Why Diets Do not work
Reject the Diet Mentality:
The initial step to becoming an intuitive eater is to reject the diet mentality. I invite you to take a moment to think and count how many diets have you tried in your lifetime? Have you ever become so sick and tired of counting, tracking, restricting that your left thinking I am dieted out! Maybe we have hit diet bottom, where we know that dieting doesn't work, we've all lost the weight and gained it back so we've experienced it first hand. But now we're desperate. We think just one more diet… just this time I'll be good.. and so begins the familiar chronic dieters plea. Just let me lose the weight now and after I lose the weight I'll figure it out. But as long as you cling to a small hope that a quick little diet will turn your weight around, or jump start you into a new person, you will not be free from the tyranny of diet culture. Giving into just one more diet is one of the biggest traps, because it does not face the reality– diets do not work! So how could another diet truly be part of the solution?
Right now you may be thinking, “now wait Beth I know that I'll feel better about myself when I lose weight.” … I definitely understand those feelings, but studies have shown that improvements in psychological well-being associated with weight loss are just as temporary as the pounds lost and regained. The “good feelings” diminish with regained weight, and existing issues of self-worth return to initial levels when the weight is regained. And of equal importance, a focus on weight loss and dieting only keep us stuck in the belief that your weight is a measure of who we are. Remember you are much more than your weight!
If you have been dieting for several years, the idea of not having rules around food might seem very scary. It is a very normal feeling to panic about letting go of dieting, especially because everyone around us is trying some new diet or food plan. I invite you to pay attention for just 24 hours to anything Diet related, via advertisement or hearing people discuss it. How many times during that day did diet culture come up? Diet culture is all around us.
Maybe as we're discussing letting go of diets, some fears are popping up. A couple examples could be
If I stop dieting I won't stop eating…..
I don't know how to eat when I'm not dieting or following an eating plan…
I will be out of control…
Do any of those sentiments resonate with you?
Many of us may be aware that dieting doesn't work in the long run, but you may be surprised to learn that dieting actually increases your risk for gaining even more weight. Please reread that sentence as it's important that we understand the effects of dieting before we can be willing to let them go.
Let's discuss 3 biological proofs why diets don't work: There are profound biological mechanisms at play that trigger rebound weight gain from dieting
1. As far as your cells are concerned, they're being subjected to a famine and they will do anything to survive. Your cells have no idea that you are purposefully choosing to restrict your calories (or certain groups of food) for weight loss. One well-known survival adaptation our cells have is to slow down our metabolism.
2. The body survives dieting by cannibalizing its own muscle. That's because energy is so important that the body will destroy its own muscle to burn as fuel (the muscle is converted to carbohydrates) This could be compared to an extremely cold day but rather than turn on the fireplace or our heater that we burn our kitchen cabinets from warmth… pretty drastic right?
3. Fat overshooting is another way the body tries to survive the dieting process. In essence, the loss of both fat and lean muscle tissue triggers the body to gain more weight in the form of body fat to survive. Hormonal changes also make you more hungry and preoccupied with food.
Another reason diets do not work is the reality that dieting is often the trigger for overeating. It can be very hard to stop eating when we have been undereating and restricting food. This is a normal body response to starvation! (We will discuss more of that in principle 2) But once our body learns and trusts that we will not be starving it anymore, through any kind of diet or restrictive food plan, the intense drive for overeating will decrease.
What about the effects of diet culture on our mental and physical health:
For many of us dieting has been a way to cope with life. Think back to the times in your life when you started a diet or a new food plan. It's very usual to start a diet following big life transitions: leaving home, getting married, starting a new job and other parts of life. There's also the social element to dieting that we may miss. If all of our coworkers and friends are talking about the latest diet that they're starting, we may feel left out when we're not engaging in the conversation. It's important to remember that as long as there's money to be made, there will always be a new diet or quick weight loss fix.
Many of us may almost romanticize our first diet like a first love. It was so easy and effortless. The weight just came off. But that first dieting experience is the seduction trap that launches the cycle of weight loss and gain. With each diet, our body adapts and learns how to survive, making it even more difficult to lose weight. With each failed weight loss attempt, a learned helplessness becomes stronger, resulting in poor self-efficacy and empowerment. This leaves us feeling like failures, but in reality it's the system of dieting that has failed us!
Diet culture is a billion dollar industry.. more specifically, a nearly 60 billion per year industry. That's because it's a great business model, has built-in repeat business. It is the only business that produces a product that doesn't work but is not blamed for this failure.. the consumers blame themselves.
When the dieting mentality is engaged, our eating decisions are dictated by diet rules, which mandate what we eat, regardless of our food preferences, energy needs, hunger, and so forth, all of which can trigger feelings of deprivation. No diet plan could possibly know your hunger level or the foods that satisfy you. The dieting rules also trigger an inner rebellion, because they are an assault on your personal autonomy and boundaries. Even when we are not on a diet, our mind may still have the insidious mentality of dieting.. the shoulds and should nots of eating. This mental construct creates an obstacle to intuitive eating.
It is no wonder that dieting also increases the risk of eating disorders, including binge eating. Dieting contributes to body dissatisfaction, food and body preoccupation, food cravings, distraction from other personal health goals, reduced self-esteem, and weight stigmatization and discrimination.
Intuitive eating is based on attunement and uses the direct experience of your body. Is your body experiencing hunger? Is your body comfortably full and satisfied? It's a process of listening and responding to the needs of your individual body. The dieting mentality erodes trust in your body, because the rules micromanage and dictate your food choices, regardless of how you feel.
It is important to keep in mind that every eating experience you have, whether perceived as negative or positive, is an opportunity to learn about your body. Eating is not a pass or fail process- is a learning experience.
In this blog, we've learned about the importance of cultivating compassion and examined our dieting history and dieting thoughts. You practice ways to let go of the tools of dieting and language of dieting. Please keep in mind that we live in a dieting culture, So it is easy to feel triggered. Letting go of the diet mentality will be an ongoing practice- remember to be patient with yourself.
