10 reasons why your diet is not working for you
Whichever diet I am talking about here that did not work out for me, this is my subjective opinion. It is not a substitute for medical advice, so always do you own research and experimentation.
Maybe your diet does work for you (right now)
There is probably plenty of people that thrive on one of the diets I will mention and that is great. However, if you tend to get obsessive over things and are a very type A person like me, you might be able to relate to some things I will talk about here.
My personal experience with diets
Let’s go back a few months in my timeline.
I struggled with food for over ten years. There probably isn’t a single diet that I haven’t tried. Anything that was trendy, anything that promised weight loss, more energy, better health or general well-being, you name it, I tried it.
Here are a few popular diets that I tried for an extended or a short period of time, depending on how long it worked for me.
- Paleo diet – following a “paleolithic” diet, so a diet we believe our ancestors followed. High in protein, low in carbs, no grains, pretty high in fat. I classify this diet as a high protein, moderate to low carb diet.
- Ketogenic Diet – Believe it or not, I followed the ketogenic diet before it was cool. I had read about the potential benefits of a high fat, moderate to low protein, very low carb diet and of course I wanted to give it a try. I linked to the Wikipedia article, because it is the only article I could find that describes the ketogenic diet without either praising it or deeming it as evil.
- High protein, low carb, low fat – The classic “bro-diet” consisted of lots of chicken breast, egg whites, protein shakes and green vegetables. I looked shredded, but never felt worse. The picture above was during my “bro-diet” phase.
- Gluten free diet – Another disclaimer here: If you have celiac decease, you HAVE to eat gluten free, otherwise your body keeps attacking itself and you will end up very sick. I do not have celiac disease. However, I followed this diet because it was the new craze at the time and I was convinced that gluten is very bad for you!
- Juice Cleanse – There is not enough room on this page to tell you how much I hate juice cleanses. They were the catalyst of all my eating disorders and they are evil. If you take anything away from this article, please do not put your body through this. Your body can get rid of toxins on its own and does not need a liquid diet to do so – your liver is responsible for metabolising and getting rid of toxins and does a great job at this.
- Clean Eating/Whole 30/21 Day Fix – I lumped those together, because during my clean eating phase, I would follow the food guidelines from Whole 30, just a lot stricter as I got more obsessive about it.
These are just some of them. I will be talking about the diets in detail in another post – especially the ketogenic and paleo diet as I want to share my thoughts on it.
All diets work for a certain amount of time, but not forever
In this post, my focus is on the signs that diets like this might not be the right choice for your well-being.
All these diets worked for a while, until my body crashed hard. I either ended up binging myself into a coma or I started gaining weight out of nowhere. My body was holding on to fat for dear life. Sometimes I ended up getting sick all the time, or suffering from insomnia. My hormones were a mess as well, which is the result of restricting calories AND macronutrients, such as carbohydrates or fat.
Here are the ten most important signs to look out for, if you are currently following a specific eating style that is restrictive.
1.You become obsessed with food in general
If you have not read about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, I highly suggest you read this article. It goes to show how much the human body is wired to survive. As soon as you start restricting calories, your brain will start sending signals that make you think about food. All. The. Time.
You are becoming more sensitive to food smells and food advertisements. You may find yourself scrolling through Instagram “food porn” and drooling over the yummy foods you won’t get to have.
Your thoughts circulate around your next meal. What you are going to have for your next meal? When you will have it? Which foods will you eat and which ones will you not allow yourself? Generally, you are spending the majority of your day thinking about food and do not spend a ton of energy doing other things that you used to enjoy.
This is a bad sign. I hate to break it to you, but as soon as you start eating below your recommended calorie intake for weight maintenance, your body will go into starvation mode. It will do anything to get you to eat. If you find yourself obsessing about food on your current diet it is time to either increase your caloric intake or consider adding in more variety of foods.
2. You get anxious over attending social events (dinners, parties, concerts, community events, etc.)
Did your parents invite you over for dinner and you are thinking about bringing your own food? Are you wondering if they will serve foods that are part of your diet at your community event? Are you choosing not to attend a birthday party or get super anxious over it, because there will be cake?
Welcome to my past life. Even in restaurants, I would ask for a grilled chicken breast and boiled vegetables with no oils on top. I was a mess, but the weird part is that while you are in it, you don’t realise that you are a crazy person.
You think that you are just being healthy, you are just taking care of yourself. Let me tell you, this obsession will take you down a very dark path. Please reach out to me or somebody else if you are experiencing this kind of anxiety.
3. You feel tired all the time
Maybe you struggle falling or staying asleep – one of the signs of malnourishment or calorie restriction. Or maybe you sleep for 12 hours but still feel exhausted. This is a big sign of your body, as it is not getting enough energy to get you through the day. Especially if you do high intensity workouts, your body needs lots of calories!
I used to train 6-7 times a week at a very high intensity, yet I would only eat 1500 calories per day. That was probably only half the amount my body actually needed, hence I was always exhausted and had very low blood sugar.
If you experience this type of fatigue, it might be time to break up with your diet. If you are part of my newsletter, you can read about some things that I recommend to find balance with food.
