3 signs a nutrition program won’t lead to lasting weight loss
I have worked with hundreds of individuals to help them improve their nutritional health and wellbeing and when we first meet, I get the privilege of hearing their stories about the programs and diets that they have tried before.
There are some consistent qualities of the programs that haven’t worked and I want to highlight three biggies here.
1.) The same system is used for everyone - Minus some tweaks, if a program is using the same food labeling system (red, yellow, green, assigning point values, macros or labels foods as ‘always’ ‘sometimes’ ‘never’), or a similar meal plan for everyone, or everyone consumes the same food products sold by the company, then A LOT of necessary nuance is missing. That program is suggesting that there is ONE best way to eat for everyone and that everyone should fit their plan, not their plan fit the individual person. I don’t care how “flexible” they try to make it seem, it’s not flexible enough to be sustained in real life on the regular if they are using any of these methods. These programs often result in, at best, short term weight loss (I consider anything less than 2-5 years short term) and weight regain later and rely on repeat customers for their business model.
2.) Psychology is not addressed. Let me tell you, when it comes to eating for wellbeing, I would say after accounting for access (food security), about 85% of it has to do with psychology and how you feel about yourself and the food and WAY LESS about the actual food itself. Guilt or shame when eating certain foods, feeling better about yourself when you eat one way and bad about yourself when you eat another way, believing your body is bad because of its size or the way it looks, all can result in unhealthy eating behaviors. Some programs even reinforce these negative beliefs. If diet and exercise are the only thing the plan is focused on, then it is really missing the boat… and may actually be causing the boat to take on water. I have worked with a lot of clients who have lasting negative self talk and a lot of guilt associated with eating certain foods that we have had to undo.
3.) You are doubted. If the nutritionist, dietitian, health coach, program leader, or overall tone of the program calls into question your compliance to the program or your self report on what you are eating and how you are moving before or after joining the program… it’s SUPER unsupportive. First off, if they aren’t going to believe you, then how can they help you? And secondly, with this mindset, the blame is going to be put on you instead of examining how the program needs to improve.
If you are anything like the people I work with, you are smart, and you probably know a lot about food and exercise.
AND you have probably tried A LOT of things already to try to get the results you want. The last thing you need is to be part of a program that is assuming that YOU are doing something wrong.