We all generally know how to lose weight. We either eat less calories or we burn more calories from exercise. We stick to a scheduled workout plan, move our bodies, eat nutritious foods and drink water.

Why is it that we are unable to maintain fat loss after we achieve it? Experts say that 80-90% of people who lose a significant amount of weight, eventually gain it all back.

Now you can argue metabolic adaptation or talk about weight set balance, but the number one reason is simple. Sustainability. The diet’s we choose to follow to lose weight are not sustainable.

Think about all of the popular “diets” out there. All of them restrict some sort of food or macronutrient. People zealously defend each of these diets, stating that this or that food is “bad” and “our” food is good.

Vegans say that meat is bad. Carnivore diet followers say the opposite. They say that meat should make up the majority, if not all of your diet.

Ketogenic dieters almost entirely restrict carbohydrates, following the trend of the Atkins diet.

People have argued that fat is bad, carbs are bad, sugar, meat, vegetables, high protein, etc. You name it. There is a diet out there that restricts it.

Paleo followers restrict all sugar, most carbohydrates and anything that our ancestors didn’t eat 10000+ years ago. They didn’t eat Doritos because they didn’t have access to them. You do. And herein lies the problem.

We have access to tens of thousands of products at our grocery store. We all know what pizza, steak, Doritos, ice cream, strawberries and bread tastes like. The minute we start to restrict any food, for reasons other than an intolerance or an allergy, we are doomed to fail.

The reason is sustainability. Most people, when told that a certain food is “off limits” or “forbidden”, cannot help but think about that food they are missing out on. It may not be on day 2 or day 200, but eventually there will come a day where that food is all that they can think about. Then, they cave, feel like a failure and give up on their diet plan entirely.

Even if you’re not one of these people, there is another reason. The same habits and principles used to lose the weight are the same habits and principles you need to follow to maintain your weight. Sure, you lost 20-30 pounds because you avoided carbs for six months. But can you avoid carbs for the rest of your life? If not, the diet is not sustainable and eventually the weight will come back on. You’ll remember that time in 2025 when you lost 30 pounds. It’ll be a footnote, rather than the main story. Because the weight will come piling back on as soon as your “transformation” has ended.

What we are looking for here is sustainability. The #1 factor to keeping the weight off is to find a way to lose the weight in a sustainable fashion, with habits that you can keep using, long after the weight has come off.

I am not against any of the diets mentioned above. IF they are sustainable to you. I will say that Vegans have shown a strong will to maintain and sustain their way of eating over many other of the fad diets. This is likely due to their ethical reasons for eating this way. Regardless of the diet you follow to lose weight, ensure that it is sustainable long after the diet ends. Don’t even start the diet if you cannot see yourself eating this way in two years or ten years.

Fitness and nutrition is a lifelong endeavour. We need to stop treating it as a 6 month challenge or a 90 day transformation. Find a workout plan and a diet plan that you can sustain for years and decades. There is no fad diet plan out there that is magic. They only work because they put you in a caloric deficit. There are no magic foods.

Sustainability is key. Feel free to try out any of these diet plans and see what is sustainable for you. However, a more realistic and sustainable strategy would be to cut out as few foods as possible. Just focus on eating mostly whole food, single ingredient foods that you enjoy. The rest of your diet can be made up of all the other foods that you enjoy. This is sustainable.

If you are looking for a sustainable way to lose and keep the weight off, check out this article.

The 8 Rules of Nutrition