The Best and Worst Diet and Exercise Plans

You’ve probably heard the advice: “the best diet and exercise plans are the ones you can stick to and enjoy.”

And while that statement does have truth to it, this is the end result, which is often harder to get to.

How can you tell what you’ll enjoy without trying everything under the sun and spending a fortune?

Of course you could do just that, as I have. But I’m here to spare you from having to do that (unless you want to of course) since I’ve had some experience already doing this.

See, I’ve tried a ton of different exercise and eating plans, some dating back to watching Tony Little workout videos on VHS (yes, you read that right #truestory).

Since then, I’ve moved on to workout DVDs, exercise programs, using a coach, bootcamps, reading books on the subject, and trying free workouts online.

And while I’m not here to promote any one plan, I want to help you find the one that’s right for you. 

Before I do that though, I want to share why you should spend the time doing this in the first place:

Why It Pays to Have a Diet and Workout Plan

Without realizing it, most of us crave structure.

Sure, we don’t always love being told what to do.

But having to show up at a certain time for work, for example, is much easier for creating a routine than being told to come in when you want.

As we’ve seen with this pandemic, it’s much harder to create structure when there is none.

You’ve probably seen this if you’ve suddenly turned to remote work without having a formal schedule.

This also happens on weekends.

Given a blank canvas, it’s a bit harder to plan your day, stick to it, and not get sucked in by the comfort of your bed calling you to sleep in for one more hour.

That’s why I always recommend having some sort of plan — for your weekends, your workouts, and what you want to eat.

Because without these, your days tend to slip by, your meals are much harder to figure out and you’re left scrambling in the moment (which leads to wanting the easiest and sometimes unhealthiest option), and your workouts get pushed to tomorrow or another day.

Essentially, it’s much harder to make progress and reach your goals.

On the flipside, with a plan in place, you already have the blueprint. Which means from there it’s just about showing up, which is not always the easiest part but eventually it does get better.

Now, I’m not here to say you have to live a rigid life always adhering to the plan and if you veer from it shame on you.

That’s not my point at all.

Instead, I suggest using a plan most of the time. So that in the few instances where you can’t get to it or your day gets the best of you, it’s no big deal.

You just jump right back in the next day.

But without a plan, it’s far too easy to slip to that tomorrow mentality where you tackle your goals another day and that snowballs and never happens.

And when it comes to your diet, I’m not suggesting you follow a specific diet. 

Those are hard to stick to and can create a binge cycle where if you’ve been “bad” and veered off course, you give yourself a free pass to indulge on anything and everything naughty in sight because you’ll get back on track tomorrow.

My “diet” tips are much more loose than that, which I’ll share later on in this guide, but they still have some structure.

There’s a focus in mind that helps putting meals together much easier and less daunting. There’s also room for fun, which I believe is the key to sticking to any “diet”. 

By the way, I put “diet” in quotes because, as you’ll soon see, I don’t agree with diets. I think they’re a recipe for eating disorders and binge cycles and I really don’t want to promote that here.

I’ll dive into this shortly, but first I want to talk about:

The Best and Worst Exercise Plans

As mentioned earlier, I’m not here to promote any one plan. 

Instead, I want to give you the pros and cons of different styles of workouts to help you find one that’s good for you.

Since I have some experience here, you’ll notice a bit of a bias though, but I’ll try to keep it fair.

Workout DVDs and Streaming Services (Worst)

I’ve been doing workouts from VHS, DVDs, and streaming services for longer than I probably should admit.

I still have old Biggest Loser workout DVDs that I 100% should get rid of.

I’ve also signed up for streaming services, as you’ve seen on this site, that I spent almost 10 months doing.

What I like about these options is they’re extremely affordable.

In the case of DVDs, you can usually pay a one-time small fee and have it for life.

The streaming services are a little more of a financial investment where you usually pay per month, but they also tend to be affordable.

Here’s where these programs lose it for me: they’re trying to appeal to the masses.

