Tag Archive for: diets don’t work

Top 5 Reasons Why Diets Don’t Work

Many people swear by diets. They tell me the diets work, but when I point out tha they go back on the diet when they regain the weight, so essentially the diets don’t work, they shake their head and finally get it.

A diet isn’t just those flashy branded weight loss companies (you know which I’m talking about). Dieting is any form of food restriction such as cleanses, “lifestyle” changes,  restricting foods or entire food groups. It’s all dieting!

Dieting programs and weight loss schemes (yes, schemes!) are a part of a $72 billion industry, therefore it’s no wonder many people fall for its tricks. These companies profit off of telling consumers that “they are not good enough in the body they are in” and they promote “shrinking your body” in order to be happy, healthy, and worthy.

As humans, we naturally internalize these negative and harmful messages and believe we must “fix” ourselves, and therefore give in to the various weight loss products, programs etc. available on the market.

There are numerous reasons why you should avoid diets—they mess with your health, they make you feel shame and guilt about your eating, and they take away from the pleasures of eating.

Let’s look deeper into why diet’s don’t work?

Here are the top 5 reasons why diet’s don’t work:

(1) Diets are not sustainable

Yes, diets may lead to weight loss in the short term. However, once the dieting rules and restriction go away—the weight is regained (plus more)! The literature states that 95% of people who diet end up gaining the weight back that they previously lost. Of the 95%, about 2/3 of those people gained back MORE weight than they started out at.

This cycle of losing and gaining weight brings on the vicious cycles of restrict/binge eating, or yo-yo dieting, which actually causes more harm to your body and your health than good:

  • Impacted metabolism
  • Increased weight gain
  • Increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension
  • Negative body image
  • Increased frustration

(2) Dieting is starvation in disguise 

Purposefully restricting meals or food causes your body to go into a state of fight or flight. When your body is not receiving the fuel it needs from food, it will go into full-on survival mode. Restricting food sends the signal to your body saying “hey we are in a famine right now, it’s time to help me survive” .

Your body will then begin to compensate to keep you going by:

  • Lowering metabolism
  • Stimulating a chemical in the brain to make you consistently think about food
  • Store/hold onto fat
  • Shut down non-essential systems to promote survival (like reproductive systems)

With all of these compensating measures at play, this is why it is difficult to lose weight time and time again with dieting and food restriction; your body is working hard to keep you alive (since it thinks there is a famine out there!)

(3) Dieting can cause disordered eating

If dieting goes on for long enough, this can lead to the development of disordered eating or eating disorders, and more commonly, binge eating.

Binge eating is a biological reaction to deprivation (which we know is because of dieting). Here’s what happens: there is a chemical release of neuropeptide Y (NPY) which is secreted in the brain when there is not enough calories being consumed (specifically CHO since this is the brains fuel source). The secretion of NPY increases the motivation to eat, delays satiety and stimulates food intake which can feel like binge eating!

Binge eating is a survival mechanism resulting from dieting and food restriction.

(4) Diets lead to food obsession 

Reducing food intake not only makes you feel irritable, fatigued, have brain-fog, and lack motivation, but you will think about food… ALL.THE.TIME.

As a dieters, you often blame yourself for this feeling (being preoccupied with the thought of food), but it is actually a natural biological reaction to food restriction. Of course you will think about food all the time if your body is hungry!

This biological reaction is, again, a survival mechanism. Your body is doing its job!

However, the diet industry want you to believe that something is wrong with you. But your body is not the enemy!

(5) Dieting causes intense cravings 

Diet programs and “diet rules” tell you what foods you should and shouldn’t eat, or give you a “good” food list and a “bad” food list.

If this idea of “good” and “bad” foods is kept up long enough, you will begin to think about and crave the very foods you are restricting. As humans, we are driven by our unmet needs. If you tell yourself “I can’t have ice cream anymore”, all you’re going to think about is eating ice cream.

