Seven Reasons Why Diets Don't Work
Diets are big business...
Diets are big business, but so are cigarettes. Tobacco companies are happy to adversely affect the health of their customers - there are plenty more where they came from.CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports Americans spend about $35 billion a year on weight-loss products.
There are 7 main reasons why diets fail:
1: Giving Up
- 21% of people give up in less than 2 months
- 45% give up before the year is out.
2: Eating fewer Calories Slows Metabolic rate
- Your body thinks 'Famine! make fat to survive'.
- Your body slows metabolism
- Your body excels at turning calories into fat
- When old eating habits are restored, this slowed metabolism increases fat/muscle ratio.
- Constantly changing weight increases risk of heart disease.
3: Low mood states, even depression.
- Being overweight is as much an emotional problem as it is an excess calorie problem.
- Social isolation can be a consequence of avoiding temptation.
- This can lead to low mood states, which are likely to trigger 'comfort eating'.
4: Diets Focus on Food.
- Being slim is not just about calories. Being slim is a state of mind. If there is no change in attitudes to food, eating, and self, then a diet will not succeed in bringing about permanent weight change. This is the great value of hypnosis.
- Hypnosis for weight loss works on changing the attitudes, beliefs, eating patterns, and behaviours that keep you overweight. It allows you to change gently, and therefore, permanently. If that is what you want, of course.
5: Diets Cause Weight-Loss, NOT Fat-Loss.
- Weight loss is almost entirely down to muscle loss.
- Muscle is denser than body fat so body shape does not change much, even though pounds are being lost.
- You can end up at a 'normal' weight but with a very high percentage of body fat.
- When normal eating is restored, fat deposition is also restored and the situation worsens.
- This is why yo-yo dieting is a major health risk. Dieting turns muscle to fat.
6: Exercise is rarely part of a diet.
- Exercise is rarely seen as an essential aspect of weight loss.
- Exercise is seen as a burden rather than a pleasure.
- Overweight individuals may find exercise physically difficult and therefore avoid it.
- Exercise builds muscle.
- Muscle burns more calories than fat - even when it's not being used.
- A fit person can burn 500-700 calories a day just resting.
7: Unreasonable expectations.
- If you are 16 stone (224lbs/102Kg) then it is unreasonable to expect a diet to take you to 9 stone (126lb/57Kg) between February and the summer holidays so you can lie on the beach in a sexy bikini. People expect to be able to lose huge amounts of weight in a relatively short period. This is partly because we are a society where instant gratification is everything. You want a new music album; you can have it as fast as your broadband connection can give it to you. No longer do you even have to wait until Saturday when you can get into town and visit your friendly neighbourhood HMV.