What’s the best diet for me? Keto vs Paleo vs Plant-based.

Low carb diets are all the rage right now, but are they healthy and will they help you lose weight?

Maybe.

It depends on how your body regulates glucose (blood sugar):

Some who don’t regulate glucose well do better on a lower-carb diet.

Others who do regulate glucose well might do better on a lower-fat diet.

Studies show that people who follow EITHER a low fat OR a low carb diet will still lose weight, as long as they are in caloric restriction and can adhere to the diet for at least a year.

So, it comes down to: “which diet are you more likely to stick with for a year or longer?”

I personally lost 22 pounds over 6 months on a lower fat diet (and eating plenty of carbs), but everybody is different.

This means you’ll need to experiment and see which is better for your lifestyle, and your day to day well-being.

But I bet you have questions about the big popular diets too.

I’ve written a huge guide that covers all popular weight-loss diets together, but we’ve also written individual ultimate guides that cover:

The Keto Diet (Ketogenic Diet).
Intermittent Fasting.
The Paleo Diet.
The Mediterranean Diet.
Vegan and Plant-Based Diets.
Carnivore Diet.
The Military Diet.

Let’s look at each of these diets and explain why they will help you lose weight, at least temporarily:

Truth #1: Every diet works in the short term.

Truth #2: Nearly every diet fails in the long term.

Let’s address these two truths individually:

Why does every diet work in the short term?

All the diets above have a clever way of restricting calories without you needing to count calories, which leads to weight loss:

Paleo Diet: eliminate everything but veggies, meat, fruit, and nuts.
Intermittent Fasting: skip an entire meal!
Keto Diet: remove an entire macronutrient from your diet (carbs).
Military Diet: Only eat specific foods in certain quantities.
Plant-based Diet: Only eat vegetables and foods from plants.
Carnivore Diet: Only eat meat! Eliminate everything else.

Of course, there are plenty of benefits from following certain diets for certain groups of people. For example, Larry went Keto and it helped him reduce inflammation from rheumatoid arthritis.

However, 99% of the reason why these diets result in short term weight loss is because they get us to eat fewer calories!

The problems arise when we get to Truth 2:

“Nearly every diet fails in the long term.”

Put another way:

Temporary changes create temporary results.

If somebody “goes Keto” for 60 days, they’ll most likely lose weight, and might even feel better! This is cool.

BUT!

(There’s always a but…)

If they spend those 60 days in misery, dreaming of carbs, counting down the meals until they can “go back to eating like normal,” they will put all of the weight back.

In order for restrictive diets to create permanent results for somebody, they need to be adopted PERMANENTLY!

For most of us mere mortals, we can’t stick with a restrictive diet for 30 days, let alone a year or a decade.

For these reasons, I strongly advise you to change how you think about dieting.

You need to determine how likely you are to stick with a restrictive diet permanently:

How averse are you to change?
How likely are you to stick with your changes?
Have you tried a restrictive diet in the past and failed?
Do you have a healthy relationship with food?
Do you have an “All or nothing?” mindset?

Like playing a video game, you need to determine what level of difficulty you are willing to attempt.

Playing on “Ultra Hard Difficulty” (like Keto) gives you less room for error, but it can also produce impressive results quickly – if you don’t rage quit.

And 99% of people rage quit restrictive diets like Keto.

So what’s the best diet for you?

I’ll give you the same answer that I give people when they ask me, “What’s the best workout plan?”:

The best diet is the one that helps you reach your goals, that you ENJOY, and that you’ll actually stick with permanently!

Personally, I don’t follow any sort of restrictive diet.

I’m a big fan of small changes that eventually produce big results.

This is why I’ve SLOWWWWLY adjusted my diet over the past decade so that no change was too drastic and I could stick with it permanently.

It’s not a diet. It’s a lifestyle change. Permanently.

And that’s what I would recommend for you:

Small, non-scary, permanent changes over a long time period!

You need to start thinking in terms of “days and years,” not “weeks and months:”