cannot recommend nor practice myself a starvation diet. Cutting calories dramatically for an indefinite period of time isn’t only unsustainable, it’s also detrimental to my health. Not only will I not be able to fuel and recover from my workouts, but I’ll also eventually start to experience severe health problems down the road. Ladies, this could manifest in things such as hormone imbalances, missing periods, nutrient deficiencies, bone loss, insomnia, mental disorders, inflammation, and extreme risk for developing numerous diseases and infections. Therefore, a starvation diet is not sustainable. I can’t imagine going through life like this, and neither should you. All in all, your diet should be with you for the long run. Not a one-night stand.
Physical Results
Perhaps an obvious thing to pay attention to is how your diet affects you physically. Does it help you to reach and maintain a healthy weight for your body? Are you looking vibrant and healthy, or sickly? When you get your bloodwork done, do you come back with great scores, or are you giving your doctor a fright? Once more, think about the physical implications of your diet. If it’s causing your hair to fall out, your muscles to disappear, and your body to deteriorate, then perhaps you need to reassess it. First, are you eating excessively or barely at all? Second, what is the quality of your food (i.e., whole foods versus processed, conventional foods)? And third, does it provide enough nutrients? If adding a supplement or two to fill in the gaps- as in the case of things like Vitamin B12 and D in a vegan diet- doesn’t help, then once again you’re going to have to consider if this diet is best for your body. On the other hand, if you’ve got plenty of energy to go around, your hair and skin look good, you’re not having trouble going to sleep, your hormones are balanced, and there appears to be no nutritional deficiencies whatsoever, then you may have found a good fit!
Mental Results
The next thing you’ll want to check is your mind. Is your mind also a reflection of your diet? Let me explain. When you’re eating a certain way, does it give you positive or negative emotions and thoughts? On the one hand, you could be miserable, depressed, or cranky on your diet. You hate having to do whatever it requires and are always complaining about it as if it were a jail sentence. On the other hand, you could be happy, pleased, and satisfied with your diet. You enjoy it so much to the point that you wouldn’t even call it a diet. Instead, it simply becomes ingrained into your life. It’s a part of you and you couldn’t think of doing anything else. Start paying attention to the impact your diet has on your mind. Whether it’s influencing you in a positive or negative direction, learn to recognize the power of food and determine whether or not your current eating style is for either your mental benefit or detriment.
Your Personal Life
Not many people talk about this, but how does your diet affect your personal life? Aside from your physical and mental well-being, do you know the impact it may have on your relationships, finances, and ability to travel? You’d be surprised by how isolating a diet can be if it’s not for the right person! If it’s causing a rift between friends, or keeping you from enjoying a good meal with someone you love, is it really worth it in the end? Are you afraid to go out on vacation because of it? Do you have to spend more money than you can barely make on it? This goes back to sustainability. If a diet is stopping you from socializing, trapping you alone in your house, and making you bleed financially, then it may be time for a reality check. I’m not saying you should stop eating quality foods, eat out at fast food joints on the regular, or consume foods out of social obligation, but I do ask that you think over the implications that your diet has over your personal life. If you can eat comfortably without any stress with your family, can go out and order food that works for your diet (or even let yourself enjoy the occasional treat without guilt), and are not living above your means because of it, then you’re on the right path.
Like I wrote before, practically all diets work. As long as you’re able to follow them and remain consistent (as you ideally would with your workouts) without jeopardizing your health and personal life, then it’s a safe bet that your diet is working. If there’s ever any doubt, read through this post again and begin asking yourself these questions. Try to get the big picture with your diet of choice and determine whether it’s working for or against you. After that, the choice is ultimately yours to make. Let me know in the comments if this helps, and the other things you look out for to make sure your diet works for you!
Private Member |
Nice article. After years of experimenting (low carb, high protein, vegan) I found a way that perfectly suits me. I am vegetarian (although I love the idea of being vegan wihout harming any animals, I found it very hard for me to follow and I was hungry, felt I almost cannot go out to eat or travel (just specialized places)). I aslo experimented with low carb in my teens but it doesnt work for me, as I felt like no energy and needed to eat more. I need some carbs,I eat tons of fruits that make me feel energetic and I am actually more lean when eating bit of carbs than without it. I cannot imagine myself eat meat again. It smels really badly to me. But I know not everyone is the same and what is goid for me can be bad for someone else. One thing is for sure – whole foods and no sugar is the most essential.
