Fad diets are probably never going away. Maybe if every woman on the planet unanimously decided that we like ourselves as-is, we might have a chance — but that’s not likely to happen. Before you jump on the latest dieting bandwagon, consider if the diet is actually worth it or if it’s just too annoying to deal with. Here are 9 signs it’s the latter:
- You can never find a restaurant that suits your dietary needs. At some point, you’re probably going to find yourself in a restaurant, but if there’s not a single one on the planet that can cater to your dietary needs, that’s a problem. What could you be eating (or not eating) that’s so difficult to find at a restaurant? How are you supposed to function on this diet long-term?
- Ordering a meal at a restaurant is almost impossible. And speaking of going out to eat, if your order has a few restrictions that aren’t too annoying, that’s not a huge hassle and servers are used to it. But if ordering your meal takes half an hour of careful explanations and dozens of questions, that crap is gonna get old real quick.
- You have to buy appliances and/or tools to make your meals. For example, if you happen to have, say, a vegetable spiralizer on hand, that’s great, but if your diet requires you to purchase one to even follow the plan, that’s ridiculous.
- You have to weigh all your food. If you have to weigh every bit of food you eat, that means you have to take a scale with you, and no one wants to sit at the table with the chick who’s pulling a scale out of her purse so that she can weigh everything on her plate.
- People stop inviting you over. If you’re on a super restrictive diet and you need to let people know (in the event of a dinner party or something), then you should, but don’t be a jerk about it. Be aware that not everyone has your restrictions. If all you eat is tree bark and raspberry water and you’re very insistent on having that, people are going to stop inviting you over to their home, because it’s just too annoying to deal with you.
- You have to do hours of research and preparation before you begin your diet plan. If your diet requires you to read a 400 page book, that’s a waste of your time. If you have to spend 12 hours out of your Sunday making your own clarified butter and sunflower bread to make your meal plan for the week, that’s also a waste of your time.
- You can’t find any ingredients you need in your local stores. If you find yourself ordering ingredients on Amazon to make a diet-friendly version of a normal dish and there are absolutely no other substitutions you can use, and you find yourself driving all over the damn city just to make breakfast, it’s not worth it.
- You fantasize about eating non-diet foods. If your Jon Hamm fantasy has been replaced by a glazed ham fantasy, that is a sign that maybe it’s time to rethink your diet.
- Explaining your diet is more difficult than explaining the plot of Inception. If you can’t sum up your diet in one sentence or in 5 seconds, it’s gonna cause some serious eye-rolling. Which OK, fine, let’s say you don’t care what other people think. That’s good. But now think about having to explain your diet to every single person who asks why you’re not eating. You have to give your little diet speech over and over, and that’s tiring and starts to make you think, what is really the point of this: to get healthy, or to make eating as difficult as possible? Food is a joy — don’t forget that.
