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WHY MOST DIETS DO NOT WORK IN THE LONG TERM

Writer's picture: Rosalba RandalRosalba Randal

Updated: Sep 29, 2024

In this Blog I will explain some of the reasons why standard diets are counterproductive for weight loss

Isn’t it astonishing that about 95% of people who lose weight through diets recover it and more on the next year or less? This has been proved in innumerable researches done around the world. Overweight people usually try one after another diet, noticing that after they stop the diet, their bodies recover again the lost weigh and add extra. Not only that, very often dieters become more compulsive in their eating habits.


Don’t you think that if diets work, people would not need to try one after another diet in repetitive cycles? The diet industry would not be such a big industry because one diet would do the trick and that would be it? The diet industry is a multimillion dollar business that is not interested in people’s health, well being or connection with the body; because it is from the opposite results that it makes the money and it is in constant creation of new protocols, supplements and eating concoctions. They sell us the promise of losing weight, and not sustainable healthy body weight. In this way, they keep us in the loop


Some of the Reasons why they do not work:


1. Being overweight is a complex issue, often caused by underlying reasons that involve much more than burning calories, exercising or positive thinking. It makes each dieter, unique. Diets are standard protocols that we follow, they do not take in consideration our feelings, and set of beliefs around our body. As it happens, 95% of our behaviour depends on our subconscious paradigms. If we have negative feelings and beliefs around the body, we develop habits and behaviours to match them. Symptoms like overeating, emotional eating and binging are often a reflection of not feeling good, safe or confident around our body and we are all different. Each of us have different stress triggers, emotional circumstances, medical conditions and set of beliefs that are playing in our body weight and shape. Everybody needs a different approach to lose weight.


2. Diets trigger stress, sleeping unbalances, anxiety and permanent hunger because the body is not getting the needed nutrition, it thinks that there is a famine, this is called the famine effect, and under it, the body releases cortisol which is the stress hormone, this hormone unbalances the insulin, creating inflammation and fat storage in the body as a protecting mechanism against starvation.7. Famine Effect: Nutritional famine. You can be overweight and still be under nurtured. If we are not providing the body with the nutrients, mineral, fat that the body needs, hunger is the natural process the body uses to try to access its nutritional needs. They conduce the body to slow down the metabolism.

At the beginning of the diet, there is a normal caloric burning, but as the days pass this slows down because the body understands the diet as famine (ancestral memory the body has), and therefore the burning caloric slows down, prompting the body towards store fat as a survival mechanism.


3. Diets work with discipline and control but they do not work with the intuition of the body. When we are dieting, we are disconnected from listening to our body needs, this is another stress factor because the diets become a war against our own nature, neglecting the opportunity of tapping to our inner wisdom.

They are based on willpower and control and not in real understanding of our bodies needs and requests


3. Diets loops prompt us towards negativity and poor self esteem: Because diets results are not sustainable, we get stressed and break the self-imposed rules and of course often go off the rails into overeating and old overeating and binging patterns, this becomes again a repetitive cycle where stress seeks relief in overeating, and binging,. As we feed ourselves trying to alleviate the effect of these feelings and emotions, what we do is increase them and fall into the same repetitive cycle: poor self-image, body shame and hate, overeat….stress because we overeat and so it goes.


4. When we expose the body to very restrictive diets, there is more cravings, cravings coming from restriction makes us less selective in what we eat and more flexible to eat usually quick release food: sugars and simple carb. As it happens, these are the food with highest amount of calories.

 

5. Emotional Stress: This affects not only our metabolism and hormones like cortisol, but also our behaviour around food. Food is very often linked to pleasure and comfort, childhood memories and associations. In trying to compensate emotional stress coming from diets, many of us tend to overeat.

Diets can lead to depression, anxiety, sleepless, metabolic disorders, overweight, feelings of frustration and lower self-stem. It means that our emotional body is overcharged for the process. This is because one primal source of pleasure for human beings is eating. For some people this is the main and when this is taken away, we are left with little pleasure in life.


6. Sedentarily: When we restrict the amount of food, our energy levels slows down, we reduce exercise or intensity of it, the less we move, the less calories our body burn, the less we move, the less we want to move. It becomes a vicious circle, it means that.

.When we reduced our caloric intake, our energy and vitality diminish also. It makes us less willing and energetic to exercise and/or move, slowing down the metabolism and the caloric burning speed. This effect is counterproductive to the goal we are seeking


  7.Diets can become an addictive pattern, which makes a repetitive loop that creates a permanent feeling of being behind, body dissatisfaction and disappointment.


WHAT CAN WE DO INSTEAD?


Losing weight can become a great opportunity, a path way to learn from our body and mind, towards recovering a positive self-image and relationship with thyself, making peace with food, making peace with our flesh and bones towards finding the harmony that is inside this precious gift that is our physical expression.


How to start a process of losing weight in an organic way that works for me? From my personal experience and working with clients, I can give simple and general advice:


  1. Find Out why you are overweight: Are there any subconscious body programs and/or traumas that are ruling your relationship with food and appetite?, do you have sleep problems, do you have sleep apnoea, do you have inflammations or body toxins that need to be dealt with, are you having a balanced diet, which is the daily rhythm you follow? Some times we don’t have the tools to know and that is when we need to find mentors and/or coaches to help us to find out and from your specific needs, design your personal nutritional and eating protocols.

  2. Reduce as much as you can processed food and simple and carbohydrates: Sugars, cakes, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes. Cut them as much as possible specially white sugars, they really sabotage any weight lose protocol.


3. Cut or stop alcohol intake: Alcohol is basically glucose that goes straight into the blood system altering the insulin balance, which is called insulin resistance.


4. Cut snacking between meals. It is important for the body to have gaps between meals. It makes the metabolism more efficient and also gives the body time to clear up toxins, which can causes body inflammation. If you need a snack go for proteins and/or slow release snacks instead of sweets or simple carbohydrates.


5. Do some kind of physical activity, any movement: walk, dance, swim. Any thing that you enjoy and can do on regular bases: a little a lot is better than a lot a little when we talk about exercising.


6. Drink at least 2 litres of water a day.


7. Think Positive, meditate, visualize yourself in your best shape, in your favourite outfit. When we visualize, the body follows instructions and when we meditate, we relax and allow feelings of satisfaction and fulfilment, it lessens cravings and no feeling good enough feelings.


8. Keep a healthy sleep routine, sleep at least 7 hours a day. It reset your body in a natural way.


9. Contemplate your body with gratitude for all what it has done and does for you. Treat and talk to your body as your best friend, because it is and it gives you honest feedback all the time.

10. Accept your present weight, love your present body, when we appreciate the body, the body pays us back with health and harmony.

If you need prompts to process body confidence and body love have a look to my WorkbooK : Unleashing Body Confidence


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