My failed diet

I set a goal, I tried and tried, and I didn’t reach it. How does that feel?

I returned from four weeks overseas at the start of April. My coach (for powerlifting programming and nutrition) and I made a plan for the rest of the year. Yep, we planned out the next eight months! We settled on the timing for two powerlifting competitions. I told her that I wanted to to lose a few kilos at some point and was flexible as to when that was. She decided then was the best time, so mid-April I started dieting, with the intention to lose 3kg (6.6lbs) over 8 weeks (a reasonable average of -0.38kg/week).

I don’t handle big increases or decreases in calories very well; my body and mind freak out a little. So the deficit started at a modest 1900 calories (I maintain my weight at 2200 calories). Typically when starting a diet I’ll lose 1kg (2.2lbs) of water weight straight away, just from eating less carbs. Carbs are stored in your muscles with water, so eat less carbs, there’s less storage, and therefore less water. For some reason, this time around there was no sudden drop in weight. In fact as the weeks went on and my calories went lower, and lower… my weight barely budged. The graph above shows how the diet played out. Yes, I overate twice (I’m talking a couple thousand calories). There are reasons why I overate on two occasions but they don’t really matter. While I didn’t feel guilty, and it possibly set me back a little, those two overeating occasions don’t explain the overall lack of results over weeks of hard work.

At the six week mark my calories went below 1700 and that’s when things start to get hard for me. There’s so much more planning food in advance, strategy when hanging out with friends, analysing and overthinking. It’s tiresome. But it’s short term and I wanted to reach my goal, so I continued. At the eight week mark I’d lost 1.5kg (3.3 lbs), just half of what I wanted to lose, but my calories decreased further and I pressed on.

At 11 weeks, and having spent the last four weeks on ~1550 calories, we called it quits. I got sick, and was six weeks out from a powerlifting competition. I need calories to recover from illness and training. I’d lost just 2kg (4.4lbs) in 11 weeks.

I have no idea why this diet didn’t work. I’ve done structured diets monitored by coaches in the past, and have lost more weight over shorter time periods. I’ve dieted before, I know what needs to be done, I did (nearly) everything right and didn’t get the result I wanted. As someone who likes to achieve the goals I’ve set out to achieve, I was a little frustrated… but also more emotionally detached than I expected.

I used to put a lot of emotional investment into what I weighed. If I tried to lose weight, and didn’t, I saw myself as a failure. I spent many years checking the scales and caring about the number they read back to me. I spent many years letting that number dictate my worth as a person. But this time around I wasn’t dieting because I hated what I looked like. I wasn’t dieting because I thought I’d be happier smaller. I was already happy. Dieting was just a goal and it seemed like an ok time to do it.

When you already like the way that you look it makes it’s easy to give up dieting. And to extend from that, when it finally sinks in that you are so much more than what you weigh – your relationships, your career, your education, your hobbies, your kindness your work ethic – it’s easy to give up dieting. I didn’t reach my goal but I don’t really care. I get to focus on being strong, I get to eat more ice cream, I get to have a drink, I get to enjoy brunch with my friends. I’m glad that this is the diet that I’ve failed, now, while I am in my far more mature headspace. Because I get to shrug and get back to living a fuelled and fulfilled life.