Private Member |
ellijay, ga, united states
I find it fascinating how different we were all created! I’ve been doing experimenting and fine tuning and have been finding what works best dor me. My diet was working ok (it wasn’t not working 😜), but a few tweaks made a noticeable difference for me. When I went on keto, I found it tweaked my hormones so that during key times (2 weeks or so! Ugh!) I was having water retention and bloating. After 8 weeks, I noticed I was starting to lose hair, and that’s not good! I introduced carbs back and the hair loss stopped and I leaned back out. However, I’ve tweaked it so that I’m eating keto during the day (staying in ketosis, according to blood testing), eating enough carbs for dinner to knock me out, then I’m back in the next morning. My body seems very happy with that. In addition, I’ve nailed down foods that were causing me to react/bloat. Coconut flour, erythritol, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts were all big culprits. Healthy…but uncomfortable. I’ve also been careful to keep my fiber intake up (I’ve been loving making fiber filled snacks out of natural fiber sources). I also noticed I’ve been craving/eating a lot more meat (we do our best to get meat from good sources). The combination of all that (and, of course, the daily workouts)…I’ve found this has gotten me to my leanest!
It took experimenting. Not everyone is going to have the same food sensitivities, and what might lean one person out might make another feel heavy and gross. It always irks me when I hear people telling others that there’s ONE diet that works for everyone. I love that you promote bio individuality! I figure – keep things clean as a starting point, make sure the foods are providing benefits (not just empty calories) and personalize from there! 😊
Private Member |
salem, or, usa
More fiber and water, less fat and sugar are what are working for me. But I’ve had to do a great deal of experimentation to find that. I can’t do the low-carb. I’m starving all the time and feel terrible. I can’t do keto because I don’t have a gallbladder. All the fat, even healthier sources of fat on a plant-based keto diet, are really hard for me to digest. Not to mention the bloating and gas that I get from the all the cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. And I can’t do vegetarian or vegan. Without lean sources of protein in adequate amounts, I have no energy, I’m weak, I feel terrible, and my hair starts to fall out. And as for sustainability, many of the diets I’ve tried have been exorbitantly expensive and have made me miserable to try and follow. If being “healthy” makes you miserable in one form or another, it’s not really healthy.
I’ve found that a mild to moderate reduction in daily calories (I’m still eating about 1600-1700/day), limiting my fat and sugar intake, really upping my fiber and water intake (a gallon of water/day), has made a huge difference for me. I have lost 11+ pounds in the last 5 weeks and I feel good. I’m trying to get 8 hours of sleep a night, and I’m mainly following the Beginner workouts with a few deviations for some of the harder ones. But I also recognize that my 6 yr old daughter and my husband have different needs from me. So when I make family meals, I make a core dish that we all can eat, and then I add or subtract a few sides for each person to help them get what they need from their diet.
We are all unique individuals, not just in personality but biologically, down to a cellular level. Our very DNA is unique from person to person. Why would we think that any one diet would work for everybody across the board? I love that this is starting to become recognized more.
Private Member |
switzerland/, france
Working around family meal plans is really cumbersome.I do the same.
As for DNA, latest research shows it is not really our DNA but our gut biome that drives things. (The type of bacteria in our intestine that “tells” us what to eat but the goods and the bads have different wishes ..luckily we can influence)
I still havent found why I bloat, even on fasting days. Maybe I swallow air when I talk. ?!next morning it is all gone. Also my posture and pants I wear influence my gut motility, dang it is quit a riddle to solve
Private Member |
Aleta,
I full heartedly agree with you. Keep it up. You are doing great!
Private Member |
salem, or, usa
Thank you, Helyas! 😊
Private Member |
I agree with Laila’s DNA comment. In the late ’90s, early ’00s, dna was used as an excuse for being obese, which led to more obesity here. Since then, the media has switched their attention to healthy diet (lately). Although, locally, there’s a city proposing a soda tax, and there’s a group “protesting” that it unfairly targets poor people. Um, I grew up poor, and we drank water – the (almost) free kind out of the tap. And are there everyday citizens protesting, or rather, the companies who fear losing money from the possible decline in the sale of soda? Why the media falls for this obvious stunt, I don’t know.
