WHY DIETING FAILS – PART I

The word “diet” produces all kinds of dread – and not just mentally and emotionally. There are even huge downsides to “dieting” physically that you’ve probably never even heard about.

By dieting, we are talking about something called “weight cycling.” Some refer to it as yo-yo dieting. Either way you define it, we’re talking about a pattern of dieting to lose weight, gaining weight back, then dieting again.

Since we are all about learning a consistent lifestyle of eating to maintain a healthy weight and not dieting, we thought it would be a good idea to provide you with some very compelling reasons for doing just that.

A good place to begin is with our mindset. We talk about mindset often here, because it really is the answer to successful weight loss. If your head isn’t in the right place, nothing else productive will follow. Most of the time when someone goes on a diet, they follow a given set of standards or rules for a period of time in order to reach a certain goal.

You had a goal in mind, you met it, and then you tend to slip back into some old habits that contribute to excess weight gain.

And this is the trap of dieting. If we are implementing healthy eating as a lifestyle, then we won’t fall into this type of trap, because there is constant room for growth. It’s not about perfection, and it’s not about being a certain weight by a certain time, etc. It’s about making progress. 

And this is so incredibly important, because over time you learn how to persevere, you learn what foods work for or against your body, you learn about nutrition, you learn about being in control of your decisions. Lifestyle living is more than losing weight. You learn quite a bit on the journey.

When you diet, which usually requires calorie restriction, your body actually increases your appetite over time and can hold onto fat stores.

When you are “dieting,” fat loss leads to decreased levels of leptin, because leptin resides in fat. So, the more fat you have, the more leptin you have. Leptin tells our body we’re not starving… that we are satisfied. As a result, it qualms our hunger cues.

When you diet by skipping meals and eating too low-calorie, leptin begins to signal you to eat more to restock your lost energy supply. You can also lose muscle mass during dieting, as well, causing your body to conserve that energy store by lowering metabolism.

This is why dieters often regain up to two-thirds of their weight loss within a year and that a third end up heavier than they did before they dieted. Then they start the process all over again. This process of regaining weight can also lead to another frustrating aspect of dieting, which is an overall increase in fat percentage.

During weight gain, fat is regained much easier than muscle mass. So, every time you gain and lose, gain and lose - you are increasing your fat mass percentage, which becomes higher than it was before you dieted the previous time. This is one great reason why a sustainable lifestyle change is much more advantageous.

Another big issue with the ensuing fat percentage is that fat begins to accumulate around the organs – especially the liver. Fatty liver is a condition where the body stores excess fat inside the liver cells - not just around the liver. Obesity and weight gain is an important risk factor in developing a fatty liver.

Due to the rising incidence of obesity, Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is predicted to exceed hepatitis cirrhosis and to become the leading indicator for a liver transplant. As of 2018, NAFLD was the most common chronic liver disease worldwide, registering at 24%. This statistic should raise concern for anyone who is committed to dieting as a weight loss strategy.

Next week we will look at even more reasons why dieting fails.