Last Wednesday was International No Diet Day; I propose No More Dieting for Life!

Here are my 6 top reasons why people should stop dieting now.

1. “The best way to gain weight, is to lose weight.” Research shows us that over 95% of people who lose weight on a diet, regain that weight within 5 years. The overwhelming majority regain more weight. Quote taken from ‘Beyond a shadow of a diet’ by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel.

2. With regard to diets – “It’s the only thing we buy that, when the product fails, we all blame ourselves and then go buy another version.” Brilliantly put by American dietitian, Evelyn Tribole.

3. “If diets worked, anyone who has ever been on a diet, would have done it and kept the weight off, end of story.” Zoe Nicholson (me)

4. Many people go on a diet with the aim to lose weight in order to feel better about themselves. Research has found that dieters have lower self esteem, lower levels of body image satisfaction and higher levels of anxiety, depression and disordered eating than non-dieters. So in fact, dieting achieves the exact opposite of the very thing many people are trying to achieve.

5. Weight cycling, or yo-yoing, causes more damage to the body than maintaining a heavier weight.

Given most people who lose weight, regain the weight, most people diet more than once and get caught in the trap of weight cycling. Weight cycling causes inflammation in the body and increases risk factors for obesity related disease regardless of a person’s weight. Weight cycling also damages a person’s psychology as mentioned in point 4. If you have dieted, or are dieting, you will be familiar with the complete sense of failure every time you “fall off the wagon” or regain weight. This sense of failure leads to food binges and chips away at your self esteem and body image.

6. Diets fail people, people do not fail diets.

As you restrict calories and lose weight, there are neurological, biological and metabolic changes which occur that make it almost impossible to maintain the diet and a significant amount of weight loss. Restricting food makes you think constantly about food and eating, hormones increase your appetite and leave you less satiated after a meal and your metabolism becomes more efficient so that your body requires less energy than it did before.

But there is good news!

You can start to feel better about yourself without dieting or losing weight. With a Non-Diet Approach, you can start to improve your relationship with food and your body and significantly improve your mental and physical health. While the focus is shifted away from weight loss, weight loss can occur as you stop worrying so much about food or your body. As you let go of restrictions around food and allow yourself to eat freely, you will find in time that you no longer want to, or need to, binge on your “forbidden” foods.

Enjoy all food and the pleasure of eating, love your body for what it can do rather than how it looks and change your life for the better!

You can find more information on the Non-Diet Approach on my website lovewhatyoueat.com.au.

Thanks for reading, Zoe 🙂

All research for above facts can be found in these articles:
www.nutritionj.com/content/10/1/9
www.clinsci.org/cs/124/0231/cs1240231.htm