Home » Why Diets Don't Work

More and more people are on “diets." The fitness industry is booming. New gyms are opening in nearly every neighborhood in America. And obesity is at an all time high. How could this be? This just doesn’t make sense, until you start to look a little closer at the root of the problem.

There are several reasons that diets fail. Or more accurately, people on “diets" fail to get the long-term results they wanted. One, diets imply deprivation. The first three letters in diet spell what? That’s right, “die." I’m not the first to say this. I’ve heard it numerous times from many people. But it’s true. Most people on a diet act like they’ve just lost their best friend. They watch people eat like the kid at the fence of the neighbor’s pool in the summer wishing to be invited for a swim on a hot day.

Two, the basic premise of a “diet" is that you need to cut back or change your eating for a period of time to accomplish a particular weight goal. Once achieved, most people go back to the bad habits that caused the overweight problem to begin with. They don’t see that they’ll just go back to the problem behavior and the cycle of gain/lose, gain/lose will repeat itself. The “normal diet" is really the problem. Modern eating is generally based on the economics and availability of foods from a long gone era. Food storage and preservation has made available foods that years ago were only available for short periods of time. People had to make due with what was available. Too many people are living with a “scarcity mindset." They need to develop an “abundance mindset."

And three, most people don’t have a clue as to what a calorie is. They don’t know what proper proportions are. And they don’t know how much they’re supposed to eat to fuel their body for peak performance. Most people are simply uneducated when it comes to nutrition. As I like to say, “They don’t know what they don’t know."

So what are the solutions? Re-education. People need to be educated as to what the body needs to operate properly. We are bio-mechanical devices. The last twenty years have seen a growth in meditation, yoga and other “mindfulness" disciplines. But we are physical beings also. Most of us read the owners manual of our auto to assure that we maintain it correctly. If you have a nice car, you know just what grade of fuel it requires to run effectively. What fuel and grade of fuel does your body need to run effectively? Wouldn’t it be good to know?

Our primary nutritional educational source was our parents. How much did they really know? They really only knew what their parents taught them. What we need is a societal shift in food thinking from food as reward or pleasure, to nutritional necessity. We need to stop using cookies, etc. as ways to coerce children onto compliant behavior. We need to learn to reward in other ways. The simplest way to reward a child is with verbal praise. Have you ever seen a child’s face light up when they’re told how well they did something? They don’t need the cookie to feel good about themselves.

Changes in eating are about health and well being as well as looking good. It can appear that the nutritionally concerned person is superficial and only concerned about looks. While looks matter (at least to me they do), even more important is the inner health of the individual. The negative effects of poor nutrition on the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver etc. are devastating over time. While conversely, the positive effects on health and body function of proper nutrition is amazing.

And thirdly, we need to educate everyone, from little children on up, what the body

needs, how it metabolizes particular substances, and what happens, both positively and

negatively, when certain foods are consumed. We need to teach proper portion

measurement. We need to insist that our youngest children eat what we give them. I see parents everyday in my office that let children make the nutritional choices with the rationalization “but he just won’t eat anything else. He’s very picky." Picky my eye. That’s a kid who’s calling the shots. What other major life decisions should we let the kid make? Parents need to be in charge and offer only options that are acceptable to the parent.

So, you need to think of food differently. It’s really just the fuel that your body runs on. The fact that we can make it taste good, that’s just a bonus. You need to learn to reward yourself and your children differently. How about a reward of a great body in which you live long enough to see your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren grow up? Now that’s a reward. And lastly, I heard Deepak Chopra once say, “You not only want to add years to your life. You want to add life to your years." Sounds good to me.

Copyright 2006 John B. Hudome Innovative Consulting LLC