Diet Q&A Part 1: What’s the best diet?

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Food. We can’t get enough of it. 

With new diet and nutrition trends bursting on the scene all the time, trying to make sense of eating and exercise can be frustrating. We put together some of your top questions to give you some food for thought. 

Q: What’s the best diet to follow?

Short answer: The one that you can stick to, depending on your goals. 

Longer answer: Let’s first think about your goals…

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Weight-loss

If your goal is to lose weight and get lean, you should be thinking about creating a calorie deficit: Consume fewer calories than what you burn/ Enough to lose fat steadily and sustainably, but not to the point where you are always hungry and lethargic.

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Muscle gain

If your goal is to gain muscle and bulk up, being in calorie surplus: eat more than you need to. Fuelling up on lots of lean protein is the way to go.  

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There is no holy grail

Most diets that claim to be the “ultimate” one for weight loss tend to facilitate caloric deficit. For instance, intermittent fasting gets you to consume fewer calories by limiting the amount of time in a day that you can eat.

Zero or low-carb diets restrict your intake of high-caloric foods like bread, pasta and sugar-laden foods, while high-fat diets increase your satiety levels with rich foods so that you take in lower calories overall. 

The caveat? None of these will work if you somehow still consume more calories than you burn.

For any of these diets to work, you need to be in caloric deficit or surplus (depending on your goal) long enough for the results to materialise.

Commitment matters.