Have you been told you need to lose weight for health reasons? Do you have a special event coming up you want to look your best for? Are you just not happy with the way you feel and look? Looking for a diet to follow but feeling overwhelmed with all the options out there?

While we always recommend sustainable lifestyle changes that can be followed for the rest of your life over short periods of dieting, short term diets can play a role in kickstarting weight loss.

The first trick to successfully dieting lies more in how you choose the diet than in the diet itself because a successful diet is all about adherence.

Are you able to follow the diet as set out for long enough to see results?

The below factors have the biggest impacts on adherence:

Is the restriction something you can easily live with?

In my case the minute I put myself on “Diet” and cut out a food, for example chocolate, I almost instantly develop an intense craving for chocolate. So develops a cycle where I “cut out” chocolate, crave chocolate, eat chocolate and then feel guilty for “breaking” my diet and start over again.  If you are like me then choosing a diet where a certain type of food or food group you are fond of is cut out entirely is setting yourself up for failure.

Is it affordable?

If the diet requires you to buy foods that are going to double your grocery bill then the chances are you aren’t going to continue on it for very long.

Is it palatable to you?

Eating provides pleasure. Eating should be pleasurable. If you are only eating grilled chicken and broccoli day in and day out you are going to get bored quickly and feel like you are missing out.

Does the diet fit in with your lifestyle?

Maybe you travel a lot or eat out a lot – choose a diet that will allow you to maintain it within the circumstances of your life.

How supportive will the people around you be of your diet choice?

Diets and exercise are both easier when they are done with others.

Is it going to aggravate any existing medical conditions you have?

Kidney stones, for example, don’t play nicely with high fat or high protein diets.

The second trick to successful dieting lies in what you have planned for once your diet ends.

Often people will choose a diet to lose weight for an event or holiday that is a short time away. They follow the diet, lose weight, feel wonderful and then once the event is over go back to their previous eating patterns. Let’s point out the obvious here – the weight you were at before you started the diet was a result of your eating habits and lifestyle at that time. If you go back to that way of eating and living you will return to that weight or, as is often the case, a higher weight.

Make sure you have a plan in place to relax the strict diet you were following into an eating pattern that is healthy, sustainable, and can be a life long choice.

Bear the above in mind when you read about the different, evidence based dietary interventions for weight loss below

Diets can generally be split into 3 categories:

• Diets based on the manipulation of macronutrient content (fats, carbs & proteins)
• Diets where certain foods or food groups are restricted
• Diets focused on the timing of food

The common thread through most of these diets is that they all generally result in a reduced calorie intake which in turn results in weight loss. Some of the diets result in faster weight loss, some of them are a bit slower but when studied over longer periods the amount of weight lost evens out amongst them.

How can we, as dietitians, help you? We can:

• help you follow the diet correctly while preventing nutritional deficiencies
• help you identify realistic goals
• provide you with a sense of accountability & support
• help you integrate back into a more normal and sustainable way of eating post diet

Written by Tracey Bremner