There is just so much evidence right in front of us every single day that diets don’t work, but still they are most people’s ‘go to’ when it comes to losing weight.
Maybe that’s because we all love a shortcut.
If diets really worked would there be a need to keep promoting them? If they actually worked the diet industry would go bust!
The fact that diets don’t work keeps you going back for more, spending more and more money. You might think it’s different because the package is different, but one diet is very similar to another in the way that they all ignore what actually needs to happen to have success and lose your weight for good.
Let me tell you about a work colleague I was chatting too. She’s been on one diet after another and unfortunately is considering her next one. I did my best to explain that when you do the right things in the right order you will lose your weight and keep it off. Dieting will become a thing of the past.
The thing is, most people are in too much of hurry to lose their weight to even think there’s a right way and right order to do things. They’re looking for the short cut, another diet.
But diets don’t’ work, and on some level you know that.
Why Diets Don’t Work
One of the multitude of reasons that diets don’t work is that your appetite regulation hormones can be upset by going on a diet, and this effect can carry on for a considerable time after you’ve done with the diet.
For example, the hormone leptin tells you when you have enough energy (fat) stored in your body, and it reduces your hunger. When this feedback system is working properly leptin levels reduces when you get a bit fat – this reduces your appetite.
A study in Australia showed that leptin still wasn’t functioning normally one year after the end of a diet! (New England Journal of Medicine 2011)
Another reason diets don’t work is that they usually put your body into a state of using muscle as a source of energy. So basically you lose muscle when you go on a diet. But where are most of your calories actually burned? Your muscles!
Each successive diet results in you reducing your ability to burn energy, and increasingly messes up your appetite controlling hormones.
Diets don’t work for long-term weight loss, but they are the perfect recipe for long-term weight gain.
The Problem With Short Cuts
When you take a short cut and don’t do the right things in the right order, any progress you initially make will slip away. If you knew this what would be the point of taking the short cut and rushing?
But people are always rushing and looking for short cuts to their problems, especially when it comes to losing weight.
One of my favourite mentors – Andy Shaw – has a saying – “a short cut is merely the long route in disguise”. He couldn’t be more on the money when you refer his statement to dieting.
But doing things properly isn’t sexy or exciting, and so ends up being the path less travelled. But it’s the only route that will actually work for you.
Diets aren’t really short cuts at all, because you end up back up at your starting point, having wasted time, energy, and maybe money too.
The Sinister Cost the Dieting Shortcut
Even taking into account the lost time, energy, money (and health), there is a more sinister cost to dieting.
After you’ve failed one diet you look for another one, most people do this. You might look for an even shorter shortcut because of the time you’ve wasted on the last one.
But each time you fail with a diet and end up back at your starting point you add a layer of doubt into your mind about your ability to lose your weight. Each diet failure adds another layer of doubt and ends up creating a belief that you can’t lose weight.
The more diets you’ve done the more ‘proof’ you have that you can’t lose weight.
If you’ve ever said “I can’t lose weight” then you have successfully programmed that belief into your subconscious mind. When you’ve done this you’ve really stacked the cards against yourself, because this belief will powerfully block your efforts to lose your weight.
At this point even if there was a diet that worked it wouldn’t work for you, because you can’t go against your subconscious programming, or least not for long.
But you will still be looking for that diet that promises fast results.
The Real Solution
At some point the real solution will pass right by your nose, but it’s going to be disguised as work and look like it might take more time than you think you’ve got – even though you’ve been trying to crack this nut for years by now!
The shortcut solution of diet mentality (even though you know diets don’t work) switches you off to the real solution that will work for you. So you will probably chose another diet and begin your cycle again.
But before you do that, stop for a moment and ask yourself “Am I trapped in the delusion that a diet is going to work for me?”
If you said “yes”, you’re ready to move on and you don’t have remain trapped.
Doing the right things in the right order involves removing the doubt multiple failures have planted in your mind. It also requires a new belief to be programmed into your subconscious mind, which will overwrite the one you’ve got playing now.
When you’ve done that your mind will be very different, and so will your results.
If you want to know how to do the right things in the right order and get off the merry-go-round of dieting, consider getting a copy of – Living the Slim Life.
Have a fantastic week!
Dr Julie