Life Is One Damn Diet After Another

A common expression is that we're "going on a diet." The phrase suggests that, like a vacation trip, there is a beginning and an end. We dream of the day we will reach our weight goal and how wonderful it will be when we don't have to lead a life of painful deprivation.

In the back of our minds, there is a comforting little tape playing, promising us that when our weight loss campaign is over, we'll be able to stop counting calories, carbohydrates, or fats. We long for the day when we no longer have to clench our teeth as we refuse a favorite dish that always causes us to salivate in our sleep. We reach for the carrot and celery sticks without anticipation or enthusiasm while torturing ourselves with visions of the special treats we'll enjoy when the diet is over.

Uh, hello?

Allowing ourselves to think of a diet as a delineated, restricted period within our total life span is a sure avenue back to tent city (that refers to what we wear, not where we live). To have any hope of attaining permanent weight control, we must approach it as a lifelong effort, watching our intake day after day, week after week, year after year.

You feel your heart sinking in your chest. You think "If I have to live like this all the time, it's just not worth it!" That little voice promises you that you are different. You can relax because now you know how to lose weight, you can do it anytime you want. Gain five pounds and you'll go back on your diet and be back to goal in no time at all.

But you won't! Think back over your chequered weight history. We all believe that once our weight is down, it will be so easy to go on a short diet if we gain back a few pounds. It doesn't work that way, though, does it? We start gaining a pound here and a pound there, but then there are some special events coming up and a diet would be so inconvenient. We don't go back "on" our diet until we've gained enough weight to develop the self-disgust that warrants a new period of serious deprivation. We have become a full-fledged member of the yo-yo club, that vast majority of dieters who cannot keep the weight off for more than a few weeks.

The reasons we go "on" and "off" diets are numerous: they are boring, depressing, and very uncomfortable. They set us apart from friends, family, and coworkers who continue to snack, to feast, and to celebrate. We resent how diets make us feel and how they impact our daily lives.

Let's look at the whole picture from a different perspective for a minute.

Instead of "a diet" envision a way of eating that involves living on a diet for the rest of your life. While the prospect may appall you, don't say you can't do it just yet.

First, consider another wide-spread concept many of us accept. To lose substantial weight in a relatively short time, we need to select the diet that seems to fit us and then stay with it, religiously, until we've reached our goal.

Let's now take these two concepts, squish them together, and then turn them upside down.

We are not "going on a diet." We are starting our diet-for-life. We then pick a diet, any diet at all, and make the commitment to stick with that diet for one week, and one week only. At the end of the week, we are going to pick an entirely different diet to which again we only commit for a one week period. This continues for virtually the rest of our lives with selected diets changing on a weekly basis.

What does this accomplish? A whole bunch of things:

1. By selecting a different diet each week, it removes those common misgivings that maybe we should have gone in a different direction. We worry that we're not getting the right nutrients or that we're going to get sick or develop a rare disease. We read the diet ratings and panic at the warnings posted for all the popular programs. With our new approach, you don't have to fret about if you made a good or bad choice because you'll be making a new choice in a week.

2. If there are particularly painful "No-Nos" in this week's diet, resolve to try something next week that allows a currently forbidden fruit. For example, a primarily protein regimen has been found successful for many participants who often lose five or ten pounds in a week. However, they miss the vegetables and salad they enjoy. The next week could then be a vegetables and salad only routine, also successful for rapid weight loss but a bit lean on the protein your body needs for self-repair.

You may then find yourself craving some good bread so you switch to the Subway diet for a week until your craving is satisfied. Move on to something completely different - the cabbage soup diet or liquid shakes. Since there are literally thousands of diets, a few are bound to include the food you crave.

You are never more than a week away from having what you feel you absolutely must have in order to keep going. You can include spartan fad diets that move fat quickly and you can include calorie counting or Weight Watcher diets that allow almost anything so long as you adjust your intake to stay within the totals specified.

3. The frequent changes in your eating patterns keep your body off-balance. Give the body enough time and advance notice and it will adapt to anything, turning protein into carbohydrates and storing even low calorie carbohydrates as little pockets of fat. By totally changing what you eat on a regular basis, the body gives up trying to figure out how to thwart you and spends its time efficiently processing what you give it. You are effectively using your smart little mind to outmaneuver your smart not-so-little body.

4. The constant changes force you to buy food in smaller packages. It's pointless and wasteful to buy those family packs of anything. That will help you with overall portion reduction, a must for any serious dieter. Your shopping goal is only to purchase items that you can consume within a week. If you see something that you particularly want but is not on your allowed list, make a mental note to find a diet for next week that can accommodate it.

5. The need for a new diet each week requires that you read and research a lot of diets. The reading acts as reinforcement for your goals and will assure your continuing education on nutrition and fitness. When you see something that intrigues you or just makes a lot of sense, try it out. Perhaps one week will involve barely restricted eating but require a lot of exercise. Go for it - it's only a week.

