Stop Dieting and Lose Weight for Good

The sad truth of the matter is that diets don’t work - in fact dieting can be a contributing factor to weight gain. A government review found that a whopping 97% of people gain back any weight lost within five years, with 50% of these people ending up heavier than they were before they dieted! Here are some reasons why diets don’t work, and some tips to help you lose weight and keep it off for good!

1. Diets depend on the ‘novelty’ factor

Diets can be very successful to start with because we enjoy the ‘novelty’ of them. As John Trimmer puts it, ‘Exploring novel ideas is a necessity, since otherwise, people would never be able to optimize their behaviour.’

At the beginning of a new diet, the effort and ritual involved - for example, the preparation of Cabbage Soup; the combining of particular food-types and/or total exclusion of others - really appeals to our sense of novelty. The further we move from what is ‘normal’ to us, the better and more successful we feel.

The problem with this is that novelty soon wanes - and as soon as our new diet stops being ‘fun‘, the rituals and denials we have imposed on ourselves become tiresome so we simply stop performing them.

2. Dieting doesn’t fit in with our ‘normal’ lifestyles

Although we respond positively to novelty, we are highly resistant to any long-term change in our habits and lifestyle. Tim Bryce sums up: ‘We are creatures of habit. We long for stability in our lives which represents a comfort zone we want to live in.’ Although change can be fun for the short term, old habits die hard, and sooner or later people revert to what they have known (and eaten!) for most of their lives.

There are also practical lifestyle implications to be considered here - for example, how long is a person likely to stick to a diet that requires them to eat a green salad every day for lunch when their work canteen only serves burger and chips? If a person’s social life revolves around clubbing with their friends, are they realistically going to cut out alcohol?

3. Dieting fails to address emotional reasons for over-eating

Finally, dieting fails to address the emotional reasons for over-eating. If a person has become over-weight due to over-eating caused by depression, low self-esteem, stress or boredom, ‘going on a diet’ will be as effective as sticking a band aid over a deep cut.

It is also worth bearing in mind that dieting can actually add to the very emotional issues a person is trying to fix through dieting - setting an impossibly strict diet for oneself and then failing to stick to it will only add to feelings of failure and worthlessness; irritability, depression, stress, fatigue and cravings for unhealthy food are all symptoms of hunger and low blood-sugar levels.

The only way to lose weight for good, is to evaluate lifestyle and make small changes that can be maintained for the long-term. Here are a few ideas:

• Walk the children to school once or twice a week
• Be as organised as you can with your meals to avoid getting ‘famished’ and eating the contents of the fridge!
• Avoid doing the weekly grocery shopping when you are hungry; don’t take the kids with you if you can help it!

If you doubt that small changes like these can have much impact, please bear in mind that anything you adhere to, will have far more bearing on your weight than a diet that lasts two weeks!

Diets don't work for the long term

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