Willpower Is For Fat People

Because getting in shape shouldn't suck

What’s wrong with dieting?

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Photo by Tripp

I hate diets. The biggest problem with them is … Well hold on a second. Tell me what you think.

Pick one or two answers. Feel free to leave a comment explaining your answer, or offering a different one.

What's the worst thing about most diets?

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What Readers Are Saying

I’m on the beginnings of a low carb journey myself, and I’m trying not to pay much attention to calories in and out this time around. It doesn’t seem to be hurting anything…
Lisa Greer

Comments

  1. I’m very excited, Drew, to see where this leads! Diets = evil. I’m intrigued.

  2. Diets don’t work because they generally involve radical (but temporary) changes in the way you eat, and frequently, they are not very healthy. I suspect that a gradual lifestyle change that involves regular exercise and healthier food choices is the answer to losing weight. And the regular exercise should probably be part of the lifestyle change rather than a membership at a gym.

  3. I found learning about metabolism helped quite a bit.

    I now skip the white starchy filler part of the meal unless it is special. And I don’t fear fats. The result is that I eat a lot more vegetables and a little more meat than I used to. When I just eat the good stuff – the stuff that actually tastes good, feels good in the belly, and is healthy – my mood improves and I lose weight.

    That’s right: My diet is “only eat foods I like, and eat as much of that as I want” and I still fall off of it. Is that sick or what?

  4. Gradual (permanent) lifestyle changes ARE the way to go! Anything that’s something you’re doing temporarily is only going to create temporary change before you revert back to your former self. I don’t get how people don’t get this! Sure lazy is easy, but lazy creates a silhouette that most don’t aspire to be. You do have to work at it (anything, really) to yield any kind of results. Your paperwork doesn’t go away by willing it to, neither will your spare tire.

    Can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store!

  5. You can’t make a temporary change to accomplish a permanent solution, it just doesn’t work. Nuff said.

  6. I’m curious to see what you’re up to! I’ve missed your regular posts, but I’ve actually been going through a significant lifestyle change since Christmas, adding regular exercise along with a permanent change in my eating habits. I’ve lost 20 lbs already, and have more energy and a better outlook on life. But that doesn’t mean I won’t eat my favorite comfort foods anymore, I just have to account for them, eat smaller portions, and work them in to the plan. It sounds like your upcoming project might be something that will match up nicely with the path I’m on 🙂

  8. Cool, Drew. I’m looking forward to seeing what this is all about.

    I agree with Mike, though. It’s not so much “dieting,” but what most people eat when they’re “on a diet” that fails them. If you aren’t eating any fat, or not enough to feel satisfied (which is your gut telling you, “that’s enough for us to do our job of nourishing the rest of the body”), success will only come to those with the extraordinary willpower or ability to dissociate from their bodily needs. And while we’re ignoring our body’s real needs, we’re feeding it foods, even so-called “healthy” foods, that our making us sick and unable to absorb what nutrients are in our foods or make the nutrients our bodies need to function optimally.

    I’ve been following a pretty “radical” diet for about three weeks now, the Gut and Psychology Syndrome protocol. No grains, no sweeteners except honey, no starchy vegetables, but lots of bone broths, fermented foods, animal fats, and non-starchy vegetables. I used to be one of those people who had to eat breakfast within 30 minutes of awaking and couldn’t leave the house without a snack, because of fear of blood sugar crashes. Now, I eat breakfast 2-3 hours after waking, go for 4-6 hours without feeling the slightest hunger or even interest in food, and eat a light snack (green olives, a bit of cheese) while I get dinner together and then have a single moderate serving of food at dinner. I walk away from the table satisfied, but not full.

    I figure this will be how I eat the rest of my life. Maybe someday I’ll enjoy grains, starchy veg, and sugar on an occasional basis, but I’m so satisfied with this way of eating (except for the fact that it’s really hard to eat out…though that’s not an entirely bad thing, either) that I don’t think I’ll want to change it.

    • Good attitude to know that you can never go totally off a diet. I lost almost 100 pounds. I’ve kept it off for two years. The most important thing for me is to weigh every week. If I gain I am more careful what I eat the following week.

  9. Heh. My problem with diets is that they make me think about food all day, every day (because I have to in order to plan what I will eat) without taking much pleasure in its preparation. On top of that, they tend to be one-size-fits-all and make me feel guilty and unhappy when I’m imperfect. Yuck.

    • I agree with you. You have to plan your meals when dieting in detail, and for me that does result in my thinking about food much more every day than I normally would. And when I think about food, I thing about the things I can’t have. It is torture.

    • Totally agree! I’m so much more focused on food, and feeling hungry, when I tell myself ‘I’m on a diet’ than otherwise. However, my current system of eating whatever passes by my mouth ISN’T WORKING EITHER, so what do I know?!!

  11. I go into a diet with the best of intentions, but know I’ll go off track and not find my way back on. OR, I stick with it for a good, long while, but once I start hearing positive comments, I stop – either thinking “good enough” or “I’m done!”…which I am FAR from my goal!

