Do Diets Work?
Most of us have been
on a diet at some point in our lives. We all
desperately want diets to work – even if it is an
occasional half-hearted attempt at cutting back on
our food intake - which never lasts long because
there is always a part of us that just wants to be
able to eat normally and can’t bear to feel
deprived.
Diets don’t work because the whole time that we are
on them we are preoccupied or even obsessive about
food! I have read messages on diet forums from
people who are distraught that they have gone 100
calories over their allowance that day and are
punishing themselves with negative thoughts about
what a failure they are, desperately exercising or
starving themselves to accumulate a few calories to
make up for being so ‘bad’ - or people who are
‘good’ all week then just can’t seem to help
sabotaging themselves at the weekend so feel a
failure because they are back to square one every
Monday!
Diets don’t work because they are not viewed as a
long term solution – we may lose the weight whilst
we are on them but once that is gone, the motivation
to diet disappears along with it. We then go back to
our old patterns of eating (which if you are a
serial dieter, will mean overeating whilst you have
the chance!) and within a few months are back where
we started - ready to start the diet cycle all over
again!
You see, you are not the failure, the diets are. The
diet industry is a multi-billion marketing machine
that takes the same reduced number of calories,
mixes up the menu's a bit and provides the world
with yet another new fad to try and fail at. Think
about it! If so many people are failing at dieting,
then are we failing or is the diet industry failing
us?
If it were as easy as having a list of meals and
sticking to them everyday to lose weight then
obesity would not exist - we are intelligent enough
to follow a few instructions after all, but it is
not that straightforward!
There are two factors at play here, the first is our
biology - we are not meant to starve ourselves. Our
bodies are made so that when food is plentiful, we
eat enough to sustain any possible future famine and
as soon as we go on a diet, our bodies start to
panic and crave food to stock up our fat stores
ready for when we next want to starve ourselves!
The second factor is our emotions - they govern what
we need in any given moment and many of us, rightly
or wrongly use food as a comfort or soother when we
feel upset, angry, sad or lonely etc! It is not our
fault, we are just doing the best that we can for
ourselves at any given time and what will help is
not going on another diet but honouring our emotions
and finding other ways of dealing with them instead
of stuffing them down with food!
Diets go against both of these crucial factors. We
feel like a failure when we blow another diet
because we think that those providing the
information are the experts and that we must be
stupid for not being able to stick at it. This is
not true - even if the experts believe that what
they are doing is for your best health, they cannot
cater for every individual and many do not take our
emotions and biological needs into account.
So if diets don’t work, what does? Adapting healthy
eating and moderate exercise as a lifestyle –
something that you can keep up in the longer term is
what can work. It
might not have the instant gratification of the
quick results you see with a diet but it is more
sustainable, involves less guilt and deprivation and
supports our self-esteem. Most of us did not put our
weight on overnight (although sometimes it feels
that way!) so why do we think it is possible to lose
it overnight as well?
It is time for us to review what we are doing and
get off of the diet bandwagon and lining the pockets
of the diet industry. What we should be aiming for
is a realistic healthy body weight through an
achievable healthy lifestyle for longer term
success.
Useful
Resources:
The Food Philosophy
Why keep on
banging your head against the wall. Try a
completely different way to lose weight with the food
philosophy.
Personal Power for
women
Isn't it
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Personal Power for
women is a powerful 6 week course to help you clear your
baggage and dramatically reclaim your life.
50 Ways to Build Self Esteem
A
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