A lot of people want to lose weight quickly and easily. They want to find that diet pill or that 6 minute abs routine that will pull them out of the hole that they've dug in terms of their health.
They want these results overnight. They don't want to hear that they have to do cardio 6 times a week and lower their caloric intake and yada yada...
There is some merit to losing weight quickly - but quickly doesn't mean the same thing as what these people have in mind. It's not overnight and it's not even in 1 week or not even in 1 month.
Should you approach weight loss with the goal of losing as much weight as quickly as you can or should you take your time and lose weight slowly, cutting foods out of your diet 1 by 1?
This really comes down to 2 types of people:
- Are you the type of person who can eat half a bag of cheetos rather than a whole bag?
- Or are you the type of person who can't have cheetos around at all because you know for a fact that if they're in sight, you'll eat the whole bag and more?
Some dieting regimes like to advise people to slowly remove a little bit of calories from their diet. Drink half a soda rather than a full soda.
These approaches may work for some, but they definitely don't work for everyone.
Some people just need to take a garbage bag to their kitchen and throw out all of the junk food in there. Some people just need an all or nothing approach because that's how their mind is wired.
I'm writing about this because that's how my mind is wired. One of the driving forces behind my ketogenic (low-carb) diet is the fact that I have trouble limiting my carb intake.
I'm an all or nothing kind of person.
If I have a bowl of pasta, I'll end up eating the whole box. So if I want to lose weight, I cut out pasta altogether and I don't even buy it from the store.
Same goes for any other carb - I can't just have 1 piece of bread or 1 slice of pizza or insert any delicious carb. I can't do that. I have to either have carbs or not have any carbs.
Taking this approach - cutting all the carbs out of my diet has been highly effective for me my entire fitness journey. For the past 7 or so years, I've been able to effectively go on a diet and lose weight as needed on a low-carb approach.
By taking this low-carb approach, I'm able to be in complete control of my desires - I just eat steak, chicken, turkey, veggies and cheese. I keep it very simple and it works amazingly well for me.
I've lost over 10lbs since I began my keto diet about 2 weeks ago. Some people are like me and they need this all or nothing approach. It truly can work, you just have to find what works for you.