When many people think of dieting, they think of eating healthy. These terms are not necessarily interchangeable though.

According to Google, diet culture, “promotes restriction, obsession around food and exercise, avoiding and stigmatizing fatness, and anxiety about the social, physical, and romantic consequences of failing to perform these behaviors”. In short terms, dieting involves a form of heavy restriction whether that be in amount of food or in types of food.

Eating healthy is quite the opposite. It does not involve any form of heavy restriction. While some may think it is restricted to “healthy” or “good” foods only, a true healthy diet is just one that maintains or improves overall health and it can definitely include foods that are normally labeled “unhealthy” or “bad” in moderation.

The problem with diet culture

I actually cringed while typing those few sentences above because one of the problems with diet culture is that it labels foods as “good” and “bad”. Food is not inherently good or bad by nature. Food does not have a moral compass. Food is simply fuel for our bodies.

The problem with labeling food as good or bad is that it messes with our heads mentally.

When we eat a “good” food, we are happy. We pat ourselves on the back. We’re having a good day.

When we eat a “bad” food, we are unhappy. We are off track. We messed up our entire diet for the day. We are having a bad day, guilt and shame start to play a role, which leads us to eat more “bad” foods.

More on this to come next month in my blog post/podcast episode on intuitive eating with a special co-host!

Another problem that diet culture has promoted is for us to believe that someone who naturally eats healthy regularly is “dieting”.

Regularly eating processed, unhealthy food has become the norm in today’s society.

You chose to order grilled chicken and vegetables at a restaurant instead of fettuccine Alfredo?

Oh.. you MUST be on a diet because what type of person would order that boring stuff?

The purpose of dieting

Many people diet with an end goal as the outcome. They diet to lose X amount of weight. They diet to look good for Y event. They diet not because it makes them happy but purely to look good.

You can still diet without eating healthy.

The purpose of eating healthy

Many people eat healthy not with the purpose of looking good but rather feeling good. To feel good in their own skin, to feel happier, to feel healthier.

You can eat healthy and not be trying to lose weight or be on a diet.

This is what I recommend for everyone unless they have a specific fitness/health goal to accomplish.

The cons of dieting

Restrictive eating is not meant to be a long term solution since it is not sustainable. Many people unfortunately do not realize this and end up in a cycle of yo-yo dieting throughout most of their life time.

It is arguable that diet culture has ruined eating for a lot of people.

We start removing foods completely from our diets.

We start overthinking every single thing we are eating.

We start stressing about our calorie intakes.

We stop enjoying food and seeing it as fuel for our bodies but rather see it as the enemy.

This can lead into a slippery slope of disordered eating and in many cases, eating disorders which are highly counterproductive to the original goal of wanting to drop weight.

More to come on disordered eating & eating disorders next month in a blog post/podcast episode with a special co-host!

The cons of eating healthy

Which is best for you?

While diet culture is trash, I do think dieting to some degree is necessary for people to hit their fitness goals.

When it comes to dieting, it needs to be done in a way that won’t leave you obsessing over every detail and falling victim to diet culture. Dieting is a mental game and can really mess you up if you’re not careful with it.

Eating healthy should be done regardless of whether you’re on a diet or not. This should be a way of life. It is not super restrictive like a diet and you don’t need to eat healthy 100% of the time to still be considered someone who eats healthy.

A good rule of thumb is 80% healthy/20% goodies.

You can STILL incorporate this rule when you’re dieting.

Dieting, while restrictive in AMOUNT, should not be an absolutely miserable time where you just strictly eat chicken and rice and vegetables and nothing else for months on end.

The Emily Robinson Fitness method of “dieting“

Let’s run through an example so you can get a better idea of how I would diet, and how I would recommend most people diet so that it is not too mentally and physically taxing on our bodies:

Hypothetical Example:

You are 175 lbs but you want to get down to 165 lbs. You have 10 lbs to lose so you will work to lose 1 lb every week for the next 10 weeks (very achievable, reasonable goal).

Your TDEE is 2300 overall so you need to eat about 1800 calories a day to achieve this goal. This is a good amount of calories to work with.

Using our 80/20 rule – 1800*80% = 1440 “healthy” calories, 1800*20% = 360 calories left for goodies.

