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Many of us started this year with a new list of resolutions… And for many of us (me included, no judgment) the list might have gone through some transformations by now:
Some of you might also know that what is approaching so soon is the dreaded Blue Monday… Third Monday of each year, “blue”, because apparently it is statistically the most depressing day of the year. Why?
1) It’s a Monday (duh).
2) It’s quite a short day with relatively little sunlight.
3) By now we are all realizing that our New Year’s Resolutions are NOT going to work.
4) It’s often financially difficult, because we are now coming to realize that we spent too much money during the holidays! Ugh…
But let’s not allow the Blue Monday push us off track (after all, it’s just pseudoscience)! There is no bad time for resolutions, so… Why not START on Blue Monday? It can be much more positive of a day than the pseudoscience claims! To help you (and myself) achieve better results with dietary changes in 2021, I thought I would put together a short how-to guide to a few diets that I have tried in the past. I would like to underline here that I am not a dietician and this post is based entirely on my own experience. Some of you might know that I have struggled with keeping a stable body weight pretty much since I remember. My love for chocolate, snacking in the evenings and a hard time saying “no” to a yummy glass of wine or beer have made it quite challenging to not gain weight. However, I have had a few successful adventures with weight loss and I would love it if my story could help someone else too. So here we go!
Calorie counting and Volumetrics
Calories are a measure of how much you should eat to meet your general energetic needs. Every person has some specific base level of energy that they need for daily activities (breathing, sleeping and having all the organs functioning, but also actual physical activities). It is estimated that an average adult woman needs somewhere between 1600 – 2400 calories per day, depending on her activity level, while an average adult man between 2000 – 3000 (so unfair for us, ladies…) These calories are coming from food and drinks and – as you might be already guessing – if we eat more than we spend, we gain weight, while if we are in so-called “calorie deficit” (so we eat less than we spend), we lose weight. Not really a quantum physics kind of equation. So calorie counting works just like that. You use a calorie calculator for the calories you eat and the ones you spend during physical activities. One minus the other tells you how much you still have “in your budget” to eat.
Volumetrics in dieting on the other hand is all about “calorie density”. Some foods will have more calories and some others will have less, but what’s important here is how much volume these calories take (hint for weight loss: the more volume the better – it will fill you up without the extra calories). For example, a teaspoon of vegetable oil has about 40 calories. The same amount that you will find in… a whole head of lettuce! And of course a whole head of lettuce will fill you up much more and for longer than a teaspoon of oil, while providing the same amount of energy. Got to love that lettuce!
The calorie-counting and volumetrics-based diets and apps include Weight Watchers, Noom (USA and Korea) or Fitatu (Poland). At the basic level Noom and Fitatu are free and I will not lie, I myself lost some 17 lbs using Noom during the pandemic. They give you access to all features in their app for 2 weeks for free and you pay for it only if you want to keep using the extra features after these two weeks. If you don’t, make sure to cancel before the time comes, they will not remind you. The calorie counting and volumetrics – based approach to dieting works very well for my lifestyle and I found different habits that I have been developing very healthy, easy to follow and sustainable, so this is the diet I have been trying to follow.
When you are on a calorie-counting / volumetric diet, you need to constantly remind yourself that most restaurants have portions about two times bigger than the actual needs of an average person. So eating out when counting calories can be good for your wallet – any portion you buy should last you for about two meals, or you can share it with another person (right, Tony?) But at the same time, it is hard, because we all know how inviting and beautiful everything looks like at restaurants! We just tend to forget that the amounts of added oil or butter as well as sugar are just humongous (and let’s remember that these are very calorie-dense). And guess what? These are the things that are easiest to forget when counting things into our dietary budget!
Source: Tine’s Functional Fitness
| Advantages | Drawbacks |
| – First and foremost, these diets do work. – They are free if you are willing to put the work in. – If you set your goals realistically and don’t expect a miracle, you will not walk around hungry. – The results are sustainable if you end up learning new habits. – You can eat anything you want. There are no restrictions on “what”, but rather “how much”. | – It is quite a bit of work, it takes time and patience. No miracles here (not sure if that counts as a “drawback”…) – You need to remember to be very regular about weighing yourself and really log all your meals, even the small ones! – If you want extra help, you need to pay for it (I did pay for Noom). – If you expect quick results, you will be hungry! |
Links to check out if you want to see where to start:
– Noom (ENG)
– Fitatu (PL)
– Weight Watchers (ENG)
– HPBA by Anna Lewandowska (PL & ENG) – bonus: this one also has an app with workouts!
