Project Life - Life Coaching & Personal Training

Why Diets Fail

Most of us at one time or another in our lives will have experienced the pain of dieting, or the perceived need to diet. What few of us recognise is the stark fact that DIETS DON’T WORK. Diets are at best a temporary fix with the dieter regaining all weight lost once they return to a ‘normal’ eating pattern, or at worst consume the dieter’s every waking thought to the point that they are trapped in a constant state of hunger, pain and frustration.

DIET’S DON’T WORK. As a Personal Trainer and Weight Loss Coach, my key message to clients is to understand that health, fitness and weight are lifestyle issues. The mechanics of nutrition and exercise only make up about 10% of the equation: 90% is psychological and change must start with mindset.

Below are some of the key reasons diet’s fail:

1. As soon as you decide to restrict your food intake through dieting, you will find you begin focus all your attention on food and eating, which is what you actually want to minimise in your mind. Living in a perpetual state of self-denial is bad for body and soul and cannot be maintained.

2. Diets create stress and stress often creates the compulsion to eat. Emotional eating needs to be managed through the mind, not through the stomach.

3. Diets fail to address the real problems: your self-esteem and your reliance on food to change your emotions.

4. Dieting can result in mood swings and depression which make it harder to lose weight. Depression can often lead to weight gain.

5. Diets put you in “starvation mode”. When you severely restrict your food intake it signals your body that food is scarce. Your body is designed to protect you against the possibility starvation by storing fat when whenever food becomes unavailable.

6. Diets lower your metabolism. When you suddenly limit your caloric intake, your metabolism slows down and burns less calories. Dieting actually makes your body more efficient at conserving calories and storing them up as fat.

7. Diets judge their success by the number of pounds lost rather than by the true objectives: increased energy, feeling good about yourself, and looking good in your clothes again.

8. Diets are temporary. When you reach your goal weight on a diet you stop and return your normal eating habits so the weight eventually comes back.

9. Diet soft drinks increase your appetite. They contain phosphoric acid which increase your appetite and leaches calcium from your bones. They may also contain aspartame which drains your energy, your strength, and your stamina.

10. Diets change your short term eating habits without changing your long term mindset about food. Your thoughts create your actions, so if you still have the same thoughts and feelings about food eventually you will return to the same eating behaviours. To create long term, permanent changes in your body you must first start with changes in your thinking.

Some scary facts about dieting:

- Almost half of American children between first and third grades say they want to be thinner.
- Four out of five ten-year-old children are afraid of being fat.
- On any given day, one in four men is on a diet.
- Half of nine and ten-year-old girls surveyed about dieting say that being on a diet makes them feel better about themselves.
- More than one out of three “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting. One fourth of those will suffer from partial or full syndrome eating disorders.
- Americans spend over forty billion dollars a year on dieting and diet related products.
- Between five and ten million women and girls in the United States struggle with eating disorders and borderline conditions.
- One million boys and men struggle with eating disorders and borderline conditions.
- The number of people with eating disorders and borderline conditions is triple the number of people living with AIDS (664,921 people are living with AIDS).
- Eating disorders affect at least three times as many people as schizophrenia does (2.2 million people are living with schizophrenia).

Don’t get trapped in the spiral of low self-esteem and endless denial.

For more information on how to master the weight loss mindset, contact Project Life to discuss the Thin Thinking Programme - a powerful combination of personal coaching, exercise programming and nutrition advice.

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About Victoria Judge:

Originally from the UK, Victoria Judge is a qualified Life Coach, NLP Practitioner and Personal Trainer living on the Central Coast of NSW. After travelling the world for several years she settled in Australia and enrolled in a Diploma of Life Coaching, NLP Practitioner Certification, and a Certificate IV in Fitness, and with great pride launched her company: Project Life.

For more information on Victoria, please see the About Project Life page on this website. You can also follow @ProjectLifeAus on Twitter or subscribe to this blog via RSS or email.