5 Signs You’re Falling for a Fad Diet or Quick Fix Solution
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Do you want to build the body you want? I know, I know, it sounds like a silly question because you’re thinking, OF COURSE JULIE!
But here’s the thing: So many of you are trying to build the body you want, but are going about it in the wrong way.
But the real kicker is that, you are going about it in the wrong way but have NO IDEA that you ware going about it in the wrong way.
That’s why in this episode of Embrace You Real, I’m going to teach you what to look out for and help you avoid those fad diets and quick fix solutions that are only adding to the problem and NOT helping.
Before I share the 5 signs, I first want to share some downsides of following Fad Diets and Quick Fix Solutions…
They trigger you to enter into the cycle of gaining and losing and gaining and losing weight.
They can damage your metabolism.
It hinders your mental health.
It stops you from living your life.
So now that you know the downsides of following these types of diets, tune in to find out what are the five tell-tail signs of a Fad Diet.
If you want to learn how to successfully build the body you want WITHOUT a fad diet…then it’s time you check out my HYBC.
I teach you the tools you need to create LIFE LONG habits that will bring you LONG TERM results. Yes, it is a four week challenge, but a challenge to kickstart these habits so you continue doing them for the rest of your life.
It will help you break the toxic cycle, help you THRIVE, and help you develop a healthy relations with food, fitness, and your body.
You sign up now by heading over to honoryourbodychallenge.com
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real let's get it, let's go.
Do you want to build the body that you want? I know, I know that's a very silly question because you're thinking, "Of course I do, that's why I'm here," but the thing is so many of you are trying to build the body that you want but you're going about it in the wrong way. But the real kicker is you're going about it in the wrong way but have no idea that what you are doing is the wrong way. That's why in this episode of Embrace Your Real I'm going to teach you what to look out for to help you avoid these fad diets and quick fix solutions that are only adding to the problem and not helping.
But before I do, I had to share this supersweet review. It comes from Girl In The Sunshine State. She says, "Soul lifting. These are the types of people we all need in our lives. Julie makes you want to become a better human on the inside and out. She hits all the key areas in life and makes me want to be better. Being new to Florida, I don't have normal friends from work to talk and get advice from so I just put this podcast on, go for a walk, and my mind figures things out with the help of Julie. Thank you so much."
Oh my gosh, I love this so much. First of all, I love your name, Girl From The Sunshine State. Welcome to Florida. I hope you're enjoying it, as many people are, they're moving there. I've known so many people that have moved from New York, they've moved from California, they've moved from all different places and they're absolutely loving Florida. So I hope you're enjoying it and I hope you are soaking up all of that vitamin D.
But thank you guys so much for sharing out the podcast. Thank you for leaving reviews. It truly does mean the absolute world to me. If you haven't already left a review on the podcast, all you have to do is go to any Apple device, go to the podcast app, type in Embrace Your Real, and you can hit that plus sign in the top, right corner that subscribes you to the show. It's a completely free show. And then you get two brand new episodes every single week and you can also leave a rating interview there, that truly does help us out. Thank you guys so much, honestly, for the support. Thank you for tuning in week after week and sharing it with your friends. I don't deserve you guys but I'm so grateful that you guys are a part of this family. You guys truly make this podcast, everything that it is, and I wouldn't be here without you guys.
Okay, so before I share the five signs, I want to share some downsides of following fad diets and quick fix solutions so, number one, they actually trigger you to enter the cycle, the cycle of gaining and losing, gaining and losing, and this can trigger your weight to always be unstable. So when you're on the diet you lose all the weight but the second you get off the diet you gain all the weight back and plus more, typically. You guys, this is not normal and this should not be normalized. In a healthy world when you lose weight in an unsustainable way, your weight should typically fluctuate anywhere from five to seven pounds. But if it's fluctuating like 15, 20, 25 pounds, it's typically because you just got off of a fad diet and it wasn't sustainable thus your body has entered that toxic cycle of gaining and losing and gaining and losing.
It can also damage your metabolism. Do you have friends in your life who can eat whatever they want for weeks or months on end and be totally fine but you feel that if you eat one or two large meals or foods that you don't normally eat, let's say on vacation or out to dinner with friends and family, you instantly gain like 10 to 15 pounds? This is likely because you've been eating in such a low caloric deficit for so long that your metabolic capacity is not efficient. You should be able to eat the foods that you love without gaining a bunch of weight. It can also hinder your mental health. It makes you feel like you're losing your mind, that your body is broken. You feel helpless. You feel stuck. You feel all the things except for feeling good in your body. Honestly, even when you do lose the weight from the fad diets or quick fixes, you're still mentally drained. It doesn't make you feel happier. It truly makes you feel like it's impossible to keep going.
And lastly, following fad diets and quick fix solutions truly stop you from living your life. You get anxiety thinking about eating out with friends. You get anxiety about eating meals with your family. You get anxious about having a drink. You get anxious about skipping workouts. You get anxious when you eat carbs. So instead you don't go out with your friends. You don't eat meals with your family. You don't eat the foods you love. You skip out on the experiences to go to the gym. And the worst part is when you actually do go out with your friends or spend time with family, all you're thinking about is how fat you're going to get. You aren't actually living in the present and enjoying the experience. This, my friends, is not healthy at all.
Trust me when I say I know exactly how it feels. I lived in that space mentally and physically for a decade of my life and it was a living hell, to be honest. It was not fun and it's something that I don't wish upon anybody. But what I do wish I knew was, back then, I didn't realize that I was chasing these quick fixes and these fad diets. I just thought that this was a way of life. And so if you're in that space and you're like, "I feel these things, these things that you just mentioned above, I feel one or more of them," I'm going to be sharing with you five telltale signs that you've possibly adopted a fad diet.
