“Yes” say Tara Diversi and Dr Adam Fraser in their new book – The Good Enough Diet. So we asked Melissa Carmody to explain what ‘good enough’ means and take us through the principles behind this newly released book.
About our expert:
Melissa Carmody is an Accredited Practising Dietitian. She is a graduate dietitian from The University of Sydney, and after graduation assisted with the research into The Good Enough Diet. Mel is based in Sydney and is passionate about clinical nutrition and using food as medicine for long-term patient outcomes. You can follow her on Twitter @MelissaCarmody
Between study, work, travel, family, friends, and everything else life throws our way, life can start to feel like one big blur we have to get through each day. With all these commitments and jammed packed schedules, our well intended diet and exercise plans often get thrown out the window, guilt and stress kick in and weight loss starts to feel impossible. The authors of The Good Enough Diet, Accredited Practising Dietitian Tara Diversi and Accredited Exercise Physiologist Dr Adam Fraser tell us that their approach, “Is about losing weight without losing your life. It’s about letting go of the pressure to be perfect all of the time and accepting the fact that putting 100% of your time and effort into diet and exercise may just not be realistic for you”.
They provide evidence that the desire to be great at everything is making us miserable, and propose that good enough is enough to lose weight. “You can lose weight without being perfect all the time, and if you can’t be perfect, just do what you can – there is no benefit in feeling guilty and no benefit in giving up”, says Tara. Being successful when placed in less than ideal situations, means being more adaptive and flexible in life with your decisions around health. The authors tell us that if you go with the world instead of against it, you will be successful in losing weight and maintaining it. “Yes portion sizes are getting bigger, yes technology is making all of us less active, and yes we are all busy and tempted by takeaway. These things you can’t control, but you can control how you respond. You can control how much leftovers there are, your exercise time or takeaway choices.” says Adam. “We don’t think you need to ban treats, junk food, alcohol or dinners out, it’s about eating proactively instead of reactively” adds Tara.
Inside the book
The Good Enough Diet is a mix of general weight loss advice with practical tips to achieving these strategies in a busy lifestyle, some contrarian views and some controversial views. The authors make some contrarian claims based on their experience and research that are not common features of ‘perfect’ diet weight loss books. For example, they argue that some people should eat three meals a day, because when some people eat more regularly they just eat more kilojoules. “Eating six times a day is great in theory in the lab, but in the real work, some people who snack will end up putting on weight”. They also suggest that people reduce the variety in their diet to reduce smorgasboard and supermarket syndrome as well as reducing the stress of deciding what is for the next meal.
Controversially they tell us that incidental exercise, like taking the stairs can make us fat because of the health halo we attach to it. “Incidental exercise should be seen as a bonus, rather than a replacement, and many of the suggestions we hear from “experts” are just not practical in our busy lives for the people we have seen”, says Tara. The Good Enough Diet also professes the power in positive psychology and changing your mindset. For example they profess that believing and practising the philosophies of ‘It’s ok to be fat’ and ‘It’s ok to be hungry’ can be the key to losing weight for many people. They provide a section on comfort food which talks about when a battle is worth fighting and some little things you can do to train yourself to stop emotional eating. “Two big things that have seemed to work for my clients is eating hot food for their three meals, and if they want to have treats, eating them away from home,” says Tara
Overall, The Good Enough Diet is a book for busy people, people who keep falling off the wagon and people who want to lose weight, but are at a time in their life where it can not be their number one priority.
Editor’s comment: Thanks Mel. It’s great to see my mate Tara publish again and two experts share their wisdom. I think there are excellent tips in here for all people and health professionals. I also congratulate Tara and Adam for providing a reference list to the book. Ultimately I feel that for long term weight loss success you need to go through a process and find what works for you. Your chance of success is increased if you have or build a supportive environment. I’m particulary interested in the power of online support and apps and am getting insights into this as part of my role as Nutrition Advisor to Weight Watchers.
