1
Why “Dieting” Doesn’t Work
“What's wrong with extreme dieting and hard-core fitness plans is that they don't take into account the rest of your life.”
― W. Alison Sweeney
“The meaning of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.” The quote above by Albert Einstein pretty much explains why the diet and weight loss industry are so wealthy. People are looking in the wrong direction when searching for answers to solve their weight and health issues.
A dieter’s mindset is the same mindset followed by most of the population: Once something is not in order, it’s suddenly time to fix it. This mindset is one that focusses on taking care of the symptoms rather than addressing the cause of the problem.
Trying different dietary regimes is like sitting on a chair with thumbtacks on its surface. Every time you sit down you prick yourself and then have to bandage the wounds. Yet the following day you go back to sitting on the same chair again, ignoring the problem from the previous day until you once again experience pain and discomfort.
This is what happens when we diet. We are focusing on the outcome instead of looking to change the causes behind the results we have before us.
Most people are not presented with very many other options, so they go with any new fad diet regime that they come across in the hope that this will be the one that will get them from where they currently are to where they desire to be. I know, because that’s what I personally did for years. But every time we start on a new extreme diet which deprives our body of nutrients, we become stressed, which in itself has a negative effect on our health and prevents us from reaching our goal.
Research shows that more than 34.9% or 78.6 million adults and 17% of the youth in the United States are obese.(1) Furthermore, obesity- related conditions including heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer are all on the list of leading causes of death. Research proves that these are mostly preventable deaths. (2, 3)
The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the US was $190 billion in 2012; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight. (4) In America, if the obesity rates continue to rise on their current path, the number of new cases of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke, hypertension and arthritis could increase by ten times that number by 2020, and double again by 2030. (5) Obesity has risen by 34% since 1960, and morbid obesity (BMI above 40) has risen six fold to 6%. (4) According to the Boston Medical Centre, approximately 45 million Americans diet each year and spend $33 billion on weight loss products in their pursuit of a trimmer, fitter, healthier body. (6) But the products and diet information available mostly contradict one another. Some diets say that you should consume only fats to actually lose weight, while others say that fats are bad for you and you should go on a low-fat diet instead. Some diets look into food combining without any consideration as to what is being consumed, while others are so restrictive that they are completely boring and impossible to follow in the long term. Some diets say not to eat at night, while others say that only the total amount of calories consumed in a twenty-four hour period is what is important. This is very confusing to any person wanting to lose some weight, get fit, and become healthy.
Some people nowadays are even looking towards fad pills, powders, medications, or surgery to help them solve their weight and health problems. However, these options are still only caring for the result (the ill health and the weight problem), and ignoring the cause behind the result.
It is actually quite crazy that most of us forget to consider for a moment the reason behind our obesity or health state, and spend hours (and hard-earned dollars) searching to find quick and easier solutions to our problems. However, it is only by looking and examining the core reason for the problem that we can find a way to fix it.
The reasons why we have detoured off the path to wellness, longevity, and optimal health are due to two factors:
A. We have, through our choices, created an unhealthy environment for our cells to live and grow in.
B. We have allowed our core belief system about nutrition and health to be strongly influenced by the media which has its interest in monetary gain rather than our health at hand.
Only by going back to our natural state and following the natural laws of nature will we be able to take back what is lawfully ours and to start living the healthy life we deserve.
As I mentioned, I, personally, have been on every fad diet that I can think of from diets based on blood type, food combining, raw food diets, Atkins and so on. But at the end of the day, I never understood why certain foods led to weight loss while others made me fat. In fact, by following the strict regimes specified in each of those diets, my obsession about food only worsened. I was round the clock busy trying to manage<