6. You are in the happy position of having wide choices available but also the needed structure of an organized plan to follow. The regimented eating is within each week's diet; the power of choice is operative when you decide what the next week's program will be.

7. Can you stay on a diet permanently? Yes, you can, because you're not restricting yourself from anything for life, just for a week at a time. Should you stay on a diet for the rest of your life? Yes, you probably should as long as you are getting a balance of foods from an intelligent mixing of alternative diet plans. If you like one diet more than another, or if one particular program works exceptionally well for you, by all means cycle that diet into your routine on a regular basis. Just make sure you don't use the same plan more than once a month or your body is going to be ready for it and Zap! you find it no longer works so well.

8. Can you over-diet? We have all seen (although they seem to be harder to find these days) overly thin, cadaverous dieters with sunken cheeks and loose skin. That can be avoided by making your selected diets very diverse so you are never without needed nutrients for very long. For example, many retirement homes and assisted living co-ops produce thin seniors with pallid skin and protruding abdomens. Replace their mushy, high starch meals with any of the myriad high protein and vegetable-fruit diets and their color will improve, their energy increase, and their tummies fade.

9. Can you ever be too thin? Visit an eating disorder facility and you will see the results of anorexia nervosa, not a pretty sight and highly dangerous from a medical standpoint. If you have a history of overweight, you may tell yourself that being too thin will never be in the cards for you. However, there are not infrequent cases of the perennial heavy who becomes anorexic through dieting too much with resulting anxiety about gaining back even an ounce of the flesh so painfully discarded. If you have a distorted body image, and reliable friends are concerned about your being too thin, get professional help.

10. It all comes down to using your brain intelligently. When you are at your heaviest, with the most to lose, the logical choice is a rather spartan program that will get the fat moving quickly. As you lose, more moderate programs can be interspersed so that your skin and cheeks have a chance to adjust and fill in as your weight stores become redistributed. If a particular part of your body is resistant to reduction, exercise may become a more important part of your plan than simply a dietary approach. Once you are hovering at your ideal weight, simple calorie counting or support group involvement may be all you need.

The secret is to be rational about it all and use that wonderful mind of yours to set the program for your not-so-intelligent body with its insatiable appetite and poundage conservation cravings. Don't try to cheat unless you want to cheat yourself and then be honest and admit that, for whatever reason there is, you want to avoid further weight loss. When you want and need to lose fifty pounds, an ice cream and chocolate diet is not rational. When you are at ideal weight or below, a stringent fad diet makes no sense.

Will all this mixing of diets result in consistent weight loss? There is never consistency in weight loss because there are just too many factors involved: water retention, digestive inefficiencies, the amount of energy expended, and individual body quirks. Over time, you will lose steadily but there will always be some ups and downs along the way.

Once the concept of "going on a diet" has been discarded, a lifelong eating plan can be embraced, guaranteed to leave you in control of your weight for the rest of your long slender life.

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Want To Lose Fat? Here Are The Top 10 Reasons To Never Go On Another Diet

Have you ever wondered why it seems impossible to lose weight, no matter which diet you try? The reasons below will help you to understand why your weight loss efforts in the past may not have given you the results you had hoped for.

1. Diets will destroy your metabolism

Calories are not evil. They are not something to be avoided at all costs. Calories are a unit of ENERGY. Your body needs energy every day, and it does its best to stay in a state of balance (calories in = calories out, energy consumed = energy burned). Thus, if you suddenly cut calories in an effort to lose weight, your body will react accordingly. Your body does not know why it is suddenly receiving less energy, but in order to maintain balance, it will immediately begin to slow down your metabolism in order to match your energy burned with your energy consumed. That is why you will eventually see weight loss slow, then stop. This is also the main reason why dieters will gain their weight back, and then some. By dieting, you have programmed your body to burn significantly fewer calories throughout the day, so as soon as the diet ends and calorie intake increases, that extra energy will now be stored as fat.

2. Diets will make you fatter

Muscle is metabolically active tissue, meaning it is burning calories throughout the day, while body fat is basically stored energy. Think of muscle as your metabolism's engine. The bigger the engine (more muscle mass) you have, the faster your metabolism can run. Unfortunately, one of the ways that your body slows down its metabolism in reaction to a diet is by cannibalizing muscle mass, and using it for energy. So, while the scale will be telling you that you are losing weight, your metabolism will be cratering because some of the weight you are losing will be muscle mass. Then, after you quit the diet and go back to your normal way of eating, when you gain the weight back, it does not come back as the muscle you lost, but as fat. So, not long after you quit the diet, not only will you weigh the same, or more, than you did when you started, but you will have more fat, less muscle, and a slower metabolism.

