There Is No ‘Best’ Way To Lose Weight

The best diet is probably the one that works for you

There are a lot of stock photos of “diet” online, but I have to say that an avocado wearing a tape measure was the one that made me laugh the most. Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

The world of dieting is a fascinating one. If you’re following the latest celebrity trends, what you should be eating changes almost weekly. This is always referenced back to some scientific finding, even though the evidence on dieting hasn’t shifted all that much for at least a decade, maybe more.

As an epidemiologist, dieting is interesting because it’s a complex topic that impacts a huge number of people in one way or another. As a human being who has in his life gone on many a diet, and ultimately managed to lose about 20kg long-term, I find the endless to-and-fro of popular diet fads both slightly depressing and extremely compelling to watch.

People are always looking for a silver bullet, and the diet space is no different. Should you try low-carb or low-fat? Mediterranean or Paleo? Is it better to cut out meat entirely, or eat nothing but beef as some steroid-taking Tiktok influencers have suggested?

Pictured: Beef. Sometimes the captions just aren’t that insightful. Photo by Eiliv Aceron on Unsplash

These messages are wildly different but also remarkably identical. They all claim that there is one single thing which you can do to improve your…