  12. I agree, it is very difficult to make drastic changes to our lifestyle and diet all at once. It definitely sets us up for failure. We didn’t learn our habits overnight, how are we expected to change them that way? Gradual is the way to go. But where do we start?

  13. Diets don’t work because:
    1. They require significant changes all at once, exhausting you by week 2.
    2. They are, by their nature, temporary, whereas permanent weight loss needs to be, well, permanent.
    3. They don’t work. 95% of all major diets fail after 2 years.
    4. They are infantilizing. I am a grown woman. I choose my own clothes. I pay my own rent. I own my car. Who the h@)) are you to tell me what I should and should not put into my mouth?
    5. Rarely do they allow for food allergies/intolerances/alternative eating choices (if I see one more diet insisting that I eat cottage cheese, I am going to scream).
    6. They aren’t gradual, which is why you are starving by week 2 (dropping from 2,500 calories to 1,500). Oh, and most of them are low on the protein side.
    7. They are all based on BMI. The BMI was never intended to be a standard by which all people should be measured, and it does not take into account muscular people (did you know Venus Williams is obese?), larger skeletal structures, etc. Don’t believe me? Google Kate Harding’s BMI project.

  14. I’m always so gung-ho to start and I do well after the first week, then I get lazy, I don’t bring the right food to eat at work, I end up going out for food and before you know it, I’m back to my old bad habits.

  15. I’ve been watching what i eat since before New Year and I’ve lost 18lbs. We go out to eat twice a week and I always ask for the take home container right away soI can put half of my meal in there before I eat it without thinking. I also use a smaller plate at home it makes you feel like your getting more . Making little changes work for me. More fruit and veg too. With my breakfast I have a small glass of V8 juice and a clementine and with my lunch I have an apple. I’m looking forward to see what you’ve got coming.

  16. I lost 20kg a few years ago using diet shakes. The high protein aspect I loved and I had plenty of fresh veggies but I was craving sweets or something and when n emotional rollercoaster hit I was back where I started plus more.
    Because I was craving sweets I was eating all sorts of artificial sweeteners, even though I knew they were bad for me. I became very ill with terrible migraines.
    Even if I was crazy enough to do this diet again, the thought of anything artificial makes me shudder.
    After reading Nourishing Traditions, I have started on a diet with wholegrains, grinding and baking my own bread, I don’t avoid any fats but trans fats, I don’t deny myself sweet carbs, instead have smaller portions and enjoy them as a treat for special occasions (not every time I go out, buying a chcolate bar or block), I don’t eat after dinner anymore. No evening snacks or supper and I don’t miss them.
    I have tried to be more active, walking the kids to school and gardening.
    Nothing really radical, but I have lost about7kg (15lbs?) over 12 months. I have decided slow and steady is the way to go. I haven’t lost heaps of weight, but my shape is improving a little enough for people to comment.

    So I am interested in whatever this site concept is and happy to be amongs like minded people as it really does help. I don’t want to obsess about it, but keeping a goal in mind is good, a goal of being healthier and fitter. I am borderline diabetic (type 2) and have high blood pressure, both of which would improve with diet and exercise.
    Out of interest, I recently had a big round of blood tests and amongst them, my bad cholesterol was only borderline, a slight improvement from the last test, and my good cholesterol was high. I was really pleased as I had been wondering how my diet of animal fats, butter, free range eggs and only a little vegetable oil would impact those results.

  18. 1. it is assumed everyone needs to lose weight, so diets (which translates to weight loss diets) are found in almost every magazine you pick up, even “better homes and gardens”. also more and more weight loss centres are springing up – must be a dollar in it, but why do we need so many, or need them at all?
    2. it is approached the wrong way. many are too strict to follow, or include foods i will never eat, or cannot tolerate. probably not balanced either.
    3. it is very difficult to eat the right foods all day when out, as takeaways, and vending machines, sell junk food. its hard to find healthy options when out and about, altho it is getting easier.
    4, if i lost 50 kg, there would be almost nothing of me left 🙂 and yet these are the goals set as if one size fits all.

  19. I don’t like the word diet. I use the phrase way of eating (WOE).

    Read the book Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver. You’ll either love it or you’ll hate it.

