DIETS ARE OVERRATED
When it comes to putting the squeeze on your waistline, heavy metal beats diet food fads. Go crush your goals
Clean eating isn’t enough if you’re hungry for a slimmer physique. There’s a better way…
We’ve all been guilty of it: smugly swallowing a mouthful of greens before regurgitating platitudes such as, “Abs are made in the kitchen,” or, equally misguidedly, “It’s 90% diet.” We’ve been fed the same message for years – changing what you eat is the surest route to getting in shape for the long term. However, no matter how you serve it, it’s nonsense. Without rebooting both your training and your diet together, you’ll never tip the scales in your favour.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle confirmed this when they conducted randomised trials on overweight participants: a clean diet alone was nowhere near as effective for fat loss as combining good nutrition with exercise. What’s more, our obsession with food consumption could be distracting us from more urgent statistics. A 2009 study suggested that poor cardiorespiratory fitness was responsible for nearly 17% of male deaths, while obesity accounted for just 3%, once activity levels were factored out 1 . In short, you’d better get moving.
People may counter that, while a regular fitness habit is laudable, you can still achieve rapid changes in body composition through your diet. If eliminating carbs helps you shed your spare tyre in two weeks, you’ll be motivated to commit to a healthier lifestyle, right? Wrong. After five years, as many as 95% of dieters will be back where they started, and 41% will have regained more weight than they lost. One study even found that subjecting yourself to a so- called weightloss diet just once doubles your odds of becoming overweight in the future.
When you change your eating habits too quickly, your metabolism slows and clings onto every calorie, making weight loss even harder. That’s why, whether it’s keto or juicing, I’m cynical about any plan that’s short term or tough to stick to. Commit to anything for less than a year and you’re not giving your body time to adapt 2 . It’s exercise that makes a plan stick. As well as being beneficial in isolation, training has been proven to play a key role in diet adherence. Most of us underestimate the mental toughness required to resist cravings 3 , but research shows that even small amounts of physical activity help to strengthen willpower. One Dutch review concluded that forming an exercise routine leads to significant increases in self-control, probably because it increases blood flow to the frontal region of the brain. That means hitting the gym not only improves cardiovascular fitness, muscle mass, blood pressure and mood, but also steels you against the lure of the Golden Arches. The same can’t be said of any kale smoothie.
If you’re training hard, don’t be afraid to break from nutritional austerity with a cheat meal. Or have a cheat day. Rely on food alone for transformation and there’s no room for slip-ups: you can’t burn off extra calories without exercise. Workouts are what turns any reboot into a sustainable lifestyle, rather than a short-lived dietary denial. To make 2019 your most rewarding year yet, lace up your trainers.
“After five years, over 41% of dieters will have put on more than they lost”