Diets will work in helping you lose weight but...

Last night, I had a dear friend over for dinner who asked me my opinion about another diet she was going to try. She struggles with weight gain mainly because she eats unconsciously and snacks and nibbles too much when her life gets busy. Portion control has always been a struggle as well. Like all of us, she struggles with an addictive behaviour that kicks in at different times in her life. Her response has traditionally been to tighten up the ropes on her wagon in an effort to regain a sense of control. She says she does well when she doesn't have to think about what she eats but instead follows a very structured plan.

What I told her about what I thought of her new diet was this:

"Every diet will help you lose weight. The very act of restricting food groups or portion sizes and following a rigid eating plan will always help people lose weight but it won't address how you got to this point again. Plus most people have taken the grazing idea of eating way too far. We still have to wait to eat until we feel hunger. We have to feel what our body needs and let ourselves feel what hunger is and what being satisfied is. We have to become more conscious in our bodies to know what our bodies need on any given day."

What I believe helps people get to a healthy body weight in the long run is healing the underlying cause of why we behave in ways that make us feel crummy about ourselves. It's the only way most of us can change our coping mechanisms. Working towards becoming more conscious in our mind, body and soul is the only path to true healing in my opinion and my personal experience.

But a woman I respect says it way better than me. Dr. Marcia Sirota at the Ruthless Compassion Institute and author of Emotional Over=eating: Know the Triggers, Heal Your Mind and Never Diet Again, tells it like it is:

"Diets don't work because they create unbearable feelings of deprivation as well as physiological withdrawal. In a recent study, diets were shown to provide short-term weight loss, but everyone eventually put the weight back on & up to 2/3 of dieters were heavier at follow-up than before they started the diet. The way to deal with compulsive overeating is not to put yourself on a diet. It's to deal with the emotional issues driving you to overeat & hold on to the weight, & to let go of your charged relationship with food and weight. It's to pursue the things that bring meaning & true fulfillment in your life. When you've dealt with the real issues driving overeating, & have found real sources of meaning, purpose, connection & fulfillment, the pounds will melt away."

I've lost clients because I won't train people when they come in dizzy or depleted because they are on very restrictive diets like say Dr. Bernstein (700 calories a day!)or carb free diets meant to put people in ketosis. I don't hide my opinions about the harm something like that can do to their bodies and minds. At the very least, my job is to do no harm to my clients!

Also, I don't want to become a part of another failed attempt for someone to truly transform their health and fitness by condoning something that will ultimately reinforce a negative self image. Because diets do work in helping people lose weight but they also normally lead to someone gaining more weight back afterwards leaving that person with a reinforced sense of personal failure. Diets just solidify a cycle that has existed for quite some time, the on again and off again of the proverbial wagon syndrome. There is no wagon at all in my mind. Ditch diets and the wagon at the same time and take it one meal, one choice at a time.