Looking for the best diets based off of personal experience? Good…because I’m going to start this one off with saying that there is no perfect diet! Everyone is different and overtime one diet that you really liked, you might end up hating.
When looking for the best diet for yourself, you need to have an open mind and not be scared to try new things if something isn’t working out.
The biggest thing you can do wrong in this game is to not know how to accept failing. You’re gonna screw up and the quicker you learn to screw up and move on, the quicker you’ll reach your goals.
With that said, here are the best diets for weight loss that I’ve tried.
Best Diets: Intermittent Fasting Diet
This was the first “real” diet that ever worked for me and still works for me to this day. Seriously, before I tried this I just couldn’t get super lean and then BOOM, it was way easier.
Intermittent fasting is where you don’t eat for a set number of hours a day, also known as fasting. My fasting split is almost always either 16 or 20 hours. I break my fast for the remaining time.
This means I’ll be eating for either 8 or 4 hours that day.
The goal with intermittent fasting is to get all of your calories in that 8 or 4 hour block (or however long your eating block is). Since you’re only eating for a few hours a day you get to eat a ton of calories in a short amount of time. I love eating bigger portions so that’s my favorite thing about this diet.
Another couple things I like about IF? I always tend to have way more energy despite not eating first thing in the morning. I also feel like I save a ton of time not having to eat throughout the day.
The first maybe 2 or 3 days of intermittent fasting is somewhat hard but after that you adjust and it’s a breeze.
Best Diets: If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM Diet)
I’ve never been one to follow a strict meal plan, it’s just not enjoyable at all for me. Bland chicken with broccoli and rice multiple times a day? No thanks, I’d rather wear a swim shirt year round.
Being able to eat what I want in moderation, when I want is what works for me and that’s what IIFYM allows you to do. Selecting my meals as I go, especially when I’m traveling, is another huge benefit of this method of dieting.
The best part? This diet is super easy to follow because of technology nowadays. There’s about 1,000 apps out there (search calorie tracker in any app store) that can do all the work for you, no more pen and paper. Yes, I actually used to use pen and paper to track everything!
All you have to do for this one is to figure out how many calories you need to be eating. You can easily do this with an online calculator like this one. Once you figure your calories out, find out what kind of macro split you want to do.
The 40/30/30 split is a good example and pretty common. This means 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat.
If you need to be eating 2,000 calories a day that would be 800 calories in carbs (1g of carb = 4 calories), 600 calories in protein (1g of protein = 4 calories), and 600 calories in fat (1g of fat = 9 calories).
As you understand the diet more you can change your split up daily or weekly and when you really understand it you probably won’t even need a calculator.
Flexibility is a huge bonus with this one
Best Diets: Your Standard Diet
I don’t think there’s a real name for this one, hence the standard diet name. You could also call it a meal prep diet or in my opinion…a really boring diet.
Having just mentioned above that I’d rather wear a swim shirt than eat the same thing over and over again, if you’re someone who likes routine and to keep things simple, this type of diet is always a safe bet. Its worked for me and millions of other people for decades now.
All you do for this diet is prep a bunch of meals each week and that’s it, you’re good to go. What you want to focus on with these meals is to make your portions smaller and make smarter choices.
Have a vegetable, some fruit, 4-6 ounces of a grilled protein, and a quality carb like a sweet potato or some quinoa. Don’t use tons of sauces or oils and as the weeks go on make your portions a bit smaller and/or use less sauces/oils.
There’s no need to calorie count with this one and you’ll always have something prepped.
Although this method of dieting isn’t my cup of tea anymore, it works, it’s easy, and some people prefer a diet that takes a little bit more discipline.
Best Diets: Low Carb Diet or Keto Diet
If you’re doing a keto diet, you’re doing a low carb diet but if you’re doing a low carb diet you’re not always doing a keto diet.
There’s no real guideline to what low carb is so low carb to some could be 100 grams of carbs which means you’re not doing keto since keto is typically (for most people) less than 50 grams of net carbs per day.
Net carbs are carbs minus fiber and sugar alcohols if they’re keto friendly like erythritol.
What you’re also doing with a keto diet is eating a high fat diet so you’re eating cheeses, whole eggs, bacon, 80/20 burgers, the best steak you can buy, avocado, and so on. Sounds delicious, right? Because it is!
The downfall with the keto diet is you’re eating your bacon stacked avocado burger without a bun. Is that always a downfall? NO! A lettuce wrapped burger is just as good in my opinion!
For the past year this diet has been my bread and butter when I’ve needed to drop a few pounds, without the bread obviously.
As for what keto means, it’s short for ketosis which your body enters from going low carb after around 1-3 days. Depending on your body/activity level this could take up to a week)
Ketosis is your body converting fat into compounds known as ketones which can be used as a source of fuel for your body.
To keep this simple, on a standard diet your body will use carbs which break down into glucose. That glucose is used for energy. Without glucose for energy you need to get that fuel from somewhere else.
Fat is now your energy source when you’re in ketosis.
There’s 2 quick ways to tell if you’re in ketosis:
- By using a keto test strip like these. They’re super cheap and a pretty good starting point but not always accurate.
- You have bad (terrible) breath, also known as keto breath.
Another thing you can do with these best diets is to stack them. For example, incorporate IIFYM with intermittent fasting and things will get even easier. If you don’t like that then keep trying until you find a formula that works great for you!
The Worst Diet
The worst diet I’ve ever done? A low fat diet! Don’t ever do a low fat diet unless you have a GREAT reason to. Going low fat for a long time seriously messed up my hormones and gave me crazy mental fog. It took me over a year to get everything back to normal, no joke!
Fats are super important (I now rarely eat less than 30% fat a day), especially with hormones. Eat them and don’t be scared of them. Eat lots of them.
With all this said, these are the best diets that have worked great for me. Let me know in the comments below what diet or diets have worked best for you and/or maybe some tricks you’ve learned a long the way!
If you liked this, try reading our article on How to Gain Weight without Getting FAT next!