Some DVDs were way above my fitness level yet sometimes the streaming services were so easy I felt like I barely worked out.

There’s no way for them to know your fitness level and adjust accordingly. So instead you end up in a one size fits all model that doesn’t work for everyone.

Another negative to this exercise style is that it’s hard to really know if you’re doing the moves right.

In most cases, you’re facing the opposite way as the instructors on the screen and if the camera angle is slightly off, you could end up doing the whole set completely wrong — this happened to me plenty of times.

Unfortunately, this can lead to injuries and a lack of progress.

Speaking of the latter, it’s hard to make progress with these programs too. Since there’s only structure within the workout, it’s hard to put together an entire program that gets you to your goals.

Some streaming services also repeat the same workouts to save money and that lack of variety gets boring quick.

So while the investment is low with these options, it definitely costs you in other ways.

Lastly, I found that sometimes these instructors either explain the exercises too much or not enough.

They either spend too much time and it wastes time or there’s not enough info and you’re left wondering how to do the move.

This can get confusing or time consuming and leads to wasted time and injuries.

Moving on…

Workout Classes (Worse)

To preface this opinion, I’ve taught and been to workout classes so I’m definitely biased here.

Workout classes are another economical option for trainers.

They can squeeze in a fairly large amount of people at once despite only spending the same amount of time (usually one hour).

While I enjoyed teaching these classes — I ran a bootcamp for several months, and I totally miss my bootcampers! — it was really hard to give everyone the same attention they deserved.

When you’re staring at 15 people at once, it’s hard to give everyone the tweaks they need to perform the moves right and without injury.

I’ve also been to yoga classes where they try to squeeze in as many people as possible (again, for economic reasons) and it’s hard to even have enough room to workout properly.

Not to mention classes can get expensive — I would imagine they’re out of most people’s budgets, they definitely became too pricey for me.

Classes do have their pros though.

Some people enjoy the group atmosphere and knowing they’re not alone in the struggle. 

All you have to do is show up, you can even bring a friend, and the workout is planned for you.

They also build a sense of community — you make friends in the group easier since everyone there has a similar interest as you.

But these classes can also lead to harmful comparisons — why can’t I do the move like her? Or why don’t I look like him if we’re doing the same classes?

They also don’t adjust for your individual fitness level or physical needs, which is another downside like the DVDs.

The last negative here is that oftentimes the trainers don’t have a progression plan in place, meaning they come up with the workouts on the spot without care for what came before these moves and what’s ahead.

So you may end up working out the same muscles over and over again without making progress.

That leads us to my favorite option:

Workout Plans and 30-Day Challenges (Best)

I’ve found that the best exercise plans are ones that have progression built in. 

You start easy early on, progress as you go, and ultimately reach an end goal.

I’ve done 30-day challenges, as I wrote about before, and have trained for a 10K using free programs like these.

Essentially, the plan is already laid out for you, over the course of several weeks, and your job is just to show up.

You have your workouts already planned for the week and you just have to knock them out.

I’ve found plans like these online, in a book called Lift to Get Lean, and I’ve even bought programs online.

Some programs were way out of my league and despite doing them and completing them for 12+ weeks, I was left exhausted but in the best shape.

So my tip here would be to really dig deep into the program before you fork over your hard earned cash.

If the workout plan tries to promise results in a short amount of time, it’s not a good option.

It’s probably far too difficult for most average people to follow and it’s probably high intensity based, which is a very taxing form of exercise that can lead to both results and injuries.

Instead, look for programs with different fitness levels. It should have an option for beginners, intermediate, and advanced users (Lift to Get Lean had this and it’s one reason I was drawn to it).

I also like any programs that give you a free 7-day trial so you can get a sample for what you’re signing up for.

Try it out for 7-days and if you feel exhausted or like it’s a struggle, it may not be the right plan for you.

These programs can be difficult because you want to be able to push yourself somewhat but not to the point of breaking or risking injury.

I also bought a workout program from a personal trainer that was by far one of my favorites.