4. You are prone to binge eating (and restricting the next day to “make up for it”)
When you come home from work, you may find yourself feeling like a bottomless pit. Or you feel like one all day, like I used to. I used to think that I have no self control around certain foods. I was convinced that once I started eating chocolate, I would never stop at one bar.
In all honestly, I am now at a point where I can have one piece and move on with my day. Now that I am not restricting, the primal part of my brain is not driving me to binge on chocolate anymore.
Binge eating is usually a consequence of restriction, it is not the other way around. Let that sink in and I will be sure to talk a lot more about this in the future.
5. You feel guilty when you “cheat” on your diet
So you went to that birthday party you were anxious about and ended up having a slice of birthday cake. How do you feel now? Bloated, disgusting, fat? Do you say mean things to yourself like: “You failed again, you are such a loser. You have no self control, you are so gluttonous.”
You may be wondering how I distance myself from feeling guilt around food, when I “fall of the wagon”. Here is my answer: There is no wagon for me. I am not on or off track. It gives me freedom and a balanced lifestyle on most days – as I am still recovering and bad days are part of the journey.
6. You spend most weekends at home, instead of out and about with friends or family
Do you find yourself going to bed early on Friday nights, so you can wake up on Saturday and go to the gym first thing? Do you spend half you Sunday prepping all your meals? Welcome to my past world of disordered eating. I never let myself have fun, because meeting up with friends meant that there is the possibility of food that was not part of my diet.
It is important to understand how valuable connection is to the human being. Our ancestors lived in tribes and even in our world today, we need a “tribe”, a group of friends, in order to feel whole. We are not supposed to live alone or spend every day by ourselves. If you don’t socialise, you might be prone to anxiety and depression. I am speaking from my own experience here.
When you are 80 years old, do you want to look back at your life and say
“I am so glad I never had any friends, because it allowed me to really stick to my diet!”
I don’t think so…
7. You have no hobbies aside from working out
This was a big one for me. I used to play the piano, sing in a choir, do horse riding, play volleyball and swim competitively. Over time, I ditched hobby after hobby until I was left with nothing aside from the gym.
If this is the case for you, really reevaluate your life choices. In my opinion, it is a sign that your diet and lifestyle has taken over your life. You are not in control anymore, your diet controls you and it is a scary place.
8. You suffer from mood swings
As girls, we are prone to mood swings around our time of the month. When I was suffering from my eating disorders, I would have these mood swings every single day. I would cry uncontrollably and get irrationally angry at the littlest things.
I would yell at people I love and be overly sensitive. Since I had lost my period for years, I messed up my hormones so much that I never knew which mood I would be in the next day.
It is exhausting. When I followed the ketogenic diet, I was so miserable and couldn’t focus on anything, because my body needed carbs. Again, maybe the ketogenic diet works for some, for me it sure didn’t. I love carbs. Carbs are helping me sleep and balance my mood.
If you are restricting carbohydrates and find yourself having severe mood swings, it might be time to reintroduce some carbs into your diet. I promise you, nothing bad is going to happen.
9. You lose your period and libido
As soon as I lost my period, my desire for sex was gone. I was still attracted to my husband and wanted to sleep with him, but it was nothing like it used to be. I am not saying that it felt like a chore. Sex was still enjoyable, but I never initiated it.
If he wasn’t home, I was never thinking about it, nor would I miss it. Apart from the health consequences of losing your period, not enjoying sex is also a huge issue for your relationship.
If you suffer from hypothalamic amenorrhea (loss of period), please seek out a doctor that will not just prescribe birth control to get it back. This is a way bigger issue that needs to be dealt with on a hormonal level that goes a lot deeper than birth control.
As for me, I had to stop exercising all together and increase my calories drastically in order to get my period back.
10. Even though you have lost weight, you are still not happy with how you look
The last point ties all the other signs together. You follow a strict diet, you take in less energy than you put out, you don’t sleep well, you don’t socialise and you may suffer from anxiety and depression. You have put yourself through all this in order to lose weight and look like the beauty ideal of our current society. Yet you are so unhappy with your body.
You know your body has changed, yet you feel uncomfortable in your own skin most of the time. Maybe you keep thinking: “If only I lost another five pounds I would finally reach my goal.”
If this is the case, please reach out for help. Because now you are in the body dysmorphia stage I used to be in and it is such a sad place. Please know that there are plenty of experts that are able to help, it is up to you to reach out.
You were not placed in this world to be skinny
You are meant to live a happy life and you do not deserve to suffer any longer.
If any of these signs speak to you, it is time to take a good look at the big picture. You really need to decide how much longer you want to put yourself through this.
Personally, I have found freedom in intuitive and mindful eating, as well as truly ALLOWING myself to eat anything I want, whenever I want. Chocolate at 10 am on a Tuesday? Sure!
Maybe Pizza for breakfast on a Thursday? Yes, if I truly want to have it I will.
Making peace with food
As soon as you allow those foods back into your life without judgement, you may find yourself craving healthy foods, too. After a while your body knows which nutrients it needs. Trust me. Your body just needs time to trust you again. It has to make sure that you will not take food away anymore. That is when you can be in tune with your body’s needs and with life in general.