Before you go on another diet, read this…
Why Diets Fail – a psychologist’s view
Why Diets Make Us Fat – a neuroscientist’s perspective – and watch the youtube video this article includes
You may be able to lose weight and keep it off, but dieting* is not the answer.
So what is?
Eating delicious, healthy food that nourishes your body (like all of the recipes on my blog, and what I teach in my cooking classes)
Eating slowly and mindfully
And moving in ways that you enjoy and want to do consistently….
Which is what I teach in my clinics
*What is wrong with dieting?
i. Most diets are restrictive, boring and implicitly punitive;
ii. They tell you what and how much you should eat regardless of your likes, dislikes and appetite;
iii. They convincingly create fear, guilt, stress and anxiety about what you are doing wrong and the foods you definitely shouldn’t eat;
iv. They do not fit easily into most people’s lifestyle, are hard to follow and unsustainable;
v. They take the fun, joy and pleasure out of food and eating;
vi. They encourage feelings of deprivation, denial and hunger; and
vii. They encourage feelings of guilt as well as low self-esteem and they disempower you when you try to follow their unrealistic and unreasonable demands and fail, ending up thinking that it is your fault
Let’s face it, fad diets do not teach you about long term good health, taking care of yourself and your overall wellbeing. They are designed purely to make you lose weight (note I say weight, not fat) often in the unhealthiest of ways. They are not founded on sound research, or worse, they misquote research for their own gain and benefit. Not to mention that human nature is not designed to survive by eating this way.
Fad diets are not the answer and many of them are actually useless, or worse, downright dangerous to your health – as well as your self-esteem. And let’s face it, if they did work there would be one diet, everyone would have been on it, they would have lost weight and kept it off long term!