So if you think you’re addicted to (insert food here), it’s likely that you’re not actually addicted to it but it’s the dieting and food restriction causing you to think about it and crave it!

canva

 

Are you ready to leave dieting behind? Pop your name and email in the boxes below to get started with your Break the Spell of Diets in 3 days online experience.

 

It’s Okay if You’re Not Ready to Give Up Dieting

Not everybody is ready to hear that “diets don’t work”. For years, you’ve been trying all the different diets that hit the market in hopes of losing weight and keeping it off. But each time, you gain back most, if not all, of the weight you lost, and you are back at square one.

The Dieter’s Dilemma

The Dieter’s Dilemma starts with the desire to be thin. This desire leads to the start of your diet. Eventually, you experience cravings for foods you’ve been restricting. This leads to having a “loss of control” and “overeating”, maybe even binge eating on these foods. You regain the weight you lost, with a side dish of guilt and shame.

But then, the desire to be thin becomes strong again, and you start your next diet.

The cycle continues, until you acknowledge that diets don’t work, and there must be a better way to exist. There is.

Reject the Diet Mentality

The first step to no longer dieting is to reject the diet mentality. That means learning to acknowledge when the Food Police is shouting food rules at you, as well as barbs, criticisms, and judgement about you “not following the rules”.

This step will take time. Think about it. You’ve been following diet food rules for years. You’ve been listening to others tell you when to eat, how much to eat and what to eat. These rules have created cognitive distortions and it takes practice to learn to reframe these thoughts into more rational thoughts.

Tip: Every time you hear a diet thought pop up, pause and call it out. Challenge that thought right then and there!! Within time, you will see that the Food Police is losing it’s hold over you.

Intuitive Eating

If you consider the words Intuitive Eating, you can come to understand that you have the natural inborn instinct to know when you are hungry and full, and what you truly want to eat in that moment. You are born with that instinct.

According to the creators of Intuitive Eating, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, Intuitive Eating is a “self-care eating framework, which integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought.”

There are 10 principles of Intuitive Eating which work in 2 main ways:

  1. They help you cultivate attunement to the physical sensations in your body so you can meet both your biological and psychological needs. These are sensations that you have likely not been paying attention to in regard to eating, because you were focused on following rules external to your body.
  2. They help remove the obstacles that may be present that interfere with you cultivating this attunement. These obstacles generally come from your mind and the beliefs and thoughts you have around food, eating and your body.

I express to my clients that it’s very important to begin the process of giving up dieting by working on mindset first, rather than trying to attune to the inner signals. When you still have a diet mindset running in the back of your mind, then it’s much harder to learn to eat when hungry and stop when full because the rules are still running the show.

But What About Weight?

Great question!

I know that you are unhappy with your current body (weight). That’s why you’ve been on and off multiple diets over your lifetime. But if you continue to pursue intentional weight loss, then you are continuing to diet. It’s not possible to learn to reject the diet mentality while also trying to lose weight.

Will you lose weight? The honest answer is, I don’t know. Only your body knows what it will do when you stop restricting and allow your body to land where it is genetically pre-determined to land.

Are you able to put the desire to change your body on the side for a little while? To acknowledge that the desire for weight loss is there, but you won’t actively pursue it?

If you are able to do that, then you are ready for the Intuitive Eating journey. If you are not ready to put weight loss on the sideline, then you’re not ready to begin your Intuitive Eating journey.

And that is okay! It may take you some time to come around to it. And when you do, please know that I am here for you.

To get a taste of what it’s like to break free of diets, pop your name and email in the boxes below to a 3 day experience like no other!

 

 

Say NO the Next Time Your Doctor Prescribes Weight Loss

It’s sad for me to write this but many doctors deepen the diet mentality of those struggling with their body and their relationship with food. I don’t think they do this to purposely harm, as they have taken an oath to “do no harm”. They just don’t know better.

 

But it’s time to wake them up!