I grew up drinking milk/eating dairy products fine, and now it bothers me. It causes me to bloat, and for my face to break out (the breaking out part is from the hormones in it, I’ve read). Also, I only do organic dairy, and have read that we have some lax standards on what can be considered organic. Anyway, it bothers me now. BUT, and here’s a big but… I can eat cheese from France, and I’m fine. Why? It’s got to be linked to what the animals are eating.
It’s like when I went to New Zealand, and the lamb and steak there tasted like a dream – a marked difference from how they taste here, due to their superior food standards. I also have a friend who stopped drinking US wine, after finding out that ONLY wine from the US gave her headaches.
You can try to wash pesticides off your food, but you can’t wash it OUT of your food. Food grown in pesticide-laden soil gets it’s nutrients from the same said soil. A man was just awarded $80M, for Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide causing him to get cancer. Think of the harm industrial-grade pesticides have on us after we consume them.
And then there are GMO foods (hello, again, Monsanto). How does our body react to those? I know one thing for sure – when I grow my own strawberries, they taste 10x better than the “organic” ones I buy in the store. What’s the difference? Point being, sometimes it may not even be the type of food that affects us. Our body’s reactions might have nothing to do with the food itself, and everything to do with the environment the food was grown/raised in/what it was fed/etc.
Another thing that I’ve noticed, is that my body reacts to getting my 10k steps a day. I can eat as healthy as I want, do my Z workout every morning, but if I get complacent and sit and work at the computer for the next 8 hours, without doing my walk breaks, I feel it, and I see it. They say sitting is the new cancer. I can see/feel why.
Big picture: everything is connected, and you can’t just look at diet in a silo. What else is going on?
Private Member |
st. peter, minnesota, usa
I have found that a moderate carb diet works the best for me. I get the leanest and have the best blood work results on low carb, but lifestyle and my abundant food intolerances make it too hard to stick to a permanent low carb diet. I just (try to) accept that I won’t be ripped, and remind myself that strength and flexibility is the important part anyway.
Private Member |
waco, tx, usa
I’m coming to terms with this too. Low carb makes me drop weight fast but the thought of a life without homemade tortillas makes me incredibly sad. So I’ll skip the abs and occasionally have Mexican food. 🙂
Private Member |
hailey, id
fun article and comments, Z
..and with that, I hope I don’t insult everyone, but I actually feel I have had the healthiest life, ever, since I’ve been eating a pizza a week for more than 20 years.. maybe 25. I only have from less than 1/4 to less than 1/2 of a pizza, nearly daily, for dinner, with a glass of wine. Sometimes 2 glasses.
But —— BIG BUT —— I also INSIST on listening to my body – I don’t “lean towards” quite a few foods that most lean towards as ‘good for us.’ I let my body say “ya…. i’m feelin it… ” as I go by every kind of food in the store. With this, I’ve been able to find that avocados, chevre goat cheese, grains, greens, water and lots of oils are my mean-machine fuels.
.. AND.. I insist on 50 mg of iodine every day – no hormone or hair-loss issues since I started this in 2014.
And – I insist on a lot of WATER
AND, I insist on LOTS of fiber, seeds, nuts, coconut, greens, water and berries for the rest of my day. Today, I started my breakfasts back up on simply delicious breakfast:
about 6 oz of raw, grass-fed cow’s milk, with my Nutri-Bullet ground mix of all organic, non-GMO and crazy mix of flax, chia, raisins, walnuts, almonds, cacao treats, hemp seeds, cinnamon, enzymes, probiotics, prebiotics, Garden of Life protein powder mix with live greens, a variety of ancient grain cereals, and frozen berries
…. then.. for lunch I have organic quinoa that I mix with some sort of crazy, off-beat organic soup – with no chemicals – and ripped arugula, greens and cabbage ..
..and you already know my dinner 🙂 <3
… NOT TO MENTION.. I love exercising, daily.. even if it's just a light walk, .. I know I've not done 'nuttin, honey..'
Private Member |
I am so impressed and inspired by what you’ve shared, TANYA RUDY!
Your solution sounds healthy and pleasant. Btw in the evenings I drink wine, too. 4 years ago I stopped the meat. Do you eat any?
Thank you, girl!
Private Member |
hailey, id
😀 thanks Kristina !
yes, I like most meats, but don’t eat much.. I like fish the most, and will usually have Ahi tuna at least 2-3x a week
Private Member |
rehon, france
Hello everyone!
I am new here, I don’t know how to find the regime that suits me.
Do you eat differently from your family?
Thank you!
Stéphanie