How many diets have you tried? Did they all work? Did any of them really work?
As reported in the Huffington Post UK, a recent poll reveals some shocking statistics:
- The average 45-year-old woman has been on 61 diets since the age of 16
- The average diet lasts about two weeks
- 35% of women report gaining more weight than they lost once the diet was over
As shocking as the numbers may be, they reveal what anyone who has ever been on a diet knows to be true: diets can help you lose weight, but the more difficult problem is keeping the weight off.
Why Is it so Difficult to Keep Pounds Off?
Most trendy diets focus on weight loss through calorie reduction. While this achieves the weight loss goal, it can pose a number of problems.
- Reduced Nutrition. In restricting the number of calories, many diets also unwittingly restrict your nutrient intake, which can affect your health, metabolism and make it difficult for you to lose more weight or keep the weight off.
- Set Up for Failure. The lack of nutrition, the realities of our daily lives and other factors make it impossible to maintain diets for any length of time. It means you will inevitably stop losing weight; you will be highly likely to gain it all back and, according to the poll results above, you have a better than one-in-three chance of actually increasing your weight.
- You Blame Yourself. When a diet fails, you think “it can’t be the diet’s fault. It did what it promised and helped me lose weight.” So when you gain the weight back, you blame yourself. You become discouraged and you become less likely to take the steps needed for sustained, healthy weight loss.
Try Nutrition & Attitude Instead
In a Washington Post article, Sherry Pagoto, a licensed clinical psychologist, points out that, despite their claims, “no one diet is better than another for weight loss, especially keeping it off.”
The Right Attitude. You need to stop thinking that you will ever find a quick way to manage your weight. You need to start thinking that this is a lifelong journey, a lifestyle change and a quest for better health, as much as for lower weight