Why Diets Don’t Work
Did you know that your body doesn’t know the difference between eating less food because you choose to (like when you are trying to lose weight) and eating less food when you aren’t choosing to (as in food insecurity or a famine).
Your body is not aware that TRYING to lose weight is a thing. Your body knows that SURVIVING is a thing. That is why it is always working on your behalf to maintain your temperature, blood sugar, and you guessed it, your weight.
The “problem” is that what you think your weight should be and what your body thinks your weight should be may not be in alignment thanks to diet culture.
Diet culture is the message that thinner is happier, healthier, more beautiful and downright just better. Therefore anything that makes you thinner is good.
But your body didn’t get that memo.
You might have experienced this if you have spent years on and off different weight loss plans - it may feel like your body is fighting back as it regains weight lost… it’s almost like it has different plans.
And that’s because it does.
Most diet and other weight loss or wellness plans treat your body like a simple equation. Eat x amount and burn x amount and you will be x weight. Which first and foremost doesn’t work for most people (we aren’t widgets). And second of all, the recommended intake is usually less than what your body needs because.. third of all - it is based on an assumption that your body WANTS to be the smaller size.
But what if it doesn’t?
Then your body is going to fight like hell to survive and be the size it feels like it has the best chances of surviving at, diet culture be damned. After all, it doesn’t know the difference between a diet and a famine.
And if you are someone who is prone to the feast and famine conditions that dieting creates, your body may eventually decide that it needs to store even more fat because another famine is certainly coming and it needs to prepare itself.
This is why the data shows that most people regain more weight than they originally lost dieting.
If you are someone who is growing tired of the fight, who is frustrated by your body that seemingly won’t submit to your preferred body weight, I hope that this explanation brings you a new perspective that leads to some relief.
With all the thinner is better messaging we get, it is so easy to believe that your body SHOULD be smaller and YOU are doing something wrong if it is not.
But perhaps the very opposite is true.