The first thing you should plan every day is the treat you want for that day. What are you craving? Log it in your calorie tracker (or just mentally log it if you don’t track). This gives you something to look forward to each day on your “diet” and makes it just a little less miserable.

Given the amount of calories you have to work with, this may mean you don’t eat a full serving of whatever it is you’re craving, but you can still have a reasonable sized portion.

Obviously it depends, but for example, maybe you’re craving a slice of cheesecake that is 1000 calories. You can eat about 1/3 of the slice and still stay within your range + you have leftovers for the next 2 days.

From there, plan out your 3 healthy meals –

1. protein base first (split your protein goal into 3 or however many meals you plan to eat)
2. carbs second (combo of veggies and another base like rice)
3. fats last (toppings like butter etc.)

If you track, plan out your days in advance. Physically log them into your calorie tracker days beforehand with room to wiggle around if needed.

If you don’t track, still plan out your days in advance. You won’t be logging it anywhere but make mental note of the meals you plan to eat with room to wiggle around if needed.

Now we’re set for our guidelines of eating mostly healthy but still leaving room to enjoy ourselves. Sure we won’t be losing 20 lbs in a week with this diet but that’s never going to work out for you in the long term anyways. Take everything slow so you don’t stress yourself out and put an immense amount of pressure on yourself to look good as fast as possible. That will only raise your cortisol levels which can be very counterproductive when trying to lose weight.

You don’t need to lose 20 lbs in a week, a month or even a year. You have a lifetime and the slower you do it, the more sustainable it will be, meaning the longer you can do it for. The longer you can do it for, the better results you’ll have for the longest period of time (over your lifetime).

What to do if you’ve been yo-yo dieting

I think it’s fair to say that if you’ve been yo-yo dieting for years, the best thing for you to do is stop trying to diet for a period of time because your metabolism is likely all sorts of messed up.

I recommend working to rebuild your metabolism, or reverse dieting.

This will help you slowly build up your TDEE and repair your metabolism when combined with proper protein intake and a strength training regiment.

You WILL gain some weight during this time but that is OK. Do not stress about it. The goal is long term health not short term weight loss.

After 6 or so months of working to build your metabolism back up (could take even longer than this), stay in maintenance for a period of time to make sure you’re sustaining weight at your new, higher calorie intake.

From there, you can slowly reverse into a “diet” that is way less restrictive and get better results.

It would look something like this –

Starting point 1200 calories (not losing weight, struggling)

Month 1 – 1300 cals

Month 2 – 1400 cals

Month 3 – 1500 cals

Month 4 – 1600 cals

Month 5 – 1700 cals

Month 6 – 1800 cals

Stay at 1800 cals to make sure you’re maintaining at that level for a month or so.

Then slowly work into a SMALL deficit of 250 calories. Trust me, it is better to do it slower. Now you can be eating 1550 calories in a deficit and be losing weight opposed to the 1200 calories you were eating and not seeing any changes in weight.

This is just an EXAMPLE and not to be followed step by step. Each individual is different, some may need to build up for longer periods of time, take it slower, go higher in calories, etc.

It works best when done with professional help. If you’re still struggling to lose weight after this time, it’s likely that you have other problems such as hormonal imbalance or gut health issues that are causing the weight resistance. There are various tests you can get done by a doctor who specializes in functional medicine to see if that is the case. You can read about them in the post linked above.

Wrap up

Whether you track calories or not, if you are restricting yourself in any manner, you’re still considered to be on a diet.

Dieting is not necessarily bad or bad for you. It is the way we’ve approached dieting for decades that has caused it to be “bad for us”.

In today’s society, many of us are working to break diet culture and reverse the bad habits it has taught us.

It all starts with our mindsets and how we view food.

Some foods are less nutritious by nature, but it is about balancing those foods with more nutritious foods for ultimate success AND happiness.

Take care of yourself, love yourself & respect yourself by eating foods that nourish your body but ALSO foods that bring you joy.

You’ll personally never find me skipping out on pizza, tacos & skinny margs, ice cream, or really any dessert because my sweet tooth is killer!

Until next time,

Coach Emily