Is Diet Fatigue Sabotaging Your Progress? - Ask a Nutritionist

Transcript:

Leah: Hello, and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition's “Ask a Nutritionist” podcast, brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. My name is Leah Kleinschrodt. I'm a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, and I'm your host for the show today.

On today's show, I am answering a question that came in from our Dishing Up Nutrition Facebook page. So in case you didn't know, we have a special page on Facebook. It's called Dishing Up Nutrition. You could request to become a member, and this is a great place to leave questions or suggestions that you would like to have us talk about here on the show.

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So this person's question is, it's one specific question, but there is some context behind it. So the main question that this person is asking is, is there such thing as diet fatigue? So she goes on to give us some context saying that she's been doing a keto or low carb approach for the last two years. She wanted to lose 10 pounds, actually ended up losing 15 and was able to maintain from there;

Made it through a lot of big events, funerals, weddings, cruises, vacations, things like that; stayed on course with that eating plan. Little tastes here and there. And then she says that this fall hit and she wanted to start introducing carbohydrates, things like apples, beans, rice into the diet. So more real food types of carbs. And she says, suddenly I was so tired of low carb. I wanted breadcrumbs in my meatballs and my meatloaf. I wanted to put beans and corn in my chili.

And it did lead to a little bit of a slippery slope with eating some sugar over the holiday season. And she ends with saying, “I was really tired of that way of eating, despite getting great results and great labs. I'm trying to be in a good frame of mind as I want to continue with the low carb lifestyle.”

So again, circling back, the main question is, is there such thing as diet fatigue? And this is, it's such a great question. There's a lot that I would love to unpack here. I'm going to try to condense it as much as I possibly can, but to answer the question directly, the short answer is yes, there is such thing as diet fatigue, and I think really where this person is going is she's saying, I liked the results of eating this specific way, albeit it was kind of a restrictive way of eating, but there was something about it ultimately that became unsustainable in the long run.

So now what? Where do we go from here? And I think this person's story will resonate with a lot of listeners. This isn't just applicable to low carb eating or a keto style of eating. This is going to be familiar probably to anyone who's done more of an extreme form of dieting or followed a more extreme type of eating plan.

So this could be in the context of low fat, low calorie eating, cabbage soup diet, vegan, carnivore, fasting, detoxes, juice cleanses. A lot of times these styles of eating take food to an extreme, and it's usually in the direction of restricting food or eliminating foods or a group of foods.

So it might be restricting fat, it might be restricting carbs like in, in this person's case, that that's what usually what keto or low carb eating is. It could be eliminating all animal products, eliminating all plant matter, like only eating in a certain window of time. So usually these, these more extreme ways of eating, they focus more on the restriction or the elimination side of things.

As humans, we can withstand some restriction and some elimination and scarcity if we have to. I thinking evolutionarily, I mean, if we couldn't withstand some of that, we would've died out as a species a long, long time ago if we had during the winters or when there were periods of famine.

But in today's modern world where food is generally fairly plentiful, you know, when we choose to actually restrict calories or restrict foods or put a, or restrict a specific food group for a long period of time, and we're kind of depriving our bodies, the natural gravitational pull is eventually you're going to swing back in the other direction.

It might be a few days into that more restrictive eating pattern. It might be more, it might be a few weeks down the road or a few months down the road. It might be a year or more down the road. I want to give credit, to Jen and Annie. They are host of a podcast called Balance 365 Life Radio, and they describe the aftermath of extreme or restrictive diets.

They relate it to the same thing as like gasping for air after you've been trying to hold your breath for a really long time. So if you've tried to hold your breath for a minute, right, and that very first breath or two is kind of like you're really having to inhale or you're gasping after you've held your breath for a long time, that's kind of the same phenomenon that you might feel after you've been on a more restrictive eating plan for a period of time.

It's kind of your body's way of trying to catch up with what you've been missing for that period of time. So it could be oxygen, like in the case of holding your breath, or in the case of this person who asks the question, they're craving or they're just, their body is desiring more carbs.

So it's kind of the body's way of trying to restore balance to the inner universe. And if anybody's ever followed a much more restrictive or extreme eating plan for a while, and then say, you fall off the wagon, so I'm going to use air quotes there, “fall off the wagon”, and then you kind of regroup and you're kind of staring down the barrel of trying to get back on the wagon or dive back into that limited eating plan again, it's very natural and expected really for your brain and your body to put up some resistance to that idea.

It is a survival mechanism. The brain and the body have kind of learned that extreme eating is stressful, and I think that's where this particular listener is at. They're kind of finding themselves at a crossroads where they say, I was really tired of that way of eating. And then in the very next breath, they also say, and I'm trying to be in a good frame of mind because I want to get back to that way of eating. I want to continue low carb eating.

So maybe you can kind of hear the dichotomy of those two statements, like here's some of that hesitation and, and some of that resistance in that last statement. And so we don't know everything as to why this person, what was the turning point for this person? What made this plan unsustainable after a period of time.

