Why Diets Don’t Work

This is going to be the most comprehensive articles you will find on the subject. I know this because I keep getting articles like it in my inbox and they all point to just one or two things, and they try to sell me something related to those things. They are never very comprehensive.

I’m going to give you three solid reasons, one orchestrative reason, one holisitic reason, and one overall controlling reason. [Yes, I just created a neologism.]

You don’t have to take notes, but believe me: there will be a test.

But first, did you hear about the two women talking, when one brings up the subject of her new diet?

“It’s terrible. I have to cut out white flour, white sugar, potatoes and my favorite bread. Then I have to measure everything. No cold cuts, mainly fish and chicken and steamed vegetables. I can’t have any alcohol and can’t use any sugar substitute other than stevia. And there is no cheating. No eating after six in the evening. Not even a smoothie before bed.”

“That sounds horrible. How long have you been on it?”

“I start tomorrow.”

Everyone hates dieting. This is one reason they don’t work. And this isn’t even one of the reasons I had planned on telling you. So, you got a bonus.

#1: It's all about metabolism.

When most people diet, they start cutting back on their calories. You might want to say, at this point: “Duh.”

Well, if you’d read my book (Rapid Safe Weight Loss), you’d know there’s a lot more to the process than just cutting calories.

Now consider this. Your body is always trying to maintain balance, or as we science folk like to call it: homeostasis.

After just a little over one week of cutting calories, your body realizes the calorie restriction and lowers your metabolism to burn fewer calories, mainly because your body thinks it’s starving.

You see, we all still have the bodies of Hunter/Gatherers. When there were food shortages, our bodies went into its famine phase, slowing down our metabolism to keep from burning all our fat stores.

We’re going to need fat stores to make it thru the famine and when the famine eventually ends we’re going to need our fat stores to create the energy needed to get out there and hunt/gather.

So, after just over a week of fewer than normal calories (even if your normal calories are huge and causing you to gain weight), levels of our hormone leptin are dramatically cut our metabolism drops, and there you have it: your weight loss plateau.

Nobody likes those damn plateaus when we’re dieting!

There are things you can do to counter this situation. You have to fake out your body with creative cheating, intermittent fasting, foods that stimulate greater metabolism, and exercises that kick your fat burning in gear.

Sounds simple, but you need a plan and you need to follow it.

#2: That damn leptin again.

It is secreted by our fat cells. If you are obese, you’re secreting an awful lot of it and your brain will eventually become resistant to it. Thus, your brain just doesn’t know that you're fat. You look in the mirror, you see that you’re fat, but your brain wants to be told by leptin that you’re fat and that you don’t need to eat.

This is a terrible, vicious cycle:

You diet. Your leptin levels drop. You stop dieting, your leptin levels go up and up and up and up till the brain can’t sense them anymore and your body thinks it needs to build fat stores to secrete leptin and so you start putting on the fat. Ain’t that a kick in the shorts.

The way to stop this is, again, those same recommendations we’ve just mentioned. You need to tell leptin you’re the boss: You have to fake out your body with creative cheating, intermittent fasting, foods that stimulate greater metabolism, and exercises that kick your fat burning in gear.

#3: Gremlins! (Ghrelin)

Actually, that’s my mnemonic [a little trick to remember something]. The actual word is: Ghrelin. It’s referred to as the “hunger hormone.” Ghrelin has a few roles in the body. It controls a huge portion of your digestion, for one thing. And since it is produced in your stomach, lap band surgery (or all of these surgeries that shrink the stomach) have an effect on how much ghrelin is produced, and the overall effect on your body, because of these procedures, is to ruin your digestive system and put your wellbeing in jeopardy. Not a good situation.

Ghrelin levels are reduced during digestion. When they are high, they signal the brain that you’re hungry and had better eat soon. Eating puts them to work digesting your food, hence they begin to drop.

Now the bugaboo is this: Studies show that even after a year of a reduced calorie diet, your ghrelin levels tend to stay high. One study I found showed ghrelin levels remained high up to 18 months after people stopped dieting. Our bodies just don't seem to adapt to calorie restriction, at least as far as ghrelin is concerned. When you stop dieting, it takes a long time for ghrelin to just settle down and so you feel hungry all the time.

However, the good news is this: Intense exercise lowers ghrelin levels. Or if you can’t do intense exercises (you’re old like me … or injured like me), just taking a walk after meals will help bring them down. (And this is why walking after meals is so important!)

#4: You stopped dieting.

That's right. Diets don't work because we stop them. Say you want to lose 50 pounds. You diet, and diet, and diet, and finally lose the weight. So you stop.

You have stopped doing what was working and now you're going to go right back to what wasn't working.

This is why I hate fad diets. Even the best diets, with tons of peer reviewed studies behind them, like the new LOW CARB diets eventually fail because you go back to eating carbs when you are off the diet.

This is why, in our book, Rapid Safe Weight Loss, we tell you this is not a diet. It's a lifestyle change. Yes, it's very rigorous for a while when you will experience some great weight loss, but you continue to use much of what you know after that to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

#5: Stress.

Do not get me wrong: I am not saying stress causes weight gain. There has been only one study (I think out of Italy) that claimed this and that study has been thoroughly debunked.

But stress can be a factor.

Why? We are hunter/gatherers. Our bodies cannot sense any difference between the stressors in our lives today (car troubles, stupid, mean bosses, etc) and the stressors in our hunter/gatherer lives (a tiger chasing us for its dinner).

A ferocious animal breathing down on us or a butt-headed boss breathing down on us produce the same stress hormones. Dieting or experiencing a famine both produce the same stress to our bodies, or, at least, our bodies cannot discern any difference.

Even it seems our governments seem to want us to live in fear. If it’s not the Commies it’s the Terrorists.

Why is it so easy to get us to live in fear?

Look around you. Do we have an obesity epidemic? Do you know that most people who are obese, are obese because they are living in fear?

That is why it’s so easy to get us to live in fear: We’re already there.

The obese are afraid they will not get their next meal. They fear an approaching famine. We have food all around us but inside of us are these fears, and our greatest fear, as hunter/gatherers, is famine. All our fears are related to famine. And no, this is not rational. However, that’s one thing about fear is they don’t have to be rational to be real (or at least feel real).

And fears mess with our hormones. Stress will not put weight on us, our habits do that. Stress keeps us from losing. When stressed, we store fat.

I’ve discovered a very interesting method of losing weight that is built upon the premise that diets don’t work. Instead of dieting, you are slowly lifted up into a place of safety where you are not going to starve and you can give your body permission to be thin.

I know it sounds crazy, but it works. Conquering our fears is a huge undertaking. Living in the present can do it, but living in the present is also a huge undertaking.

Here are a few links to programs that can help you: