Diets Don’t Work

Diets don’t work and can lead to binge eating

Do you know why?

 
1. Your body adapts to the caloric restriction in dieting; the less you eat, the less it uses. Which means to maintain weight loss, you must ALWAYS continue to further restrict.

2. Deprivation from dieting creates food cravings, which can lead to binge eating; we are biologically designed to obsess about food when we are hungry OR when we forbid ourselves certain foods. Rigidly limiting food sets you up to crave larger quantities of that very food and creates fears that there won’t be enough. Binge eating means that diets don’t work!

3. “Blowing a diet” causes a release in food inhibitions and can lead to overeating or binge eating.

4. Fasting or restricting food during a diet turns ON the neurochemical switches that induce us to eat, which can lead to overeating after deprivation. This is a biological drive, not willpower.

5. Diets don’t adapt to changes in your body, so they are never truly satisfying.

6. Dieting disconnects you from feelings of hunger and satiety, making you less likely to trust your own body and know when to eat and when to stop.

Remember, every diet you have “failed” was your body telling you diets don’t work. You didn’t fail, the diet failed you.

Click here to review the Cycle-of-the-Typical-Dieter. Does this seem familiar to you?

Check out the National Eating Disorder Association’s advice: Listen to Your Body

If Diets Don’t Work, Then What?

Many people feel fearful without having the external control of the diet. Some think, if I’m not dieting, I’ll get out of control and gain weight! While these fears are certainly valid, the truth is that once your body becomes used to the availability of regular food, it will stabilize at a natural weight. So, how to get started? If you are not struggling with an eating disorder, you can begin by practicing intuitive eating and evaluating all the factors in your life (physical, emotional, mental, external, spiritual and so forth) that can trigger the diet-overeat cycle. If you think you could be struggling with an eating disorder, or disordered eating patterns, it’s best to heal the eating disorder first through eating disorder treatment. A therapist specializing in food and body image issues can help you either way.

End the food struggle and make peace with food! Check out our make peace with food program to try an attuned mind and body approach to coping with emotional eating, binge eating and compulsive overeating.

Want more help with food and body issues?

Click here to learn more or attend our Houston workshop, Make Peace with Food, Mind, Body & Emotions to get a jump start to help you understand why you’re eating too much and what to do about it.  Participate in our 12-week group program to go in depth on making lifelong peace with food, mind, body & emotions.

To get started now give us a call to schedule an appointment at 832-559-2622 or schedule an appointment online.

Recommended Reading:

Intuitive Eating, 3rd Edition

We’ve all been there—angry with ourselves for overeating, for our lack of willpower, for failing at yet another diet. But the problem is not us; it’s that dieting, with its emphasis on rules and regulations, has stopped us from listening to our bodies.

The Diet Survivor’s Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self-Care

If you’re one of the nearly 116 million Americans trying to lose weight, only to find that every diet you’ve tried has failed you, you are a diet survivor. You can step off the destructive diet bandwagon and reclaim your self-esteem, positive body image and a happy, healthy life. These 60 inspiring lessons will give you the tools you need to change your relationship with food, your body and yourself.

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

Geneen Roth adds a powerful new dimension to her work in Women Food and God. She begins with her most basic concept: The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning, transformation and, yes, even God.