All You Need to Know Before Starting the Next Diet
Initially, dieting may look like it “works” until... it doesn’t but... why?
Unfortunately, we live in a very toxic culture which praises those who lose weight or those who go on to pursue the unattainable and unrealistic beauty ideal, all of it by putting their health at the mercy of diet culture. Ultimately, the message that we adopt and which becomes rooted in society is: fatness should be avoided and anyone who is fat is unhealthy and should be ashamed - that is an extremely fat phobic industry which feeds off people’s insecurities.
What the diet industry doesn’t tell us are the myriad of scientifically proven health costs of dieting, those that I am about to tell you:
Slows down metabolism and increases fat deposition. This is a survival mechanism which the body triggers in response to a shortage of energy, to preserve more of it and avoid complications from starvation. As the metabolism continues to slow down alongside an increase in fat storage (1), pounds become harder to shed. Eventually, once the diet ends, the few pounds lost are put back on, with over two thirds of dieters putting even more weight that they had initially lost (2).
𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗲. The foundation of most diets is to restrict foods which are deemed to be “bad”, “fattening” or “unhealthy”. Avoiding eating certain foods, will trigger feelings of deprivation which eventually will lead to extreme cravings for those forbidden foods resulting in overeating or binging. Phenomenon known as “the forbidden fruit effect”. In fact, research has shown that areas of the brain related to food reward are notoriously more responsive in those that restrict their caloric intake (3).
𝗛𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗰𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 . When we are on a diet we are essentially following a set of rules dictating what, how much or when we should be eating. Relying on these external messages leads to restricting food that we desire at times when we are hungry or to eating meals that leave us feeling hungry. Ignoring or neglecting our hunger signals and relying on someone else’s opinion to tell us when to eat, will detach us from the most accurate and reliable source of information we have, to know when, what and how much to eat… our inner body cues.
𝗙𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻. Having rules dictating what we can and cannot eat will also have an effect on our mental and emotional wellbeing whereby, rules will take control over our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Life will revolve around these restrictive food rules to the point of becoming relentlessly obsessed with eating perfectly, buying and cooking only “healthy” food and restricting everything else.
𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝘅𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱. For most dieters, the fear of weight gain ends with food becoming a source of stress and anxiety rather than pleasure and satisfaction. These feelings intensify with every restrict-binge cycle marked by feelings of failure, shame and guilt. The result of this? A neverending cycle marked by every time we choose to restrict (or diet) again.
Okay so, diets don’t work… then, what can I do? Learn more about how I can help you nourish without diets to support long-term health and wellbeing.
References
Dulloo, A. G., Jacquet, J., Montani, J. P., & Schutz, Y. (2015). How dieting makes the lean fatter: from a perspective of body composition autoregulation through adipostats and proteinstats awaiting discovery. Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 16(1), 25–35.
Mann, T., Tomiyama, A., Westling, E., Lew, A., Samuels, B., & Chatman, J. (2007). Medicare's search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer. The American psychologist, 62(3), 220-233
Burger, K. S., & Stice, E. (2011). Relation of dietary restraint scores to activation of reward-related brain regions in response to food intake, anticipated intake, and food pictures. NeuroImage, 55(1), 233–239.