Diets don’t work.
This time of year it can feel so tempting to start a diet, pick up a new routine, or completely overhaul your kitchen all in the name of resolutions.
I'd like to offer an alternative approach.
Just… don’t.
Don’t change your whole world just because it’s the beginning of January.
Since the 60’s, research has shown that diets don’t work in the long term.
Short term? Sure. They work great.
Long term? Nope. Totaaaalllly suck.
Which is why we keep going back for more, right?
We do a diet, it “works” and we lose some weight/fat.
But then… it comes back. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. (The more dieting you do, the harder it will be to drop and the quicker the weight will come back- more on that later).
Then we blame ourselves because we must be the problem.
Our lack of willpower, our not trying enough, our not doing it right.
But alas, it’s none of those things.
We gain the weight back because our bodies are wired to gain the weight back.
PS: a diet is anything that causes you to eat in a restrictive way, whether that’s Whole30, a cleanse, WW, Keto, intermittent fasting, Paleo, Noom or just “eating clean”. This is different than having a medical reason to modify how we eat, such as Celiac disease or diabetes.
When we diet, our metabolism changes. Our bodies realize there is less fuel coming in and so it slooooooooows down our metabolism to prevent starvation.
Pretty genius, right?
As soon as the restriction is over, our brain thinks, yippee! we can store fat again before the next round of potential starvation comes!
This is why 95%+ of folks who diet will go on to gain back all of the weight they lost within 2-5 years.
And of that 95%+… two thirds (!) of those people will actually gain back more weight than they lost, putting them in a larger body than when they started.
And yet again… we think we failed. We think we’re morally bankrupt when it comes to food and discipline.
“Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98 percent of attempts to lose weight fail and that two-thirds of dieters gain back more than they lost. The reasons are biological and irreversible. As early as 1969, research showed that losing just 3 percent of your body weight resulted in a 17 percent slowdown in your metabolism—a body-wide starvation response that blasts you with hunger hormones and drops your internal temperature until you rise back to your highest weight. Keeping weight off means fighting your body’s energy-regulation system and battling hunger all day, every day, for the rest of your life.” -Michael Hobbes
But isn’t it unhealthy to be in a large/big/fat body?
Short answer? No.
What’s harmful to our bodies and our health is weight cycling, the continuous cycle of weight going up and down, up and down.
Being in a larger body or having “excess” fat (what is excess anyway?) isn’t inherently bad. It’s not the larger body that causes the problems.
Weight cycling has been linked to high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, higher mortality and loss of muscle tissue, just to name a few.
How we eat and how we move make a difference, yes, but they are only part of the picture.
There are so. many. components to our health that have nothing to do with our behaviors. It's not all up to us!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Read more about that here.
For now, just remember that you do not have to change your body. Food can be pleasure, comfort, tradition, and sustenance, but it doesn’t have to be guilt or shame.
If you want to sleep more, spend less time on your phone or start seeing a therapist, I think all of these are excellent resolutions.
But losing weight? Nah. We’ve got better things to do with our time. Our jeans size is actually not the most important thing about us.
Repeat that over and over for all of 2022.