He explained the moves ahead of time in short video clips so I could practice my form before moving on to the workouts.

From there, I was able to take a screenshot of the workouts so I had them on my phone and could easily refer back to them during the workout.

The progression was built in so I started out slow and moved up as I progressed.

I also found the videos helpful for understanding the moves without wasting time.

Probably my favorite perk and why this is my top choice is that I was only competing with myself.

Each day I showed up and my sole job was to try to get better than my last workout.

This didn’t always happen but it did most of the time.

With each passing week, I felt stronger (mostly because I was getting stronger) and had noticeable progress. 

And that’s why these are my favorite styles of exercise.

I learned so much and was able to push myself in a healthy way.

My hope is to one day create programs like these because I found them so beneficial personally.

After trying so many options out there, this is by far my favorite and for good reason.

The sweet spot for workouts for me was three days of strength training, two days of cardio, and two days of active rest (yoga, walks, stretching, etc.).

This is what I aim for to this day (it doesn’t always happen but it does most of the time).

With that out of the way, let’s move onto the diet portion of this article next:

The Best and Worst Diet Plans Out There

Did you know that every year a report comes out ranking the best diets?

Each year new diets are added and many in the top spots compete to stay there.

But the truth is, you can lose weight on any diet — the Twinkie diet proved this.

If you eat in a slight calorie deficit, you can lose weight eating almost anything.

That doesn’t make it healthy though.

And that’s my gripe with “diets”. They focus so much on restriction and being good and bad that they make it miserable or impossible to live a normal life.

So when you veer from the diet to celebrate any milestone in life or to have a snack you actually enjoy, your hard work is often demolished along with your willpower, self-confidence, and motivation.

I’m a firm believer that diets don’t work and any diet that says this while convincing you to give up foods is doing you a huge disservice. 

It’s not about a lifestyle change either. This is another b.s. claim that’s made to make it feel like you’ve failed if you can’t follow the lifestyle.

I don’t believe you need a diet to reach your goals. 

That’s why the worst diet to me is:

Any Diet that Restricts Entire Food Groups (Worst)

I’ve tried plant-based diets and I wanted to go vegan for ethical purposes but it just didn’t work out.

It’s hard to get the right balance of nutrients without having a degree in nutrition and being a slave to the kitchen all day.

I also find keto to be too restrictive.

Yes, it works. But like Jenna Jameson learned the hard way, the second you introduce some carbs back into your life, it’s hard to stop indulging.

Completely eliminating sugar does this too.

Sure, you shouldn’t eat sugar all day but it’s okay to indulge every once in a while as long as you don’t have blood sugar issues or other metabolic conditions.

That’s why I don’t believe in restricting yourself.

Unless you have a medical condition that warrants it, I don’t think most people benefit from being on a diet that restricts any one food group.

In fact, by eliminating food groups without medical supervision, you could make matters worse, like I did trying to cut out meat.

Tracking Your Food Intake and Calorie Counting (Worse)

I also regret mentioning that you should track your food intake and count your calories on this site.

This is another obsessive and unhealthy behavior that leads to results in the short term and poor eating habits (like disordered eating) later on.

The problem with calorie counting is that many programs often put you on a calorie limit that’s made for a toddler (hello 1,200 calories), not an adult.

So you restrict down until you can’t anymore and then binge because you’re starving.

Calorie counting has its purposes for some — bodybuilders, those who are extremely overweight and are under a doctor’s supervision — but most people aren’t equipped to do this healthily.

Not to mention it’s so tedious to count calories and track your food all day — who has the time for this?

I have talked about doing this short term to get a better idea but even that can be tricky. (You can learn how to ditch calorie counting by checking out this guide when you’re done here)

That’s why I’ve continued to use another method instead:

Focusing on the Right Amount of Macronutrients, Blood Sugar Control, and Getting Enough Fiber (Best)

Right now, and as I’ve mentioned before, I’m using an easier approach to tracking my food.

