Why Dieting Hasn’t Worked, Guess what? It is not you!

You got on the scale this morning, and it wasn’t what you wanted to see. You put on your favorite jeans, and you couldn’t button them. Now what?! Diet time again. So you search the latest trends, get your list of food in hand, and off to the store. As you put away the groceries and toss the stuff you “can’t”  eat, now you are ready to start.  You announce at supper what is going on, and everyone at the table rolls their eyes, but they give you words of encouragement, maybe… The first week goes great; you even lose a few pounds. At work, your co-worker brings in donuts still warm.… at lunch; someone orders deep-dish pizza with cheese in the crust. You are sitting there eating your celery sticks, dry tuna fish, rice cake, and a diet Coke.  Then, on the way home, someone cuts you off, your toddler tosses a sippy cup with milk, and the lid pops off…you get a call from the office that the presentation for next week has been moved up to tomorrow right after lunch. You see the golden arches and think, “I’ve been good this week, and I don’t have time to cook a meal tonight.” You need to get started on your presentation, so in you go. You order a Big Mac, a large milkshake, and those wonderful warm salty French fries and eat it all. Then the witch shows up, “You are so stupid. How can you eat like that? You pig!!!” You resolve to do better next time. And so the cycle starts.  Restrict, Overeat, and Beat yourself up.  You R.O.B. yourself of happiness and fuel for your trillions of cells begging for support. Your overeating gets scarier and weirder with every diet.

You hate food,  hate yourself, you hate your clothes. It’s not you!!!  You are not addicted to carbs, food, or sugar. It’s not your metabolism. Maybe the way you are currently eating is not right for you, but we are going to change that. Have you ever tried to eat soup with a fork?  You would feel like a failure.

 Dieting is the wrong tool for weight loss. Did you know diets have a 99.5% failure rate? Would you get on a ship or airplane that only had a 0.5% chance of making it to the correct destination? Would you beat yourself up for the ship, or the plane didn’t make it to the right destination? No, because something else was the driving force.  It wasn’t you.

Let’s look at some studies.

Everyone knows you have to diet to remove unwanted fat, right??? “My friends do it, and my doctor says so. I just need more willpower.”

George Washington University Weight Management Program

Out of every 200 people who go on a diet, only 10 will be successful and meet their goals.  Hey, it gets worse for long-term outcomes; only one of them will keep the weight off.  199 fail. Would you fly in a plane with those odds? Then beat yourself up for not making it to your destination, rocking that 2-piece bikini or even shorts!!

UCLA study: Diets don’t work, Duh!

The results from this study were published in the APA Journal American Psychologists, and they analyzed EVERY diet study lasting at least 2 to 5 years. Not some, BUT ALL studies.  Findings: You are better off having never dieted because the stress of losing and gaining again also had a major toll on overall health.

But weight (lol!)  it gets worse. The one thing all these diets had in common was WEIGHT GAIN!!!

UCLA concluded that “one of the best predictors of weight gain over the four years was having lost weight on a diet at some point during the years before the study started.”

Semi-starvation Study

Dieting also took a major toll on mental health, as demonstrated by the “semi-starvation” study in the 1940s by the “slayer of Fat”  in our diet (another F’d up Diet) Dr. Ancel Keys. He put a group of normal healthy men (women have too many hormonal fluctuations to study) taking them from a 3500 calorie diet to a 1600 calorie diet. Wait, hold up a minute; 1600 calories is a semi-starvation diet?  Most women think this is what they eat on a bad day!! 

For this study, they chose 35 men out of 400 because of being the most mentally stable. The psychological impact of this restricting diet is what was the most surprising, not to mention feeling hungry, cold, and tired. They had headaches, dizziness, and trouble concentrating.  These poor men became obsessed with food. Sound familiar?

You can read more about this here https://eatingdisorders.dukehealth.org/education/resources/starvation-experiment   if you like because let’s get back to you.

But here are the 3 major finding

1) obsession with food,

2)severe emotional distress and

3) overeating and self-reproach.

The saddest thing is these men never recover from this.

How long have you been dieting? Do you know any grade school kids that talk about dieting? Please save them!!

ARE YOU STARTING TO SEE HOW THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT??!!

7 reasons dieting doesn’t work.

1) It intensifies preoccupation with food and craving

2) You eat more, not less.

3) You feel out of control with food

4) Increases both emotional turmoil and the likelihood that you will eat as a response to stress.

5) A new category of overeating caused by dieting is “Eating Cuz You Ate.”

6) Dieting does not model the natural habits of thin eaters.’

7)Diets do not correct the real reason you eat when you are not even hungry.

I could elaborate more on every one of these subjects. I do with my clients as we break down these walls and barriers erected by those that most likely were built with the best of intentions and have just run wild like a stampede of cattle, literally leaving a barren swath of your life with no landmarks to follow. All the while Leaving you emotional and psychological distresses about the one thing in life that is totally in your control. Loving and enjoying what you eat to fuel your body to take on the world.

Knowledge is power, and I will give you a road map to get you out of this lonely, distressing place.

I will help you tune into it… Your Body’s Healing Wisdom.

Next…  The Solution to a Very Real problem

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