Do you often find yourself starting and stopping diets, unsure if they are the right fit for you? Determining whether a diet is sustainable and effective can be challenging.
Here are three key signs to help you evaluate if your current diet is the right one for you.
1. You Aren’t Obsessing Over Off-Limit Foods
One major red flag that a diet isn’t a good match is if you find yourself constantly thinking about and craving foods that are restricted or forbidden. This often happens with very low-carb or low-fat diets that eliminate entire food groups. While short-term avoidance of certain items can be beneficial, if you can’t stop fantasizing about pizza, bread or your other favorite foods, it’s a sign the restrictions are too extreme for your preferences and lifestyle. A sustainable diet should satisfy cravings in moderation, not deprive you completely.
2. You Can Adhere 80-90% of the Time
Another key factor in determining if a diet works for you is whether you can realistically follow it 80-90% of the time without feeling miserable. Diets that are overly complicated, require excessive food prep, or are drastically different from your usual habits are tough to adhere to long-term. An effective diet is one that feels relatively easy to stick to most days, while still allowing you flexibility to go off-plan occasionally. If you constantly feel deprived, burned out, or tempted to stray, it may not be the right long-term approach.
3. You’re Seeing Steady Progress
While being able to adhere to a diet is important, you also need to evaluate if it’s actually helping you reach your goals over time. Are you losing weight at a reasonable, sustainable rate? Boosting your energy levels? Feeling better overall? Or are you struggling, spinning your wheels, and not seeing results? Every few weeks, take measurements and photos, and assess how you look and feel. If the diet isn’t producing positive changes, or the changes plateau, it may require some adjustments or an overhaul to get you progressing again.
The right diet is one that doesn’t completely eliminate foods you enjoy, allows for flexibility and adherence most of the time, and effectively helps you reach your goals in a sustainable way. It should be sustainable, satisfying, and help you make consistent progress over time.