Dieting Doesn't Work

SPECIAL REPORT:

10 Indisputable Reasons Why Diets Don’t Work

Dieting doesn’t work. It’s a fact. Now I’m sure somewhere down deep inside we all know this to be true. Those of us who have spent our lives battling weight only to end up heavier and unhappier each time, must know that this is a one of those universal truths. Here are just a few of the many reasons:

1) Diets are too restrictive for a long-term strategy - Most people are only able to stay on a diet for a limited amount of time. It could be weeks, it could be months, but soon afterwards most dieters gravitate back to their pre-diet eating habits. Eventually, the dieter ends up weighing more than when they started the diet. They gradually become more out of shape with each new miracle plan and the whole vicious cycle begins again.

2) Diets set up a dangerous cycle of feast and famine – Chronic dieters tend to exist in a cycle of binge and purge. They are always denying themselves something, a certain food, or sometimes a whole category of food. They almost always get to a point when, in order to compensate for this constant denial, they binge and begin eating compulsively.

3) Diets cause you to lose water and muscle instead of fat – Most fad diets show results in the beginning. When you get on the scale after the first few days, you’re likely to notice 3,5 even 7 pounds difference in you weight. That’s a great feeling and one of the reasons going on diets can be such an addictive pastime. The problem is that those pounds you lose early on are oftentimes only water and are not necessarily permanent. And all diets cause you to lose muscle in addition to water. When the inevitable happens six months later, and you go off of the diet, that muscle almost always comes back as fat, putting the dieter in worse shape than before.


4) Diets convince your body that it is starving, making it hold onto fat – The human body was set up for survival. When we go on very low-calorie diets, our body does not understand that we are restricting food on purpose and there is not any real risk of starvation. All the body knows is that it is not getting as much food as it was getting a month ago. In order to compensate, the body starts conserving energy, or calories, and slows down the metabolism. This only makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain weight.

5) Diets are designed to make you feel inadequate and unsuccessful, and as a result can lead to failure – Dieting is one of the most destructive things we can do to our self-esteem. It is like telling ourselves over and over again that we are not good enough, that we won’t be worthy until we reach a certain size or a certain magical weight. When this effort fails, as it does for most of the people who go on diets, we feel like we have failed and blame ourselves, only making the problem worse. This cycle repeats it self again and again.


6) Diets go against the natural instincts of your body – Dieting is not natural. It’s just that simple. Your body needs certain foods at certain times. It has cravings and certain foods it likes better than others. Most diets ignore this in favor of one set approach for everybody. And as mentioned before, denying your body the things it need makes it that much harder for you to stay on any diet long-term or have much success.


7) The people selling diets are, in a lot of cases, not overweight themselves and do not understand the true nature of the problem – Although they may have the right intentions when they write diet books or give out nutrition or fitness advice, a lot of the people who specialize in this field have no actual experience with being overweight themselves. They may be well-versed in the science available on the topic, but not the real world application of those principals. Some of them will just never understand how truly difficult it is to resist the urge to overeat and that many of the diets they recommend can sometimes make the situation even worse.


8) Diets address the symptoms instead of addressing the disease – Diets tend to only address the symptoms of being overweight. Most diet plans tell the dieter to only eat this or eat more of this, but they don’t deal with the fact that most chronically overweight people suffer from some level of binge eating disorder. It is this compulsive behavior that contributes to their obesity in the first place, and giving them a new diet plan is not going to solve that real underlying issue.


9) Diets are boring - Let’s face it! Diets are boring. Being told what you can eat, when you can eat, how much you can eat, it’s all boring. A dieter is not going to stick to a plan that restricts their eating enjoyment so severely. It’s just not realistic and is a major part of the reason diets fail so often.


10) Most diets presuppose that obesity is a choice that can be cured with willpower alone - Most chronic dieters are not overweight or obese by choice. But most diets don’t accept that notion. They approach the problem on the premise that the only real problem is that overweight people can’t stick to diets. They don’t have the willpower or commitment. Wrong! Dieters are some of the most committed people you will ever meet. The problem is with the system. And the 8 Rules is one way to start addressing the real problem and start making some real long-term changes in your life.