 

Theresa is a chronic dieter, she has been on every diet imaginable to lose weight and mold her body into what society deems acceptable for her. She did lose weight on most of those diets, heck she’s a great rule follower, always was as a kid. But her weight loss was very short-lived. She always gained that weight back plus more.

 

I know you can relate.

 

But this time is different. She has PCOS and insulin resistance and her doctor is telling her to lose weight. He referred her to a nutritionist who will help manage her insulin by putting her on a special diet!

 

Theresa’s inner alarm went off! NO!

 

You see, Theresa has been working on changing her relationship with food through learning intuitive eating. And while she is still at the beginning of her journey, she is totally convinced that diets don’t work. Moreover, it’s the diet and diet mentality that have caused her to enter what was the never-ending restrict-binge cycle. So, the fact that her doctor recommended yet another diet for her really pissed her off.

 

“Doesn’t he realize that his “prescription” of weight loss has not and will never be the answer to managing my PCOS and insulin resistance”, she asked me?

 

Well one would think, but I guess not (sigh!)

 

I encouraged Theresa to go back to her doctor and ask him what treatment he would prescribe for a woman in a smaller body that has PCOS. That’s the treatment she wants.

 

When you go for your annual physical, the nurse tells you to “get on the scale”. You have every right to decline. Do not feel pressured to be weighed, even if the nurse says “I won’t tell you”. Nope! As one of my clients recently told her doctor: “I don’t want my health evaluated based in part by the number on a scale.” Bravo!

 

Betty went to her doctor for her annual checkup. All was well, her labs and blood pressure all great!

 

Doctor said “You should lose a few pounds”.

Betty: “why”?

Doctor: “You gained a few pounds this year”.

Betty: ” Well, last year I was restricting and had an eating disorder”.

Doctor: “Oh”.

End of visit.

 

Stand up for yourself when you go to the doctor. If you have health issues, insist he/she address them from a weight-neutral perspective.

 

What has been your experience with weight discussions at your doctor? Please share below!

 

 

 

3 Reasons Why I Will Never Diet Again, and Neither Should You

3 Reasons whyI will never diet again. I say this with confidence. I know that diets don’t work. I also know that in my younger years, whenever I was on a diet, I was miserable. Oh, yes, I always lost weight on the diet, but then I gained that weight back.

 

If you are reading this blog, I bet you can relate. You are a dieter, a chronic dieter. Perhaps you are reading this after breaking your current diet and you are desperate to find another way. Or, you are reading this and you are at your goal weight, having lost the excess pounds by starving yourself, drinking shakes or eating “clean” but tasteless food.

 

Here are 3 reasons WHY I will never diet again and neither should you:

 

1. Diets cause you to think about food ALL. THE. TIME. What did I eat yesterday, what did I eat before, what am I eating now, what will I eat later, what will I eat tomorrow. Whew, that’s exhausting. Food should not be the center of your day, food should not encompass your entire brain. There is so much more to life that you can be doing than thinking about food all the time.

 

2. Diets cause you to feel guilty when you eat something you think you should not eat. The diet lists foods for you to choose and those to avoid. But what if you happen to want to eat a food that’s on the “avoid” list? Well, what usually happens when you are told you cannot have something? Yep, you want it more (everyone always gets this question right!) You can deny your desire for only so long. So you indulge and the guilty feelings and harsh self-talk start. Isn’t it time to put that to bed?

 

3. Diets cause you to lose trust in your own food decisions. Well, last I checked, I am the owner of my body, of my inner signals and my thoughts. I can certainly make decisions about what I want to eat. Don’t you think you should too?

 

These are only 3 reasons I will never diet again, and why you shouldn’t either. There are plenty more that perhaps I’ll discuss in another blog.

 

In the meantime, I would like to hear from you. Do you resonate with any of the side effects of dieting I discussed above? How will you break this vicious cycle? Let me know in the comments below.

 

And, come and join the discussion in my free private Facebook group where you’ll join women and men who are giving up dieting too. Click here to request free access.