Diets Don't Work

By Lisa Gallo, CPT, NWS, Aerobics Instructor, CFC

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1- Dieting makes you feel deprived. You go off the diet and eat what you want.
2- Dieting causes resentment. You feel like a child being told what to do, so you rebel and eat.
3- Dieting is rigid and unnatural. It is too difficult to eat at set times and only set amounts and prescribed food.
4- Dieting ignores body signals. Eating in a prescribed way tunes out signals that you are hungry or full because they are contrary to the diet. When you ignore them too long, you soon become unable to recognize body signals.
5- Dieting is a compulsive behaviour. If you area perfectionist at all, you probably demand that you diet perfectly. Eating any food that is not on the diet leads you to becoming so angry with yourself that you give up dieting.
6- Dieting makes you dependent. Unless you create the diet by yourself for your particular needs, you are using a diet that some authority devised. This implies that you do not know what is best for you body and you cannot trust you body to tell you when and how much to eat.
7- Dieting tends to classify foods. Foods that are acceptable are "good" and others not allowed are "bad". It is human nature to want what is forbidden so no one can diet for long.
8- Dieting can lead to increased weight. When you lose weight your metabolic rate decreases to compensate. When you go off a diet and increase your eating, your metabolism is no longer high enough to burn off the added calories. You gain again and the new weight stays. Over a period of years your weight goes up instead of down because of inconsistent eating.
9- Dieting leads to overeating. For all of the above reasons you are unable to diet for long. When you go off a diet or temporarily lose your resolve you may experience tremendous feelings of deprivation and resentment and this becomes a trigger to overeat. Restrictive diets have been shown to dampen appetite when intake is low but when the diet is stopped, the appetite soars. STARVING LEADS TO STUFFING