  20. Our society has the mindset that obesity is a person’s fault and that it can be banished with sufficient willpower. While some people may be predisposed genetically to obesity, and while there may be some component of emotional eating to most obesity, the fact of the matter is that obesity has recently been determined by the NIH to be a disease for which the only effective long term remedy is weight loss surgery. By the time you get to be obese you effectively have acquired a satiety defect – the satiety mechanism that works in thinner people to make them stop eating simply doesn’t work well or at all in obese people. BTDT. Willpower will help you for a while but for 95% of the people who lose weight dieting, they will eventually gain it all back and then some. Read Gina Kolata’s Rethnking Thin – it’s a fascinating summary (not so much the first 1/4 of the book but definitely the rest) of obesity research over the last 40-50 years, what they know and what they don’t know, and why the dieting industry has squelched results that pointed to the ineffectiveness of dieting. Read also Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink to get a sense of how society predisposes us to eat more than we even want to, and how to help yourself cut back by making simple choices like eating on small plates, etc. I finally gave up beating myself over the head with the whole dieting/willpower/failure thing and got a LAP band (laparascopic adjustable gastric band) put on my stomach about 4 years ago. I took off about 100 pounds and have kept it off for that time. It takes vigilance, exercise, good food choices (most of the time), and changing the way you eat – but it’s all possible to do once you have a band in a way that it never was before because finally the satiety signal is there again, and there is serious discomfort if you eat too much. Look up the lap band book by Jessie Ahroni if you want more information on it, or search for a variety of web sites that talk about the other types of weight loss surgery. Regardless of whether you want to consider that step, stop beating yourself up for being overweight. It takes more than willpower to lose weight for the long term.

  21. hey drew, if you planning on a diet meal plan, sign me up! 😀 as it is, its occupational hazard that i’m a baker and soo need to lose a few pounds and then SOME! so hurry up and share with us all wotcha up to, eh?

  22. Diets are the wrong approach, based on a wrong understanding of why people gain weight. People don’t get fat because they overeat; they overeat because they are getting fat. (Calories stored as fat in the fat cells leave the muscle and organ cells with a deficit; hunger and more eating results, particularly of carbohydrates, which then spikes insulin, which stores the excess sugar as fat. It’s a vicious cycle, and dieting, in the sense of cutting overall calories, only exacerbates the sense of hunger.)

    We’ve known for two centuries that people gain weight not by overeating as such, but by eating all the wrong foods — foods with a high glycemic index, such as sweets, sodas, white bread and pastry. Eliminate those foods, and weight loss becomes possible. You’re not “dieting” when you cut out sugar and starches, because you can eat all you want of the right foods, until you’re full. Your body will operate the way it is supposed to when you eliminate the source of spikes in your blood sugar.

  23. Dieting is for the birds–used to be thinner and after four kids and years of not being able to afford the foods I should be eating my metabolism is totally out of whack. Now I’m on meds that make the problem worse.

  24. My problem is potatoes and wine. My husband and I love wine and I have to potatoes with lots of fat, i.e butter, cheese.

    I dieted for nearly all my life, limiting myself to 1200 calories a day but something went off and in my brain and I couldn’t stand the thought of obsessing about what I was able to eat that day, constantly hungary and tallying calories. I was thin but fat skinny. Although I do not like the additional 20 pounds I have gained since then, the thought of that limiting, anxious lifestyle is more than I can take. Also I refuse to give up having a civilized proper dinner at the end of the day that includes all food groups and of course, WINE (although I don’t eat dessert).

  25. You lose weight when you stop eating the foods that make you fat. That’s it. That’s the secret. If you don’t want to stop eating those foods – sugar, potatoes, pasta, crackers, bread, etc. – then you will not lose the weight you want/need to lose. It’s a trade-off. (Pssssst. Start with eliminating sugar. Once you’ve kicked the habit, you no longer crave it.)

  26. looks interesting but now enough info on just what you are proposing to do.
    More info please.
    Comment…with so many of becoming adult onset diabetics..we are finding that low carb is paramount to our eating plan.
    Also, organic organic organic.
    Otherwise we are eating poisins.

    Looking forward to your next post…hoping you will get into more detail about what you are actually proposing V.

  27. It wasn’t one of the choices, but for me, the worst thing about diets is listening to a co-worker kvetch and moan about how her latest diet is killing her.

  28. I think the biggest problem with “diets” is that they are not realistic. For a period of time, anyone can stick to eating a diet that restricts certain foods and they can lose weight over the short term, but no one can live like that forever. Eventually, a person will go back to eating the food that they are not supposed to have, and then the weight comes right back on. So no restrictions – everything in moderation.

    It is also crucial to educate yourself about what is truly healthy food and what is not (i.e.: not all fats are bad, stay away from processed food, etc.) and then eat healthy overall. Allow ‘unhealthy’ foods in moderation and ensure that exercise is a regular part of your life. For me, it’s not just about losing weight or keeping it off, it’s more about being the healthiest me I can be at all times, regardless of what weight I am at.

    • I agree completely, dieting is not the answer long-term. Eating healthy is key. We have made a healthy change to the eating habits in our household and are seeing the benefits.

  29. My problem with diets is that I love to cook from scratch. I have always cooked this way and I love to bake too. And quite frankly, the stuff I cook and or bake is not on any diet plan. I am currently on a program that allows me to cook but its mostly protein and veggies which I like but isnt cooking like my grandma did. I still have an old cookbook that uses lard in the recipes but as for taste, you can’t beat old fashioned cooking in my opionion..

    • Wendy, right on all points. Just saving sugar and desserts for the weekends, though, makes a huge difference for most people.

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