– You can also just have a physical diary and do the math yourself, using an online calorie calculator like, for example, this one: Example 1 (ENG), or this one: Example 2 (PL).
Low-carbohydrate diets
These kinds of diets rely on changing the sources of fuel for your body. What does that mean? There are three main types of nutrients which can give your body energy: protein (coming from meat, legumes, milk, eggs etc.), fats (all types of oils, butter etc.) and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates additionally can be simple (like sugar that you add to your tea or coffee) or complex (these are found in potatoes, noodles, rice, bread etc.) Carbohydrates (or carbs for short) are the most easily accessible source of energy for our human bodies. Check out my post about sports and how to do “carb-loading” before a long race! However, it turns out that we can “reprogram” our body to get the vast majority of energy from fats, instead of carbs. The most restrictive diet that uses this concept is the ketogenic diet (“keto”).
KETOGENIC DIET
I will start this little chapter by advising that before trying out this diet, I highly recommend that you talk to a doctor or a nurse. It can be dangerous for some people!
An average person’s diet consists of about 50% carbs, 15% of protein and 35% fats. If you are “going keto”, you will change this ratio to about 80% fats and 20% combination of protein and carbs. What happens to your organism when you switch the source of energy like this is ketosis. It is a health state in which fats become the main body fuel. Fats can be broken down by your body to ketones (therefore the diet is called “ketogenic”) and these ketones will be used for energy.
You might be correctly guessing that when your body learns how to use fats for energy, it becomes super efficient at… Burning fat! So that’s where the weight loss comes in. And believe me, it comes in FAST AND FURIOUS. I lost some 10 lbs in less than two weeks when I tried this diet. If you want to lose weight quickly, it is definitely a way to go. Additionally, once your body learns how to use fats for energy, it turns out that it is actually an amazing source of fuel! You will be energetic, feel like your mind is never “foggy” and you will be able to provide a lot of protein for building muscle strength if you wish to work out more.
HOWEVER! It also has many, many drawbacks to conquer. To keep losing weight, you need to maintain the state of ketosis. What that means in practice is, if you eat just a slice of pizza or a little bit of pasta, your body gets the “flavor” of carbs and completely forgets that it is supposed to choose fats over carbs… So no cheat days on this diet! Now, you might wonder what’s the big deal? If you get out of ketosis, you just get right back in, right? Well, getting “in” is really no fun. The process of changing the fuel for your body from carbs to fats can have many short-term side effects, including mood swings, fever, cramps, smelly breath (ketones smell bad), nausea, bad headaches, muscle soreness and so on. These side effects are often so bothersome that some people refer to them as “keto flu”. They do go away after a few days, but if you don’t want to suffer from the keto flu too often, you cannot let yourself get out of ketosis. So again, no cheat days. Or even cheat meals. Period.
I have one more cool fact for you, before I get to the advantages and drawbacks table. The ketogenic diet is often recommended in fighting some really difficult to treat diseases! While it has not been scientifically proven to quite cure any of them, there are multiple cases where doctors recommend that people get on this diet because – in controlled environment – it will not hurt them and it might actually help treat or at least ease the symptoms. Such diseases include among others: schizophrenia, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, childhood neurodegenerative diseases (for all you nerds out there, I mean the ones caused by sugar aggregates and not protein aggregates here). I don’t know about you, but to me this is just fascinating!
Oh, and finally… Eating out on keto can be difficult or easy, depending where you go. Nowadays many places offer keto-friendly options or substitutes. You can look up online which chain restaurants offer different keto options. It is also super easy to find many yummy recipes for many dishes online. I myself had a whole 16-day meal plan for that time and some meals (and desserts) were delicious!
