We are Insane! - Diets Don’t Work
They’re like a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches
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Insanity is doing the same thing over
and over and expecting different results |
I am not insane, but my desperation to lose weight and be fit caused me to act like I was insane. Albert Einstein defined insanity as, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. When I felt motivated to lose weight I would exercise and diet and I would lose weight. Then for a number of reasons my motivation would drop and within a few months I’d gain the weight back. A few months later I would diet again and lose weight, and again gain it back. I did this over and over again. For some reason each time I dieted I expected that I would somehow keep the weight off for good. I was by his definition, acting insane.
I was the typical “yo-yo dieter”. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t know how to lose weight. I just didn’t know how to keep it off. Perhaps you too have acted “insane” just like I did in the past.
Dieting doesn't work
Diets do NOT work for long-term weight loss according to UCLA researchers report in the April 2007 issue of American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association.
"You can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back," said Traci Mann, UCLA associate professor of psychology and lead author of the study. "We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more. Sustained weight loss was found only in a small minority of participants, while complete weight regain was found in the majority. Diets do not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits for the majority of people."
Mann and her co-authors conducted the most comprehensive and rigorous analysis of diet studies, analyzing 31 long-term studies.
Diets are a temporary solution to an everlasting problem.
The truth is 95% of people who lose weight on a diet gain it all back or more within 2 years! The problem is we view diets as a quick-fix. When we want to lose weight we look for the easiest way to lose as much weight in the shortest amount of time. It could be the latest low calorie fad diet that some big movie star or the future queen just did to lose 20lbs for a royal wedding. Sometimes it’s doing an insane exercise routine that requires us to sweat for hours a day. Or it’s a new miracle weight loss pill, patch, or powder we sprinkle on food. These fads do not work, and while we know better to fall for these schemes. We still do because our desperation to be thin makes us temporarily insane.
Insane things we do to lose weight
- Eliminate entire food groups
- Juice or liquid diets
- Don’t eat!
- Severely low calorie intake, less than 1,200 calories daily
- Extreme exercise-hours or more a day of intense exercise
- Drugs
- Pills
- Patches
- Powders
When we choose a fad diet we may reach our goal, but we don’t know what to do next. After we lose weight we slowly go back to our old habits. Sure we may attempt to carry over some of our new healthy choices, but most of us just can’t stick to it. We have been food deprived and working hard for so long that we’ve just had enough. Not to mention that our motivation is no longer the same as it was early on when we were working towards our goal. Eventually it snowballs and we gain all the weight back. Then we repeat the cycle when we become motivated to lose weight once again. This is the life of a constant dieter. This was my life.
Can your “Diet” be your lifestyle?
I tell people all the time, that whether or not they choose my weight loss plan, they need to choose a plan that they could follow long term. The plan you choose needs to become your new lifestyle. The reason why I was able to lose over 100lbs and maintain it for several years is my plan to lose weight is my long-term lifestyle.
Why can’t we stick to a diet?
- Deprived of our favorite foods
- Constantly hungry
- Losing control
Feeling deprived!
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. ~Mark Twain
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| TRUE LOVE |
When many of us diet we give up the foods we love. We blame our weight struggles on pizza, ice cream, and other high calorie foods. It makes sense that if we stop eating them then we'll lose weight, and we may. The problem is, it's nearly impossible to totally give up these foods. We have an emotional connection to food, it really is true love. Think about it, if it's true love then you can let it go and it will return to you. When we diet and let those foods go they do return, time and time again. One of the most important facts I discovered on my weight loss journey was I had to lose weight without letting go of the foods I love. They had to be part of my diet plan or I would fail in the end. If not, feeling deprived mixed with temptation would be too much for me to over come. I would lose control and "fall of the wagon" like I have many times in the past. Being in control is extremely important for success. This is where spiking stands out from other diet plans. Instead of "falling of the wagon" Spikers choose to "jump of the wagon" and they get right back on the following day. By having a Spike Day you control when you have your favorite foods and temptation and deprivation will no longer hinder your progress.
Stop the Insanity!
Dieting fails but a lifestyle change succeeds
If we approach diets as a “quick fix” then that is exactly what they will be. You may lose weight, but you will almost surely gain it back like most people do. To become one of the few who have not gained the weight back you need to find a weight loss plan that you can follow long-term, a lifestyle, not a diet. This why diets that eliminate an entire food group, like “no-carb” diets, or worse the extremely low calorie diets, also known as VLCD, that restrict our daily calories to 800 or even 500 calories are doomed to fail us long term.
The good news is you can lose weight without feeling deprived, and you can lose weight without having to exercise for hours a day. You can lose weight the spike way.
“Spiking has allowed me to take control of my diet, my health and my life. I know that once a week I can eat anything I want, so it's that much easier to follow my nutrition plan for the rest of the week. This isn't a diet. It's a plan for a healthy lifestyle.”
-Bruce