Trade offs associated with restrictive ways of eating

But I mean, I, one thing I do talk about with my clients when they have, either they are in the middle of a more restrictive type of eating or they're following a more extreme diet plan, or maybe they've kind of been there in the past, I will talk about this phenomenon of trade-offs with people.

So the more extreme the diet changes that you're making or the more extreme way of eating that you're trying to kind of push towards. It's likely the more trade-offs that you're making to sustain that way of eating. So for this person, I would be asking them, you know, if you are eating this way and you are achieving your health and your weight loss goals, but what cost is that coming at?

‘Cause this person said, I got my weight loss. I got the weight loss I wanted. I got the lab results. I was happy with the lab results I was seeing. So on paper it would seem like this was a slam dunk, win-win across the board. Like, why wouldn't you continue eating in this way? But my question to this person would be, what were the trade-offs you made to continue that way of eating?

You know, you made it through. So here's more air quotes. You made it through weddings, vacations, funerals, state fairs and things like that. But what was, what made that way of eating doable during those times? Like what was the mental, the physical, the emotional energy that you had to pour into those scenarios to make it work?

I don't know if this person was denying a lot of cravings during that time, denying a lot of hunger. I don't, we don't know all of what went into the mental gymnastics around some of that to maintain that diet. We don't know. But that would be a question that I would want to pose to that person is like, okay, at some point this did become unsustainable?

What was that breaking point like? Or like what, like what did you have to do in order to maintain that more restrictive way of eating? And then we can kind of unravel things from there. What were the trade-offs that you were making to sustain that way of eating to get the results that you were going for at that point?

So I am going to pause. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, I'm going to just finish a couple more thoughts on how we can start pivoting away from more of that extreme dieting, hitting that wall of diet fatigue, and just finding better balance in general. So we'll be right back.

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Alright, and we're back. So I think the big question that we've come to, or that this listener was coming to is, where do I go from here? If we've arrived at the fact that really extreme or restrictive diets really typically don't work well in the long term then what are we supposed to do if we still have weight loss goals, if we still have health goals that we want to achieve, and we know that our nutrition plays a big part in that?

Reflect on what was learned from the experience

So I think I would say maybe first and foremost to this listener and to all the listeners out there is one thing that you can do is just reflect on if you've done some of these more extreme diets in the past or taken things a little bit further, what did you learn from those experiences?

What did you learn from diets that you've done in the past? And so I am going to refer back to Jen and Annie and that podcast. They talk about this as take the cherry, but spit out the seed. So did you learn anything about your body? Did you learn anything about food in general? Did you learn anything about like what things really actually did work for you and what helped you in your journey?

On the flip side, there were probably some things that you learned along the way that really doesn't work well for you, even if it seemed to work well for a lot of other people. I recently talked to a client who very, very strictly followed a ketogenic style of eating for, I think it was a year, maybe a little bit more than that.

Very strict. She was counting her carbohydrates. She was trying to stick to 30 grams of carbohydrates or less. And the feedback that she kept getting from a lot of other people in this community and from the provider she was working with was that, well, after you've been on keto for a certain amount of time, you're not going to feel hungry anymore.

All the cravings are just going to fall away. You're not going to feel hungry. You're just going to kind of be in this state of bliss and you're, you know, it's just going to be easy to carry on. But what she found is no matter how much she dialed her carbs back, no matter how strictly she followed what she was supposed to do, she always felt hungry no matter what.

She always had cravings no matter what she did. It was just something that maybe she did experience some benefits, but there were some things about that way of eating that didn't ultimately work for her, and it was something that she didn't feel like that was sustainable for her in the long run.

So these would just again, be things that if you can kind of take some and look back at your past experiences with diets, with your food, with your eating habits, and say, all right, what really truly did seem to work well for me and what things really, truly did not work well, even if they do work well for other people, this would be a great way to get started in some of that self-exploration, because in this step, you're getting away from some of the external rules or the shoulds or the should nots of some of these rigid diets.

And then it actually allows you to get in touch with you and what you know about yourself. And I think that is one thing that does and will serve you in the long term, is actually learning about your individual unique needs and things that actually do serve you well. That will actually help you get more out of things in the long run.

Ponder if the way of eating is sustainable/satisfying physiologically & physchologically

Then the next thing I would encourage this listener to ponder is that really a successful pattern of eating will do two things, and this will be something that will be sustainable in the long term. So it'll do two things. One, it'll be a physiologically satisfying, and two, it will be psychologically satisfying.

Again, I'm borrowing that from Jen and Annie, but I think they do a really great job of kind of putting into words some of these things that we all feel, or that we're kind of processing on the inside.

What does physiologically satisfying mean?

So physiologically satisfying, let's talk about that. This is a lot of stuff that we talk about on our Dishing Up Nutrition shows and what we counsel on in our classes and when I meet with clients one-on-one. So this is really in general that we're striking a good reasonable balance between protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fat.

