This is part 3 of the Self-Sabotage in Fat Loss Diets series.
In Diet Self-Sabotage 1: The Lack of Proper Expectations and the Proper Plan, I talked about the need to set both realistic and specific goals and expectations.
In Diet Self-Sabotage 2: Patience, Perception and Randomness is Dieting, I talked about how the body can give major fluctuations in terms of its feedback, and how we should take a long term approach to assessing our dieting progress.
In this last part, I’m going to extend from that last article, and talk about how some dieters are simply too strict with their diet. They think they must follow all the “rules” of the diet. I am going to talk about Flexibility.
My main concern is not that they won’t succeed, in fact, most OCD dieters tend to do tremendously well in the short run. My concern is with those dieters who either abandon these habits, blowing up like a whale once the diet is over, and those dieters who have a lot of weight to lose and need a long-term sustainable method of eating. The solution here is flexibility.
More specifically, we just need the flexibility to achieve the criteria of dieting: A caloric deficit maintained with adequate daily protein, and proper resistance exercise. Other than that, everything goes.
The Rules of a Diet
If you’re familiar with mainly fad diets, you obviously know that they have their set of rules. Be it the Atkins diet where you must eat below 20g of carbs a day (or something like that), or the South Beach Diet where you are limited to Low GI foods, etc, etc, etc.
In any case, the only way that a diet can achieve fat loss is this: to force the dieter to adhere to certain ‘rules’ that inevitably cause a decreased caloric consumption to create a caloric deficit.
If you know that, then anything goes. Someone once said, “There are no flexible diets, there are only flexible dieters.”
That is probably one of the best pieces of advice you will ever get. My version of flexibility is defined here:
“To choose food options which satisfy dietary cravings, to make staying in a caloric deficit as easy as possible.”
What this means is that you should make up your own rules, but make sure you follow them.
Here are some basics to start off with: (assume a maintenance caloric intake of 2500kcal)
- Eat 1g protein per pound body weight
- Do resistance training twice a week
- Eat approximately 2000kcal a day (500kcal deficit)
- Drink 5 liters of water a day
- Have 6g of fish oil a day.
These are by the way what I deem to be the fundamentals of any diet. But then you can modify this slightly to your tastes. For example, by adding another few rules:
- Set aside 200 calories a day for chocolate to satisfy a nagging chocolate craving.
- Always eat veggies and protein before anything else
Basically, add rules to suit your own wants.
Or put another way: Flexibility ensures Long-Term Adherence.
The Christmas Binge
But then you may ask, what of the times when you go drinking with friends, have a dinner to attend, and a multitude of other social events.
Well, the first thing to do is to establish perspective. Let’s say you binge really hard, and consume 10,000 calories (which I think is pretty impossible for most people). If you have a maintenance of 2000kcal, that means 730,000 calories a year. Now, those 10,000 calories aren’t going to make you obese all of a sudden. Even if you suddenly gained 4kg the next day, it could well be just water retention due to the sodium, or the sheer mass of food now in your digestive track.
Wait for at least 5 days from a major binge to truly assess the situation, chances are that even eating 10,000 calories is not going to put on 1kg of true fat. (it seems that with very high calories eaten in a short time span, say 6-12 hours, not all calories are absorbed. There isn’t any real scientific proof, just the usual observation)
In these situations, I will recommend Lyle McDonald’s ‘10 tips to Deal with Holiday Weight Gain‘.
But of course, most of us don’t really eat 10,000 calories, even in a mega-binge. It’s difficult to really pin down a number, but important thing is to gain perspective of how bad things really are.
The problem with most dieters, is this: They think that just because they have screwed up on the diet based on a single event, they think the entire diet is ruined.
Inflexible dieters think that after eating out and losing track of calories, all is lost, and then proceed to binge for the rest of the day. Flexible dieters recognise that a single meal can’t do them harm, and then just to stick on the safe side, they reduce their caloric intake for the rest of the day, eating only veggies and lean protein.
Deviating from the Plan
Ultimately, you will stand to deviate from your plan if you do go out on a social event or other activity.
What I have found, and this is purely anecdotal, is that some people need to be ‘trained’ to give up their obsessiveness with regards to flexibility. I myself would measure out precisely how much I though ate during the event, how much extra cardio I needed to do, and many other things that were aligned with being “dedicated” to my diet.
Inevitably, life isn’t all about dieting, and it should stop you from doing some things you love (like hanging out with friends).
This bears repeating: There are no flexible diets, there are only flexible dieters.
Recognise that it is you that will have to deal with the ‘guilt’ of cheating on the diet. Also recognise that you can do something about that. In the end, the best thing to do is to really not care about it and simply continue on your plan from where you left off. In the end, any event will only slow down progress, never kill it, as long as you remain dilligent after the deviation has occured.
I know this is much easier said than done, and I will cover some of this in the last post of the series.
Ultimately, It is a Mindset
Flexibility is a mindset, and a person with long-term success at maintaining their ideal weight is bound to have it. 
Life has its ups and downs, and you seriously cannot expect to be able to eat on schedule all the time. As long as you’re not your worst enemy, even all the uncertainties life can throw at you can only slow fat loss down, never eliminate it.
In the last post, I will examine some concrete measures to gel together the 3 articles in the series. Basically: How to Not Sabotage you dieting efforts.
Related posts:
- Diet Self-Sabotage 4: Preventing Self-Sabotage This is the last (and shortest) post in Self-Sabotage in...
- Diet Self-Sabotage 1: The Lack of Proper Expectations and the Proper Plan This is the first post in the “Self Sabotage in...
- Self-Sabotage in Fat Loss Diets This is another series of articles centered around a central...
- Diet Self-Sabotage 2: Patience, Perception and Randomness is Dieting This is the second post in the series, “Self-Sabotage in...
- What to Do if You’re Eating out on a Diet – Moderation is Key “Everything in Moderation”, was what I remember hearing from my...
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