I was a chronic dieter for 12 years. I really wanted the diets to work so that I could lose weight and keep it off. Sadly, this is not what happened. Instead, I would go on a diet , lose weight, but then gain it all back when I didn't want to be on the diet anymore. This is extremely common and happens to most people who go on diets .
There is what I call the diet cycle: diet , restriction, weight loss, deprivation, binge-eating, weight gain. Then the cycle starts over after the dieter gets so angry at all the weight they have gained back.
The interesting thing is that what appears to be the problem is when the person is NOT dieting anymore, because this is when they gain back all the weight. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that getting off the diet makes a person gain back the weight that was lost. This is the number one dieting myth: if a person is not on a diet they will either gain weight or not be able to lose weight. It took me 12 years to figure out that this concept is not true whatsoever.
Not being on a diet is not what makes someone gain weight. Instead, being on a diet in the first place is what makes a person gain weight. This is because the diet is the problem (again, this took me 12 years to realize, so I know this might be hard to believe). Why is the diet the problem?
Diets can be very restrictive and demanding in so many ways:
• They make dieters count food and treat it as a number
• They deprive people of foods or entire food groups
• They make dieters ignore cravings
• They make people weigh themselves frequently which can become obsessive and lead to misleading conclusions
• They make people take "magic" pills/supplements
• Dieters are only allowed to eat certain foods
• Dieters can only eat at certain times of the day
These are common "rules" that diets enforce, and they are torturous to follow! The only thing that keeps dieters going is the thought that once the dieter reaches their goal weight, this torture will end. The issue is that the diet is so restricting that it drives them to act like a starving animal in the wild. They eventually can't stay on the diet any longer, so they go crazy and eat everything in sight. This leads to weight gain over time, and many times results in a weight that was higher than before they started the diet ! The dieter tends to blame themselves for gaining all the weight back, when in reality it was the DIET that caused them to gain all the weight.
This was incredibly eye-opening for me. Once I saw the damage that diets do, I gave up dieting and never looked back. If a person relies on their own body to know when, what, and how much to eat, they will not gain weight. They will actually move towards the weight they are supposed to weigh. It is not a short-term fix, but a permanent and rewarding lifestyle.
Diets are not necessary for weight loss or health. In fact, they are damaging and cause people to gain weight in the long run. Everyone was born with natural eating cues of hunger, fullness, and cravings. Dieting completely destroys these cues and make it impossible for people to know what, when, and how much to eat. In order to overcome the diet myth (that if a person is not on a diet they will either gain weight or won't be able to lose weight), it is so important to stop dieting and relearn these natural cues. Our bodies are intelligent. They know what we need!