| Advantages | Drawbacks |
| – This diet works and works quickly. – You can eat so many super fatty things and traditionally unhealthy foods on this diet! – If you keep this diet for long term, it has some amazing health benefits. – No need to count calories! | – For it to work, you need to stay in ketosis, which is quite difficult at first. – Getting into ketosis has a lot of side effects that are really unpleasant. – If you have high cholesterol, this diet IS NOT FOR YOU. – It is so restrictive, for some people it might be difficult to keep long term. – There are lots of restrictions on what you can eat. |
Links to check out if you want to see where to start:
– HealthLine (ENG)
– MedOnet (PL)
– PoradnikZdrowie (PL)
– DietDoctor (ENG)
SLOW CARB DIET
It’s a diet put together by Tim Ferriss, who is a life-style coach (for the lack of a better term to describe him). The slow carb diet uses the concept of cutting down on carbs, but not quite to the same extent as keto. While I will give you the main rules for how to follow the slow carb diet in this post, I also highly recommend to read “The 4-Hour Body” – book by Tim Ferriss himself. It is very well written and contains all the knowledge about the diet… As well as some other life-style advice (see the book cover below):
I had a pretty good success with slow carb – I lost some 10 lbs or so in about a month. It was easy to follow and sustainable for my lifestyle at the time. I first learned about it from Tony – now my fiancé – who started this diet in college, when he grew frustrated with the lack of results from working out. He wanted to find a good diet to supplement his workout routine and slow carb was perfect for him! By following slow carb very closely, he was able to lose fat pretty quickly and thanks to the high protein content in this diet, he also gained a lot of muscle in about a month. He continued with this diet for several years with great effects, but then… He met me and I wanted more variety in the food we ate! If you are intrigued, here are the main rules to follow:
- No “white” carbohydrates:
You can eat carbs coming from beans, but not from bread, rice, pasta or sugar. Dairy is also not allowed, so no cheese, no milk etc. - Eat the same few meals over and over again:
The best results are obtained when your body gets used to a few meals only. Your metabolism might slow down a little, but we will solve this problem in the last rule. - No calories in your drinks:
Drink lots of water, tea, even coffee if you wish, but no calories added (no added sugar, no soda, juice, most alcohols are also not allowed). The only caloric drink Tim allows here is: up to two glasses of red, dry wine per day. But really, 150mL glasses, not 750mL glasses… - Don’t eat fruit:
No fruit allowed. According to Tim, fruit is sugar and you don’t need sugar to survive, so you don’t need fruit either. Not on this diet. - Take one day off per week:
This was my favorite day every week when I was on slow carb! You can eat all you want, drink all you want, even to the point of sickness. Have donuts for breakfast, pizza for lunch and a burger for dinner! Nobody will stop you! You will spike your metabolism back up during such a kick and you might just get yourself so fed up with unhealthy food on your cheat day that you will happily get back to your slow carb diet for the next six days, without complaining.
Eating out on slow carb is no problem on the cheat day – eat all you want buffets are made for you. On the remaining six days, you are better off just eating at home or at least meal prepping. Nevertheless, Tim himself admits that there are some cuisines that are not hard to be adjusted for the needs of slow carb. The easiest is probably Mexican cuisine – beans are okay, choose a lot of meat, skip the tortillas and you are fine.
| Advantages | Drawbacks |
| – This diet works well, but don’t expect miracles. It will take a little bit of time. – It’s a great choice if you are looking for a good diet to supplement an already good workout routine. – You get a cheat day every week, so there is an assigned time for you to satisfy all your cravings. – The short list of allowed items to eat six days per week makes the diet very easy to follow. – Meal prep is super easy and allows you to save a lot of money! – No need to count calories. | – There is a relatively short list of items you are allowed to eat, so don’t expect much diversity in your meals. – There are lots of restrictions on what you eat… For the six days a week. |
Recommended sources of information:
– Blog by Tim Ferriss himself (ENG)
– “4 Hour Body” – book’s website, along with a sample chapter (ENG)
– HealthLine article (ENG)
– Zdrowie Wprost (PL)
Which diet to choose and what to do next?
You should always choose a diet that will work well with your own lifestyle. You can follow a specific diet 1:1 or just pick some concepts from different diets. Tim Ferriss in his book recommends that if you are not sure if you are ready to follow the slow carb completely, you could try to introduce a meal or two from this dietary regime and see how it works for you. Similarly, you don’t have to go all-the-way keto, but maybe cut down on carbs and see how your body responds to changes. Dramatic changes can be effective, but difficult to keep, so again: find a diet that works for YOU.
Another very important aspect when dieting is measuring your progress. If you are trying to lose weight, simply weighing yourself regularly is probably a good idea. However, you need to remember that your body weight is influenced by many different factors outside of just fat content. Hormonal changes, types of food that we eat, water “trapped” in your cells (you know, when you have the feeling of swelling a little) will all influence how much you weigh. So if you do measure your progress on the scale, remember to watch the long-term trends, rather than day-to-day jumps up and down. Another great strategy is to find other ways to measure progress! Watch the changes in your body closely: are there new muscles appearing as you start working out? Or maybe you have observed that your clothes fit differently? Or maybe you should just stop for a moment and enjoy the feeling of being healthy – it’s really a great progress if you simply FEEL healthy.
I hope the coming Blue Monday will not keep you from introducing positive changes to your diet! How will you modify your lifestyle in 2021? Let me know in a comment!
Martyna Scribbles 