Diets Don’t Work

It’s no wonder that January leads to the biggest annual financial boom to the health and diet industries, who love to capitalize on all those New Year’s resolutions. Like wildebeests in the Serengeti, millions run to their local health clubs to sign up for a new gym membership or find themselves in their local community centers at a beginner’s yoga class. Here, they make the big mistake of looking up during the downward dog pose – UGH. Worst of all, people start eating and drinking things they don’t enjoy, such as quinoa or wheatgrass, or they seriously considering taking that new fad diet pill.

Let’s face it, trying to lose weight royally sucks. And yet you keep believing that one day soon The Change Fairy will sprinkle her magic dust over you and you’ll all of a sudden morph into a slim person with thin thighs, tight abs and one heck of a totally rocking body. But sadly, the magic never lasts for long, and reality quickly settles back in. According to Newswire, 37% of people in 2015 made New Year’s resolutions to get fit and healthy, and 35% promised to lose weight. It’s no big surprise that 80% of those people failed to keep their New Year’s resolutions.

People have come to accept that disappointment, pain, deprivation, and starvation are part of the diet journey, so they soldier on with their resolution, feeling overwhelmed and unimpressed with these new plans. They can’t seem to make it to the gym regularly, which is “fine” because they have not fully recovered from the pain of the last workout. A total mashup of feelings begins to dominate their days. They are hungry, in pain and quickly become undone by the whole diet process.

Can you identify with this plight? Does your doctor tell you that according to the BMI, you are obese and need to lose a couple of pounds? Do you look in the mirror at your body and not like what you see? Everything from movies to the Internet, magazines, television commercials, advertisements and even well-meaning friends are challenging you to lose weight, but every time you try, it is more of an exercise in futility. You start off strong with a new diet plan but soon begin to have challenges that derail you. The average diet lasts for approximately two weeks. The average woman will try to diet, unsuccessfully, at least four times per year. Sixty-five percent of people that do actually lose weight on a diet will gain all their weight back and more. The struggle is real; you are not alone.

The diet industry is built on peoples’ recurring failures. They know that you are highly unlikely to stick with any given trend, and thus repackage their offerings year to year, swearing up and down that their “revolutionary” new solution is the “game-changer” that will finally make you fit and healthy. This is bogus. The only way to retain good health in the long term is through lifestyle modification, which involves a complete overhaul of your day-to-day habits and a commitment to sound, realistic principles that let you enjoy the things you like (in moderation) while maintaining a balance of healthy eating and exercise.

Remember Diets. Do. Not. Work. More in our next post.