Can I Lose Weight on the Mediterranean Diet?

Can I lose weight on the Mediterranean Diet? This is the question I see most often on the Mediterranean Diet Facebook pages. If you are beginning the Mediterranean Diet, or refocusing after the new year, this blog may be for you. Many people joining these Mediterranean Diet pages share they were doing Keto and the thought of CARBS is freaking them out. Others are embracing the Mediterranean Diet at the urging of a medical professional. Many will share their diagnosis with the most common being high cholesterol, fatty-liver, and heart disease. Sadly, too many individuals have been on Keto for two or three years, reaching their ideal weight and are leaving Keto due to diet-related complications at the urging of their medical professional. Being thin does not always equate with good health.

I am not a health professional, nor am I here to negate the chosen nutritional path of others. I promised when launching Olive Sunshine to share an honest account of my journey on the Mediterranean Diet. We started this diet for three reasons. One, to help Mark, my husband, lose weight. Two, for me to quit spending time counting points on Weight Watchers. Three, for us to eat food we both enjoy. The GREAT news is all three of those things did happen on the Mediterranean Diet. In fact, I was at my Weight Watchers goal weight when I started the Mediterranean Diet. I lost more weight within a few months when the goal was simply to maintain. That has never happened to me. This blog shares all of the tips I have learned on my journey to maximum health on the Mediterranean Diet.

Losing Weight on the Mediterranean Diet

When Mark and I started the Mediterranean Diet, the weight loss process was slow and steady. Understanding the Mediterranean Diet is more of a way of eating and living than a diet. Within the first year we both were enjoying great energy levels and significant weight loss. Incredibly, we also were loving the food!

I have always secretly suspected that eating is not the enemy. Food is here to nourish us. Sharing meals with people can nourish us emotionally. Yet, eating seems to get a bad rap. I know I have agonized over every bite of food I put into my mouth worrying about the result it had on the scale. Eating had become the enemy for me. Sure, I liked to eat. I know I need food. Subconsciously, eating used to be the culprit in my mind. The only weapon against guilt-laden food was eating less and exercise. Before the Mediterranean Diet, my time was spent monitoring every bit of food that went into my mouth and then trying to exercise it off my body. Today, I am realizing what I always suspected, eating is not the enemy. Food is nourishment when we choose the right food.

Starting the Mediterranean Diet

Fortunately, my Sweetheart and I started this journey using a couple of excellent cookbooks as our guide. The cookbook I HIGHLY recommend to anyone starting the Mediterranean Diet is The Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Solution: The 28 Day Kick-Start Plan for Lasting Weight Loss by Julene Stassou, MS, RD.  Unfortunately, there are many varying opinions out there about the Mediterranean Diet. If you are trying to learn this way of eating by only following beginners’ pages on Facebook, you will probably end up frustrated and confused. This cookbook offers a solid plan to really acclimate to the diet.

I also had the extreme good fortune to join the right Facebook page: the Mediterranean Diet Followers Community. The moderators of this page actively monitor and correct (kindly) any misinformation on the page. I learned so much from the active feedback they gave me and others when I posted pictures of my food or asked questions. I now follow several pages and I know I would not have been successful if those pages had been my source of information.

After starting the diet, Mark and I spent the first two or three months following the WOE diligently. We did not eat out much. Menu planning, shopping, cooking at home, and enjoying our new eating plan was our new favorite pastime. The food on the Mediterranean Diet is delicious. My Sweetheart could not believe it was a diet. We found it was best to enjoy the food rather than constantly asking about food that was not compliant, or how often you can have food not on the diet.

Can you cheat on the Mediterranean Diet? Yes, you can and it will not completely derail you. I share my experiences about cheating on the Mediterranean Diet. Rather than focusing on cheating, I encourage those beginning the Mediterranean Diet to focus on all that is good and healthy and delicious. Starting out, coloring inside the lines is best practice. This focus will allow your body to use food to nourish your body AND to leave it. Something I NOW really understand as essential.

I am Doing Everything Right and Gaining Weight on the Mediterranean Diet!

Surprisingly, 2.5 years after starting the Mediterranean Diet, I inexplicably found myself gaining weight. I could not figure out what was wrong. I was following the food pyramid and the plate portions. Chalking it up to a perimenopause symptom, I am 51 years old, I went back to my old habits to overcome it. Eating less and exercising more. Nope, it did not work AND I was hungry and irritable. In fact, the scale slowly and steadily began creeping up. I noticed my husband also started putting on a little weight. What was going on? Friends said, well you cannot expect to eat pasta, grains, wheat bread and be thin! YES! Yes, we can when we follow the perfect plate (image above) and the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid (image below) we can. Or at least we could. That is how we lost the weight. Did something change?

I noticed the first of the weight gain this summer. Reassuringly, I still weighed less than my old Weight Watchers goal. Then in November, I crept up and weighed right at my Weight Watcher’s goal. A week or two later, I quickly escalated and I gained five more pounds. What? While food was nourishing my body, it was not leaving my body. I felt and looked bloated and uncomfortable. I had not thought much about the elimination of food before. Upon reflection, my food intake and elimination had been the most regular ever once I started the Mediterranean Diet. (To be clear, I am talking about bowel movements – something I NEVER thought I would blog about!) Suddenly, now I was taking food in and it was staying. Constipation is a perimenopause symptom and maybe that explains it. How does that explain Mark’s weight gain? I was eating “good for me food” but it was not having the same effect on my digestive system as it had.

Avoiding Processed Foods is Crucial to this Way of Eating

I realized I had some changes both in the summer and in November. A-hah! This summer began my summer of travel. In 10 weeks, we went on ten weekend trips, eating often in restaurants or at the homes of friends and family. Everywhere we went I was careful to choose the most Mediterranean Diet “compliant” items possible and to eat small portions. I was also sure to work in hiking and other active sight-seeing activities.

In November, we had several days of social gatherings. Our very supportive group went out of their way to modify recipes so we could enjoy them. Now I realize while food may appear to be Mediterranean Diet compliant, the ingredients and the preparation of the food is just as important as the food I select. Some common pitfalls when choosing “the right food” include sodium, cooking in seed oil rather than Olive Oil, using ingredients with additives and preservatives, and simply not knowing what is in the food. These problems were turning my good-for-me-food into a digestive blocker!

Can I Lose Weight on the Mediterranean Diet?

Yes, I lost weight on the Mediterranean Diet. Calorie intake and exercise was never enough to bring me to my optimal health. Here is what I am understanding now, just 8 days shy of our 3rd Anniversary on the Mediterranean Diet:

• Whole foods are a must. Read labels and make sure there are five or less ingredients (foods you can pronounce) in what you are ingesting. Avoid overly processed foods.
• Sodium will halt weight loss.
• Increasing your water intake will help flush out foods that may contain additives, preservatives, and sodium.
• Eating food you prepare as often as possible will provide control over the preparation and ingredients used in meals.
• Follow the Mediterranean food pyramid and the plate portions. It is not enough to just “choose compliant items”.
• Extra virgin olive oil is KEY!
• Pay attention to your body, what comes in should come out soon after!

I am not a medical or health professional, but I can happily say that I am losing again. Even more importantly, I feel better. While weight loss is often the goal for individuals, it should not be the only one. Thinner does not always mean healthier. I am fortunate to have access to whole foods that nourish my body. Eating is no longer the enemy when I eat food that is good for me.

Good luck to you in your weight loss journeys!! Thanks for reading and please let me know how it goes for you!