Do diets even work?

I almos freaked out when I saw that I am weighing 83 kgs. My ideal weight must be around 75, so I put myself on a diet. Protein milkshake for breakfast and dinner and a light meal. I also go daily to a gym to do half an hour of cardio and a bit of weight lifting.

But... I have always been a food lover. Nothing I enjoy more than having a delicious meal, so this sucks, I am just hungry all the time.
Do diets work, or am I just suffering for nothing?

 

The best "diets" I have seen work on people is when it is a complete lifestyle change. They incorporated better foods and limited high-glycemic foods. Added some daily exercise and overtime got where they are and staying that way. Some of these people were also recovering from cancers, heart issues, etc.. and had huge improvements in their health.

Fad diets tend to work for certain body types and/or short term.

for starts - look up glycemic index

 

Just eat everything in smaller portions and exercise.

 

I agree with much of this. You can not just 'diet' you need to change your life style. I changed most of the foods I eat and my daily routine.
I went from being 270's - 280's of blubber back down to 220's and now 245 of mostly muscle 'in about a years time'. I'm still not super low body fat but getting close to 15% which for my size I am not going to complain, I'll never be a 6 pack individual

It also depends much on your genetics, I can't eat any crap foot w/o gaining weight. I have to be very, very strict on my diet and my weight training otherwise I do gain fat very easily.

 

Diets never work. The only thing that works is lifestyle changes.

But, fryman, you will love the fact you can get some serious activity underway once you get to the lower mainland. There are really great places to run, awesome trails to hike, most of which give you serious cardio, skiing or boarding is an hour from downtown Vancouver, while year round golf is a near reality. If you like the ocean, you can learn to scuba dive.

For my own part, I dropped from around 205 to 173 in recent years. For diet, I stopped eating a couple of pies a week and cut out most of the dessert type snacks. I have a monster breakfast, very high fiber and complex carbs so that it burns slow. It last six to seven hours, even when I go running for an hour.

But, the critical change was changing from being a professional couch potato to being a runner. Than transition took over a year of patient change. I was in no rush to lose the weight and I was in no rush to become an athlete.

 

If you love food, eat what you love. If you don't, you'll feel deprived and end up binging later. Just watch the portions and look at things as "treats" instead of staples if they're bad for you. Or if you want to eat them, promise yourself that you'll get up and do something to burn it off.

Try tracking what you eat and what's in it for a few weeks. Just knowing what you're actually putting into yourself w/o realizing it can be enough to motivate you to cut back a bit.

And obviously workout or just do something physical that you enjoy w/o thinking of it as exercise. It really makes a difference. When I push about 2 hours of working out into my days like now, I can eat whatever I want and still lose weight. Once I start scaling that back though I can't eat a lot of my favorite things in the slightest w/o gaining it back. You just have to try different combinations of activity and better eating or moderation, and see how your body adapts until you figure out what will work best for you.

 

Two of my favorite quotes are about diets and food:

'I once went on a diet, it was the worst 2 hours of my life' - Orson Wells

and the other
'A gourmet who counts calories is like a tart who looks at her watch' Anon

 

I have never found a diet that works, I am WAY over weight and I really Can't stop eating

Plus the fact that I never leave the pc and get no exercise is bad for me as well.....

 

aim 5-6 small meals throughout the day to get your metabolism going and do cardio 2-3 times a week

 

wHAT About Bodybuilding , it cannot be added to the list?

 

Of course it can be, more muscle you have the more calories you burn sitting doing nothing

 

Weights are too heavy.........

 

Bahh!
That's why you have to lift, to make them not heavy!!!

 

I don't believe in dieting to loose weight. I will eat what I want, when I want, and how much of what I want.

I, however, am not afraid to go out and get hot and sweaty. I have sat down at times and cleared several plates. I weigh 180 pounds at 6.0". I am actually underweight!!!

But, I do alot of exercise. I love exercise and that is what you have to do too. Right now I spend about 2 hours a day exercising. It makes me feel great too.

 

lol That almost makes you sound like one of those people with the insanely high natural metabolisms, that the rest of us all love to hate.

You're right though. Nothing beats a few hours of just working out hard, whether that be a run, hike, sports, weights... doesn't matter. It just feels good to get the blood flowing, and feels better afterwards to know you did it.

 

I had to get gutted like a fish... just came down to too many tries and for health reasons

 

Yeah; my metabolism is incredibly high; that I am very sure for. I can give credit to it mostly coming from most of my exercise. Exercising supercharges your metabolism... and eating plenty will just keep it on moving

To tell the truth; I gain more weight when I eat less then I do when I eat more. For the most part though, my metabolism is very steady.

You just have to become inlove with exercise I guess

I usually do stretches every day when I wake up for 15 minutes (you would not believe how much this helps out throughout the day and just general wakeup).

When the day is mostly over and I get home at 11 pm or so I exercise for atleast an hour. It helps me sleep for sure