Diets don't work! End yoyo dieting forever
Do you think about food ALL THE TIME? Perhaps you’ve been on a tonne of faddy diets and you obsess about “good” or “bad” foods?
You’ve counted calories, you’ve weighed foods, you’ve follow celebrity diets, you’ve been off, you’ve been on… and you’re fed up!
In this blog post I’ll share with you exactly why diets don’t work and some mindset tips to end the yoyo dieting mindset forever.
OK so what do I mean when I say yoyo dieting then?
You do a crash diet, you lose some weight, you come off the diet, you put the weight back on, sometimes even going back to your original weight. You get frustrated and start another diet. You lose the weight, you come off the diet, you gain the weight again and so it carries on…
Sound familiar? Have you been on multiple diets? Drop me a HELL YES in the comments below!
Yep I’ve been there too.
I’ve tried the Atkins diet, low carb, high protein, low fat, juice diet, restrictive diets, diets where you can eat all the veggies you want, and the most ridiculous of all, a 4-day diet that included just eating potatoes on day 1, just tomatoes on day 2, just chicken on day 3 and potatoes again on day 4.
Needless to say I spent YEARS yoyo-ing with my weight and developing eating disorders from age 16 until about 24. That’s 8 years of my life that I was terrified of food, it was my enemy, I binged, I purged, I restricted and I went wild.
Does any of this resonate? Anyone else had the same? Drop me another HELL YES in those comments.
Let’s dive into diets then – what’s the problem?
#1 Diets have a high failure rate
The actual failure rate figure is debated – some say it’s as high as 95%, others say that it’s not quite so high. What some researchers at UCLA showed is that even if you DO lose weight initially on some diets, the weight tends to come back. In their analysis of 31 long-term diet studies they found the following:
Dieters tend to lose 5-10% of their body weight in first 6 months
BUT 1/3 to 2/3 end up regaining MORE weight than they initially lost within 5 years.
The authors suggest that the biggest predictor of weight gain is going on a diet!
#2 Diets aren’t sustainable
For most people the low calorie, restrictive diets aren’t sustainable in the long term. People avoid going out or spending time with friends because they can’t make the diet fit into their lifestyle. So they diet for a short period and then go back to normal again quickly afterwards.
#3 Diets set YOU up for failure
The diet concept is flawed because you set yourself up for failure. As soon as you are on a diet, the mindset is all about deprivation: “I can’t eat this, and can’t have that”... How different would it feel if you changed your mindset to: “I can have that, but I don’t want it”.
To transform your health and love your body, avoid a restrictive diet and instead add healthy, nutritious food. In fact, healthy eating isn’t a a diet at all. It’s consistently making choices to eat nutritious food, and you’ll feel so much more refreshed and energetic that the foods that make you feel crap are no longer tempting.
#4 Diets can make your health worse
Remember the study I mentioned earlier where most people regain weight in 5 years after dieting, those researchers at UCLA found that yoyo dieting – i.e. gaining and losing weight over and over is linked to cardio vascular disease, stroke, diabetes and issues with immune function.
Erm what? I think best to avoid diets no?
So what can you do instead?
#1 Unconditional permission to eat the food.
This is the idea that you can eat whatever, whenever and however while practicing being in tune with your body. This is about making peace with food, honouring your hunger and your feelings of fullness.
Ultimately you want to work out what feels good for your body. If you eat too much, or too little, that’s not a satisfying way to eat. And, if food comes with conditions - or you label it “good” or “bad” - you are earning the right to eat, or you are moralising eating (either being good, or craving bad). That’s not very satisfying either. We end up feeling guilty and ashamed, deprived or restricted and can often lead to binging.
By giving yourself unconditional permission to eat you can explore food with curiosity - do you want to eat this right now? Are you feeling hungry? Will I feel satisfied after eating it? Will it help me feel more energy afterwards? Am I craving sweet or salty food?
#2 Accept your body
At the beginning of your acceptance journey, you don’t have to love your body, but you do have to accept it. Perhaps come to a place of neutrality.
When I was in the middle of my disordered eating I was filled with self-loathing and couldn’t stand what I saw in the mirror? My journey to acceptance has been gradual and slow, but learning to accept your body is about progress. Just find ONE thing you like about yourself - perhaps it’s your eye lashes, or eye colour. Feel complete gratitude for this … flowing that love and energy towards yourself is a good first step.
#3 How do you feel before you eat food?
Are you eating because you feel sad, lonely, bored or frustrated? Or, are you eating because you have real hunger?
Keeping a food journal can work here – and I’m not talking about the kind when you write down what you eat. I’m talking about the kind where you write down how you feel before you eat.
Recognising your triggers can really help – perhaps when you feel angry, you stuff down your feeling with food? Or you eat chocolate when you are sad? Identifying the triggers will be key.
And remember - most of all that this is a journey, it’s about progress not perfection. I promise you that with the right mindset techniques you’ll be able to move beyond the dieting mindset to learn to love your body.