So we want protein and fiber and those healthy fats to kind of fill us up, balance our blood sugar, keep us feeling stable in between meals, and then we still do usually want some carbohydrates to give us a little bump in energy. It helps us make some serotonin in our brain and in our gut. And the carbs are a primary source of fiber.

So most of the time we're just trying to choose real whole foods; foods that I describe as like grandma and grandpa or great grandma and grandpa would recognize as foods. And when we do that, we're also getting the necessary vitamins and minerals coming along for the rides with those foods.

So those are things that actually help, they're kind of like the spark plugs for our metabolism and for all the energetic processes in our bodies. So we want that nice balanced routine of eating. I also, personally, I love to make sure like my client's intestinal health is in a good place because I think that's a big piece of keeping physiological balance with things.

So that's what I mean when I say really a diet or a way of eating should be physiologically satisfying. It should work well with our inner biochemistry and it should keep us feeling kind of stable, full, satisfied in between meals.

What does psychologically satisfying mean?

But then we have the psychologically satisfying piece. And this one, this part gets a little trickier to define. I would say this is a much more individual based evaluation. But I guess one way I would frame this is that, you know, is your eating pattern balanced? And are you able to be consistent with it? And you're doing this in a way that, yes, it moves you towards your weight and your health goals, but does it also include foods that you enjoy?

Does it include foods that are prepared in a way that you enjoy? And is your approach to this way of eating, is it flexible enough that you don't feel overly restricted and it keeps you from participating in family functions, in social gatherings, in vacations, et cetera, in a way that feels good to you so that you don't feel like you're missing out or that you're restricted or that you can't be a part of the group?

And another way to kind of frame this too is like if you've kind of been in a more restrictive dieting mentality for a really long time, your brain is always focused on food. You're always thinking about the next meal, the next snack. You're planning out your food, you’re preoccupied with body image or your brain is just so preoccupied with everything around food and body that you don't sometimes have space for other things in your brain or that you can dedicate that space to other things that you want that would also be fulfilling in your life.

So that would be another thing to explore would be like, do you feel like the way that you're eating right now, do you have space in your brain for the other important things in your life that you want to make a priority that you do find fulfilling? So those would be definitely some things to think about going forward.

I don't want to say that more extreme diets like keto or vegan like that they never work for anybody. There are definitely people out there who do find these ways of eating, actually both physiologically and psychologically satisfying. They've been doing it for 10 plus years. They plan to keep on going.

That's great and, and there are definitely scenarios where certain foods or certain food groups may have to be eliminated from a person's diet. We do work with a lot of people who have food sensitivities or maybe they have food allergies. Those would be two obvious examples where it's, you might have to eliminate certain foods or certain food groups and maybe for the long term.

But if some of those things are working for you, great, but for anyone else, like maybe you're restricting a certain food group just because it's part of this diet plan, or again, like we're not kind of checking some of those boxes of like, does this feel like a good, sustainable, balanced way of eating for the long term?

I would encourage listeners to just stay open and curious about if their current eating pattern is continuing to serve them in the way they want it to. One way I think about this is I encourage people to be open to their eating patterns just evolving over time as life changes happen, as bodies change and as things unfold or you learn new information.

Honestly, I, I think it's, it can be more damaging when, say we are trying to follow a certain eating pattern or a certain diet and it works well for a little while, but then it stops working or something shifts and it makes it more difficult to adhere to. So just trying to stick to it becomes more and more distressing.

And so I think that's where we can get it a little bit more into a tailspin when we're kind of trying to force something that maybe it worked for a little while, but something about it has changed and we're not able to sustain that any longer.

So in short, I think maybe what I'm trying to say here is I'd encourage listeners to maybe reframe the mindset of, oh my gosh, I fell off the wagon of my diet, or I failed another diet. Or like, I need to get back on the wagon. Maybe this is the opportunity to actually take that step back and think about how maybe your eating patterns need to evolve over time or evolve with your changing schedule, evolve with your lab work, or evolve just as your values change.

So using that term evolving allows us to be fluid and allows us to adapt and not be kind of confined to such a rigid, say, diet schedule. It's about kind of serving you where you're at in your current needs. So I think that turned into a little bit longer of a show, but I hope it was helpful. I hope there was some food for thought in there. I think this person is not alone in feeling that diet fatigue. And so that was an important question that I thought I wanted to talk through and just again, kind of put some thoughts out there for anyone else who may be feeling the same way.

Maybe you felt the same way in the past or again, like you're kind of on that edge of like, well, if the more extreme way of eating isn't going to work, then what do I do in order to still move my health forward and still kind of move myself forward in that sense?

So I wanted to take a moment to just thank you all again for listening to Dishing Up Nutrition’s “Ask a Nutritionist”, and just a reminder, if you have a question for us, we have two options for you. You can join our Dishing Up Nutrition Facebook community by searching Dishing Up Nutrition on Facebook.

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