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Diet culture loves to demonize foods.
With so many taboo foods, it’s a wonder we’re eating anything. In reality, there isn’t a specific food or food group that makes you fat.
Consuming too much of any food ultimately makes you fat. You gain weight when you eat more calories than you burn, regardless of where those calories come from. And although cutting foods from your diet can help reduce calorie intake, such a restrictive approach is neither necessary nor sustainable. And it often does more harm than good.
In this article, you’ll learn why no food should be off-limits in your diet - and how you can lose weight successfully and sustainably without feeling deprived.
Despite what low-carb, keto, or paleo zealots may claim, you don’t have to eliminate entire foods or food groups to lose weight.
In fact, research finds that all diets are equally effective, assuming dietary adherence(1). That is, any diet works as it creates a consistent calorie deficit. It all boils down to calories in versus calories out, which derives from the first law of thermodynamics…
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transferred or altered in form.
You see, a calorie is a unit of energy. So when you provide your body with excess calories, the energy must go somewhere - and if you don’t burn it, you store it primarily as fat. In turn, your body will break down fat to use as energy only when you don’t consume sufficient calories (i.e., when you create a calorie deficit).
Cutting out certain foods from your diet results in weight loss if it leads to a calorie deficit. But there’s nothing about off-limits foods that is inherently fattening. A calorie is a calorie regardless of its food source.
Although you can lose weight by eliminating foods(2), adopting such a restrictive mindset is far from optimal. And your mindset matters for long-term weight loss success.
When you set particular foods as off-limits, you start to view foods as good or bad and tend toward an “all-or-nothing mentality.” As a result, when you accidentally indulge in a “bad” food, you’re prone to experience guilt and completely stray from your diet.
Accordingly, research reports that individuals with a rigid dieting strategy are more likely to exhibit symptoms of eating disorders, overeating, and mood disturbances. A flexible dieting strategy, on the other hand, is associated with fewer instances of overeating, lower body mass, and lower levels of anxiety and depression(3, 4).
Then there’s the “forbidden fruit effect,” in which items become instantly more attractive simply because they’re forbidden. That is, by telling yourself you can’t have a particular food, you actually want it more - predisposing cravings(5) and overeating(6, 7) when you finally give in to temptation.
Rather than shunning certain foods, consider following a flexible dieting strategy, in which no foods are off-limits, and anything is fine in moderation.
Flexible dieting allows you to eat the foods you truly enjoy, so you can lose weight without feeling deprived and form a healthy relationship with food.
In the short term, it’s just as effective as a rigid approach; and in the long term it’s a clear winner.
While there isn’t one “magic” food to cut out or consume for weight loss, there is a more generic recipe to ensure you lose weight and keep it off. By capitalizing on the psychology of sustainability, you can support the lasting behavioral change needed to adhere to your diet in the long term.
Many people mistakenly associate dieting with willpower. In truth, most of our daily behaviors and dietary decisions depend on habits, which are relatively “automatic.” Consequently, successful weight loss should emphasize healthy habit formation, which requires consistent repetition of a behavior until it becomes second nature(8). Because consistency is crucial for forming habits, it’s best to make small behavioral changes that you can more realistically implement and sustain.
So start with minor behavioral tweaks that you can cement into habits, such as…
Habit formation is a naturally slow and incremental process - but small changes add up and compound over time, yielding bigger, better, and longer-lasting results than any crash diet.
And to make forming habits easier, you can try habit stacking, a strategy in which you attach a desired behavior to an existing habit(9). For example, you could plan to prepare tomorrow’s lunch for work after finishing dinner. By associating meal prep with a current habit (i.e., eating dinner), you’re more likely to do it consistently until it becomes its own habit.
People are notoriously poor estimators of calorie intake and portion size, often assuming they eat less than they really do(10). Tracking your food intake helps counteract this tendency and increases awareness around your food choices - so you’re less likely to eat mindlessly and exceed your calorie target(11). Accordingly, it’s no surprise that monitoring food intake is a common strategy among long-term weight loss sustainers. Nonetheless, such monitoring can take many forms. For instance, individuals who find calorie counting stressful can simply practice mindful eating for fairly similar benefits(12).
Just because you’re cutting calories doesn’t mean you have to starve. In fact, satiety plays a major role in dietary sustainability: a diet that leaves you constantly unsatisfied likely won’t last for long.
Fortunately, you can maximize satiety by selecting foods that are inherently more filling, including…
Food isn’t just fuel: it’s also a source of pleasure, which is yet another key component in dietary adherence. The more you like your diet, the more likely you’ll follow it long-term(13). You don’t have to deprive yourself of the foods you enjoy to lose weight. Instead, following a flexible dieting approach will allow you to eat whatever foods you prefer while reducing your calorie intake to enable weight loss. And since you’ll actually enjoy your diet, you’ll never feel the need to stray from it!
Why change your lifestyle to fit your diet when you can follow a diet that fits into your lifestyle?
Far too often, people pigeonhole themselves into a restrictive or rigid diet that simply isn’t realistic given their current circumstances. To avoid such a scenario, ask yourself…
You’ll better adhere to a diet suitable for your lifestyle and schedule - so be honest with yourself about what dietary changes you’re really able to make. There are countless ways to hit your macros. Don’t box yourself into a strategy that forces you to overhaul your life.
You don’t have to banish your favorite foods to lose weight. In fact, you don’t have to forbid any specific food.
Weight loss is an issue of quantity, not quality: how many calories you consume matters more than where those calories come from. That said, you can strategically structure your diet to ensure you’re satiated and satisfied, so you attain and sustain your weight loss goals.
And a key part of sustainability is having a healthy mindset and relationship with food, which accompanies a more flexible dieting approach.
So stop eliminating foods. Eliminate the restrictive dieting mentality instead.
