Diets can be soul crushing. You might start off very motivated, but being so harsh on yourself and avoiding all of your favorite snacks inevitably leads to caving in and binging. Have you ever gone on an extreme diet only to cave into temptation and actually put on more weight than when you started?

Well, here’s where flexible dieting can come in handy. The concept behind it is super simple. You don’t need to avoid the foods you love to eat and you don’t need to get your calories extremely low either.

How Does it Work?

Flexible dieting is often called IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) and it refers to counting the amount of calories and macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats) going into your body. It is becoming an extremely popular way of dieting because it means that you can eat whatever you want and still achieve your goal.

Now, when we say whatever you want, we don’t mean how much you want. We also don’t mean to say that your total day’s worth of calories in chocolate is going to do your body any good any help you achieve results most efficiently.

How to Make it Work

The key to successful flexible dieting is to calculate the total amount of calories you need in a day and break this down into macronutrient targets i.e. how much protein, fat, and carbs you need in one day. This website does a good job of explaining how to do this.

Once you have set your calories and macros, you then need to track your daily intake using an app like MyFitnessPal. This app, for example, allows you to input everything you’re eating in the day by scanning bar codes and shows you what you still have to eat.

It’s an extremely effective way of dieting like we said because it means that you don’t need to avoid your favorite meals in any way. Obviously, the quality of what you’re eating is still incredibly important and you’ll soon find out that it’s not actually that fun eating your daily allowance in McDonald’s since it soon eats into your calories. Most tend to find that this is a far more sustainable way than the typical fad diets and it you actually stop seeing it as a diet at all.