“No more ice cream until I lose 25 lbs.”
“I don’t plan to even think about carbohydrates for the next 4 weeks.”

These are common mindsets when it comes to fat loss. We have to restrict the crap food and replace it with chicken and vegetables, right?

It seems to make sense that we should eliminate problem foods that are high calorie when we want to lose body fat. So no more ice cream, cookies, chips, hamburgers, or anything that tastes good. 

Which a lot of times leave us with food that we don’t really like or tastes like cardboard. And for a period of time it might actually work. 

We see some changes, the scale is responding, and life is good. Fast forward to week 3 and we’ve likely fallen off the wagon at least once if not multiple times. 

Then by week 6 we’ve completely scrapped our new fangled diet plan that promised we’d lose 25 lbs in 12 weeks. Now we’re defeated and eating like a college kid again destined to gain back any fat we lost in the process. 

It’s a vicious cycle that has been repeated time and time again by my clients. Hell I’ve fallen victim to the same thinking. 

Almost the second the words “no more ice cream” come tumbling out of my mouth, I start craving a big ole concrete from Ted Drewes (my St Louis folks know what I’m talking about, for those that don’t Ted Drewes is the best little ice cream joint in town, and if you ever find yourself here be sure and try it).  

All of this to say that you should stop using restriction dieting, it doesn’t work. You might be able to white knuckle it for a while but eventually the wheels fall off and you binge on whatever food you’re restricting. 

We naturally begin to crave those foods as soon as we decide to avoid them. I wrote about how I eat sweets almost daily here, because when I restrict them I eventually lose control and overeat them.  

The obvious still remains, we may in fact need to reduce the amount of these foods we consume to reach our goals. You will not lose fat when your in a calorie surplus. My experience is that 100-200 calories daily of something sweet helps me feel satisfied, and keep my calories on point for my fat loss goal. 

I’m not crushing entire bags of candy corn or even eating an entire candy bar in one sitting. Usually it’s a small handful of M&M’s (these are plentiful in our house because we’re using them to try and potty train the almost 3 year old, don’t judge me you have to use what works), or a couple pieces of a Hershey Bar.  

The problem is it’s easy to just say I’ll eliminate something. There isn’t much more thought that goes into it. Just no more chips, done. Stop buying them and don’t order them with my fake chicken sandwich from Subway. 

It’s much harder to test and learn what actually works for you. It’s taken me a long time to figure out I need to eat something sweet regularly. I failed many times and binged because I was restricting certain foods. 

It’s harder and takes more work this way, but nothing about losing and keeping off body fat is easy. And anyone telling you it is, is full of crap and shouldn’t be trusted.