4 Examples of why diets make no sense.

Diet culture has led us to believe in many questionable things over the years. As an Australian based sustainable weight loss Dietitian, I’ve heard it all. That’s why I want to unpack 5 examples of why you should take any diet-y advice, with a grain of salt.

Diet culture is confusing. Reason being, it is actually a big lie: promising health, happiness and success, purely by following the newest diet "rules". Don't believe me? Below I'm going to uncover a few examples of the sneaky lies & harmful promises diet culture has fed us over the years.

“Don’t eat fruit, it has too much sugar” vs. “Buy our 10 day fruit juice cleanse” -

One day we were being told to avoid fruit at all costs because (even if it's fresh) "fruit has too much sugar!!!" and god forbid we consume ANY if we want to be truly healthy.

The next we are led to believe a 10 day fruit juice cleanse will be the answer to all of our weight loss struggles in one: "drink 5 fresh juices a day every day to detoxify your body and lose weight like that!"

In other words, we are not healthy for having a banana and an apple incorporated into our day (28g of sugar PLUS 5g of gut loving fibre, antioxidants & micronutrients) but we ARE healthy for having 5 fresh juices a day (>60g of sugar and <1g of fibre) if we are on a cleanse???

That is absolute, BS.

🔎 In reality: science has proven that we should be eating 2 fresh pieces of fruit per day to be healthy.

“Avoid fats in food to avoid gaining fat” vs. “Have a bulletproof coffee with butter every day” -

Remember the days when we were told to avoid things like olive oil, nuts & elect for low fat *everything* to be healthy and lose weight? "Fats make you fat" was practically the message being fed to us.
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Fast forward to the Keto era & all of a sudden pumping ourselves with saturated fats was in! Bullet proof coffee was brought to the table & now we had to stick a block of butter in our coffee every day to be "healthy".
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Yet again, diet "rules" that were completely contradictory. Not to mention, completely false.
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🔎 In reality: healthy fats found in nuts, seeds, extra virgin olive oil & oily fish have been associated with reduced inflammation, improved health, mental health & weight. Saturated fats are recommended to moderate (such as butter) due to their relation to increased blood cholesterol.

“Avoid wholegrains, fruits & starchy veg” vs. “Have ample bacon, butter & cream” -

Furthermore from the Keto era, where we were told to minimise our intake of high fibre, gut loving foods like wholegrain breads & cereals, fruits & higher carb containing vegetables because they were "too high in carb".
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In the same breath, we were being told we could eat endless amounts of bacon, butter & full fat cream as this would keep us full, in Ketosis & lose weight. 

Not only would this completely destroy our gut health, our diet would not be nutritionally adequate. Point blank.

🔎 In reality: wholegrain breads & cereals, fruit & starchy vegetables provide us with important gut loving fibre, good quality carbohydrates (our preferred source of energy) & intake has been associated with a stable weight. Bacon, butter & cream (whilst not needing to be avoided) are again quite concentrated dietary sources of saturated fats.

“Avoid foods with too many ingredients on the ingredients list” vs. “Use these supplements” -

At one point we were being told to read all of the ingredients on the ingredients lists of our foods: "if it has more than 2 ingredients, ABSOLUTELY NOT. So processed" or "if you can't pronounce it, don't eat it!"

The same influencer would then tell us to buy their dietary supplements with over 15 ingredients and a multitude of words we have never seen before! 

So whilst we are being told to avoid the yoghurt with live cultures & a bit of strawberry because we can't pronounce the enzyme listed on the ingredients list "transglutaminase", it's ok to have 3 of Detox Debbie's liver cleanse supplements with 12 ingredients & "craetagus pinnatifida"... Do I need to say more?

🔎 In reality: whilst ingredients labels on foods can be informative, the number of ingredients or pronunciation is not how we depict whether a product is healthy or not. If we are eating a healthy, balanced diet & have no nutrient deficiencies or other requirements for additional nutrients, a supplement is often not be necessary or beneficial.

As you can see,  diet culture is not very reliable. If anything, it encourages polar opposite strategies which cause us to fall even deeper into the toxic diet cycle.  As boring as it sounds, a healthy, balanced sustainable eating pattern is our best bet for sustainable weight loss. This is the main focus within my Signature guide THE ANTI DIET METHOD where I guide you through a sustainable dietary pattern for you (without silly diet rules) to lose weight & keep it off for good. 

Written by Bronwen Greenfield (APD).