3. Diets leave you with no energy

As we have learned, calories are units of energy, and your body needs energy to get through the day. Did you realize that a 160 lb man, who did nothing for 24 hours but lay in a hammock and breathe, would burn in the neighborhood of 1600 calories? Dieters will often eat as few as 800 to 1000 calories per day, so it is easy to see why they would feel tired and run down. Since carbohydrates provide our main source of fuel (glucose and glycogen), low carb diets zap you even more. Did you know that while your body can burn fat for fuel, your brain and central nervous system can only use glucose for fuel? That is why, especially during the induction phase of low carb fad diets, people often feel sluggish, irritable, and not as sharp mentally as normal. Of course, every low carb dieter will tell you that it is only bad for a few days, then your energy levels pick up again. That is because your body, wonderful machine that it is, can manufacture its own glucose to provide energy for your brain. Unfortunately, it does this by breaking down muscle mass into its component amino acids, which it then converts to glucose. So, while you may be more alert once again, this is a sure sign that your metabolism is now slowing down as you cannibalize muscle mass to make up for the energy deficit the diet is causing.

4. Diet programs are usually unrealistic

Counting calories, points, food exchanges, grams of this and grams of that, is just not a realistic strategy for long term weight loss. We all lead busy lives and being forced to do ridiculous calculations every time you eat is no way to live. Unless you are measuring all of your food, most people will generally underestimate the amount that they eat, often by more than 50% (what you estimate to be 1 cup is probably 1 ½ cups, 4 ounces is probably 6, and so on). This is especially problematic in restaurants or other social settings. So, the calculations will not even be accurate anyway.

5. Diets provide false hope to get you hooked

Anyone who goes on a calorie restricted diet, especially a low carb diet, will generally experience a significant weight loss in the first week or two. Diet programs will often try to hook you in with promises of big weight loss up front. When that promise comes true, the diet guru or diet center or supplement seller has you under their spell. The reality is, it is very easy to lose 5, 6, 7 or more pounds in your first week or two on a diet, and the reason is simple. Most of that weight is water. Of course, the person at the diet center won't tell you that. They will claim that their product or program is the magic behind your success, when the truth is you are just losing water that your body needs. Remember that we said your body's main sources of energy are glucose and glycogen? Glucose, or blood sugar, is the product of carbohydrate digestion. Glycogen is glucose that has been stored in the muscles and liver. When you severely cut back on calories, especially carbohydrates, you do not adequately replenish your muscle glycogen as you use it. Well, each gram of glycogen stored in your muscles holds 1.4 grams of water with it, so when your glycogen levels are depleted, water weight loss results. As soon as you replace your glycogen stores, that weight will come back on.

6. Diets make you feel like a failure

Eventually, everyone will 'cheat' on their diet, or more likely, go off of it all together. When that happens, the inevitable wave of guilt is sure to follow as you tell yourself that you blew it. The diet industry has to be the only industry in this country where nobody gets what they pay for, and then they blame themselves for it. Of course, people will often punish themselves for blowing it by going on a binge, which just makes the guilt worse and compounds the problem. Convinced that this failure was their own fault, the person then often goes off in search of another diet.

7. Fad diets are unhealthy

Any diet that eliminates entire food categories such as carbohydrates or fats robs your body of important nutrients. As discussed above, carbohydrates provide your body with its main source of fuel. And, while trans fats and saturated fats should be avoided, did you realize that your body needs a certain level of fat in the diet in order to function properly? Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are healthy fats and a critical part of your daily nutrition. Also, diets that force you to eat ridiculous foods, such as nothing but cabbage soup, rely on semi-starvation for their temporary weight loss effects, causing many unpleasant side effects in your body.

8. Fad diet marketers lie to you

Promises of fast, effortless weight loss are simply lies designed to make your wallet smaller much faster than your waistline. No infomercial gadget or magic pill or supplement will lead to long term weight loss. If any of these products really worked, don't you think you might hear about in on the news instead of some cheesy late night infomercial? Face it, if any of them really worked, nobody would be fat! The truth is, real long term weight loss takes effort, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.

9. Diets will stress you out

If you are spending your day worrying about how many calories you have eaten, or how many points you have left, or if you have had too many grams of carbs since lunch, it is inevitable that other activities, duties, and responsibilities of yours will suffer. Modern life has enough stress without adding in unnecessary and, in the long run, unproductive stress on top. Food and nutrition are essential parts of life that should be enjoyed, not feared, dreaded, or micromanaged. Committing to simple lifestyle changes instead of regimented diet rules is a more effective approach to weight loss, that will also allow you to keep your sanity intact.

10. Diets do not work

It cannot be said any more simply than that. Diets by themselves do not work. Repeat that to yourself until it sinks in for good. If all of the evidence above is not enough to convince you, just think about it. How many people do you know who have been on one diet? None. They have all been on dozens of different diets, right? Well, if any one of those diets really worked and resulted in healthy, permanent weight loss, why would anyone need another? The reason that there are hundreds of diets out there is because none of them work, and the diet marketers know that. They are just banking that you don't know it yet, and will hopefully give them more money to try one of their other miracle diets.

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