The Perfect Diet

Does it really exist?

Sean Barker, CPT, PN2
5 min readNov 7, 2020

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Calories in versus calories out.

Eat less, move more.

The perfect pill, potion, or percentage.

Eat real foods.

Eat clean foods.

High protein.

Low carbohydrate.

High fat … The ideas and the advice go on and on.

Easy to say, but not so easy to do, right? Confusing? Yes!

And this is just a fraction of the type of advice you get when you ask someone about the Perfect Diet.

If I had any hair left on my head I would pull it out and scream. Do you feel the same way about finding the perfect diet?

When did eating and controlling our weight and health get so confusing? And more importantly, when will the confusion stop? Well, hopefully, it stops right now, the minute you begin reading this.

For most people, restrictive ‘dieting’ ends with and failure and discouragement. Despite an initial high from short-term weight-loss results, the average calorie-restricted dieter ends up hating their life after a few weeks or months and eventually quits ‘dieting’ when the lure of their favorite foods and the frustration of preparing complicated recipes becomes too much to bear.

Ultimately the dieter returns to eating the way they did in the past — and they return to the same body weight as well, sometimes to a higher weight than before.

But worse for a person than gaining back the weight are the residual feelings of frustration and failure left lingering after each diet attempt, feelings that push the dieter farther and farther away from his or her best body, discouraging them from finding a real, permanent solution.

As a fitness and nutrition coach with 25 years of experience, I still don’t advocate for or promote certain foods or diets for everyone. I believe there are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods and I recommend you stop labeling as such and don’t buy into diet dogma or extreme food restrictions.

Every food (unless you have a serious food allergy or sensitivity) should be fair game to eat and all you have to do is follow some simple science strategies of calorie control and

Sean Barker, CPT, PN2

Award-winning fitness coach and best-selling author of The Easy Eating Diet and cookbook. Apply for Online Custom FIT Coaching here: https://bit.ly/3wzBhHH