Number one, you have adopted habits you can't sustain long-term. So if you feel like the habits that you've adopted in order to reach your goal weight aren't things that you can do for five months or five years this is, in fact, a fad diet. If you want to lose weight that lasts long-term, then you have to develop habits that you can sustain long-term. Let me say that again. If you want to lose weight that lasts long-term, you need to develop habits that you can sustain long-term. So you have to ask yourself do you see yourself being happy doing these habits one year from now? What about five years from now? The key word here is happy. Sure, you might be able to keep forcing yourself but will you actually be a hundred percent happy doing them? If the answer is no, then it's likely a fad diet that you're following.
Number two, you feel hungry all the time. Your diet should not leave you feeling undernourished every single time you eat a meal. If you eat a meal and you don't feel full, then you've missed the point of the meal. Meals should fill you up. Feeling full is the goal. I know so many women who think feeling full means that they're getting fat but feeling full means you're going to have the energy you need to go crush your day successfully. You're not going to just get by on the little amount of food that you ate. You're actually going to thrive. So if you always feel hungry, you're most likely not eating the right amount of what your body needs in terms of protein, carbs and fats. Because when you eat those three macros in the proper amounts for where you're at and what your goals are, they work in synergy.
Number three, you never feel satisfied with the food that you eat. If you hate the food that you're eating, then you're doing it wrong. Food is part of life that needs to be enjoyed and that should bring you joy. Food is the center of so many cultures. Many of the best moments of our life are centered around a meal so it's important to enjoy our food. When we enjoy the food that we eat we experience more joy in our life. So if you are eating plain rice, plain broccoli, plain lettuce, plain chicken, then yes, that is a fad diet. You should not need to eat extremely bland meals in order to lose weight, period. I know so many women who believe this and that's why it's key for me to include so many amazing recipes inside my Honor Your Body challenges to show women that you can eat amazing food and still build the body that you want.
For example, in the challenge this week I am going to be making chicken Parmesan burgers, loaded beef nachos, creamy chicken and sausage pasta, brown sugar banana bread, and double chocolate cake, all of those things. You guys, I've shared these recipes on my Instagram story and so many women were like, "You can eat that and still reach your goals?" I'm like, "Yes, that is the whole point. The whole point is to learn how to properly fuel your body and eat these delicious foods. And yes, you can absolutely still reach your goals."
Number four, you have to cut out entire food groups. This was me for so long. You feel like you can't eat carbs. You feel like you can't eat fat. You feel like you can't eat protein. If that's you, you are likely following a fad diet because each macronutrient plays a super important role and that is why they exist. That's why we need all three macronutrients to have a balanced intake, to reach our goals.
Your body needs all of these three macronutrients to thrive. Fats are important for brain energy and play a crucial role in helping your body burn fat, not to mention they help keep your hormones happy and healthy. Carbs give your muscles energy and helps them recover properly and protein is the building block to building muscle. Without enough protein, you'll likely struggle to build muscle. This is just a quick overview, I will dive deeper in an upcoming episode, but cutting out one of those macronutrients likely means that you're not taking a healthy approach. Plus, like I said earlier, eating the proper amount of what your body needs in terms of protein, carbs, and fats, and eating all three together, that's what's going to allow you to feel fuller longer, and satisfied after your meals and snacks.
And number five, you feel mentally and physically drained. Fad diets make you feel constant brain fog, lack of concentration, zero motivation, lack of physical energy, bad sleep, tired all the time, the list goes on and on. If your diet isn't making you thrive, then it's a diet that you should not be on because it is a fad diet. What you eat should make you feel amazing. You should have energy throughout your entire day, both physically and mentally. So, when you start new eating habits, evaluate how you feel throughout your day. This is key and this is why I always talk about keeping a food journal because that will really help you to identify and jot down how you're feeling after you eat meals and snacks.
One thing to know is if you have restricted tons of foods for a long period of time, our bodies are very adaptable, which is an amazing thing, but it can also work against us and so if you have restricted yourself from certain foods for so long, your body might not feel good after certain foods and you might think you have an intolerance but, in reality, you might just need to slowly introduce it back into your daily intake. Or maybe it is, maybe your body just does not do well with certain foods. I know for me, cruciferous vegetables like kale, broccoli, cauliflower, I cannot have them. I have tried so many stinking times and every single time I just don't feel good but I wouldn't have known that if I didn't keep a food journal. So I want to encourage you to keep a food journal so that you know what foods and meals make you feel your best.
Okay, so let's recap those five signs. Number one, you have adopted habits that you cannot sustain long-term. Number two, you feel hungry all the time. Number three, you never feel satisfied with the foods that you eat. Number four, you have to cut out entire food groups. And, number five, you feel mentally and physically drained.
If you want to learn more about how to successfully build the body that you want without a fad diet, you can go to www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook. This is a 30-plus page e-book that I wrote specifically for you. If you are frustrated with where you're at and you feel like you've been following a fad diet, you feel like you've been restricting yourself, you've been doing unsustainable habits, in this e-book I'm going to be sharing with you a tool that has single-handedly helped me so much in helping me build the body that I want. I will link that in the show notes. Again, it is www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook. And like I said, we will link that in the show notes below, but that is a completely free e-book for you. I hope that this e-book serves you and, like I said, I teach you a tool in there that has single-handedly transformed my entire journey.
I hope that this episode was helpful for you. I hope that you found something from it. Maybe you have a friend or a coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from the information that I shared in this episode. If so, be sure to screenshot this and post it up on your story and you can tag that friend. Also, you can tag me and Embrace Your Real. We always love connecting with our listeners and seeing your aha moments. Thank you, guys, so much for tuning in to today's episode and I will talk to you in the next one.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the Gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter, yes, it's with the a in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check.
The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.