I’m using my hands as a portion control (see image below) guide and I’m aiming to save half of my plate for veggies, a quarter for protein, and a small quarter for carbs.

This is the macronutrient portion that works for me (it may be different for you).

I’m also tracking my blood sugar — I did this religiously for a week — to check in every so often.

I believe that your blood sugar is a much better gauge to how your body responds to what you’re eating.

I’m shooting for (per my doctor) a fasting blood sugar of less than 95 and less than 120 two hours after eating.

In the seven days I did this, I confirmed that my body can’t handle sugar and white carbs well.

Does that mean I eliminate them entirely?

Nope. 

But I’m much more careful about my consumption.

I limit my portions so I indulge a little but nothing too crazy or too often, I try to go for a walk after eating a high white carb meal to burn off some sugar, and I’ll fast a bit longer to get my levels down before eating again.

How your body responds to food is entirely individual which is why I recommend testing yourself to see how you fare.

You may not need this much restrictions but you won’t know until you test.

Blood sugar issues can lead to energy roller coasters, carb cravings, and stubborn belly fat.

So if you’re experiencing any (or all) of those issues, you may want to start tracking your blood sugar to see what works for you.

Lastly, while the carnivore diet has its benefits for some people, I’ve found that fiber is a key ingredient for me so I could never eliminate it.

Fiber helps expand my stomach so I physically feel full and it keeps me regular if you know what I mean.

I also don’t shy away from healthy fats but I’m not eating them in abundance either.

Fat keeps me feeling full for longer but it’s not something I can fill up on, fiber is.

I also make sure I’m getting enough protein without going overboard.

This is an example of how I roughly portion control:

[Image Source]

The only difference for me is I don’t use a clenched fist for my carbs — it’s far too much.

I use the plate division instead and go about 25% carbs, not mounded high.

So, in summary, anytime I need to create a meal or fill up my plate (at a party or BBQ), I start with veggies first and get half of my plate covered, then I look for a solid protein choice, and a small amount of carbs and fat.

This little “formula” makes eating healthy far less daunting.

I can whip up a meal quickly and I know it’s balanced with fiber to “stretch” my stomach, protein to fill me up, fat to keep me full for longer, and carbs to give me some quick energy.

This combination has worked well for me but there’s no way to know how you’ll do.

You can try it out and see how it goes and adjust from there.

If you can tolerate carbs better or you’re active, you can probably up your intake.

Again, I’m not certified in nutrition (yet…this is coming soon!), but this has worked well for me.

In between this “formula”, I weave in some treats to enjoy life without going overboard.

I’m also not one to stray from eating out or having fast food. I just make sure to have healthy meals before and after this so I don’t spiral in the wrong direction or get off track.

I also try not to have these foods all the time so it doesn’t become routine.

And on rare occasions, I’ll sit down to a nice bowl of penne ala vodka pasta but I’ll make sure to have a salad with it and I add a protein source (like chicken) to slow down the insulin spike.

I also pop a digestive enzyme afterwards (or after eating sweets) to help process the extra load on my system.

I’ve found this to be the best mix to keep me sane, healthy, and closer to my goals.

Final Thoughts on the Best and Worst Diet and Exercise Plans

If you’ve made it to this point in my guide, thanks! I know this was a long one but I wanted to cover this topic in-depth.

In the end, I hope you’ll take the time to find what works for you but that you’ll consider the points discussed today so you’re not left feeling like you’ve failed a diet or exercise program when the reality is it may have failed you.

And if you find that workout DVDs, classes, or streaming options fit your budget and lifestyle, don’t quit because of this guide.

If you’re active and engaged, it’s a good fit for you! And that’s all I wish for in this matter.

Whatever you can do to stay active and healthy is a win in my book.

As long as you’re not overdoing it and taxing your system and you’re making progress, you have my stamp of approval (not that you needed it).

I hope you enjoyed this guide and if not, don’t sweat it. We can disagree and still be friends.

Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Drop me a comment below to tell me what you thought of this guide. I’d love to hear from you!

To staying active and healthy,

Devan