Why Diets are sh**e… emotionally

The first thing I ask a client when I walk through the door is…are you on a diet or have you ever dieted? Why…because as the title of this blog states, diets are sh**e.

The majority of the population has been on a diet fact. Amount successful… not very many. It sounds harsh but it’s true, why, because diets don’t work.

There has been a lot of literature on the truths about why diets don’t work and a lot talk very successfully about the different emotional mechanisms and restrictive eating habits. But, a lot don’t get down to the nitty gritty point, the reason why in the long run, any one that uses the word diet fails.

di·et

Verb: Restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight

• - it's difficult to diet

Noun: A special course of food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight or for medical reasons

• - I'm going on a diet

So why don’t they work? Because a lot of people say “I’m going on a diet to lose this weight I put on”. What they don’t say is “why did I get to this point where I feel like I need to lose weight” or “why did I put on a large amount of weight”.

By saying you are going on a diet, you are skipping a whole step in the process of losing weight. You are missing the emotional part of the journey and focusing on the physical part. Until you address the emotional issues that resulted in the weight gain or body dissatisfaction, how will you ever truly reach acceptance? 

In order to live a successful and healthy lifestyle, the emotional barriers need to be overcome. The word diet tends to be used with those who have emotional attachments to food, as they restrict the foods that make them happy or provide them with comfort or protection from the problems in their life. In experience I have often found that those who have failed on diets, miss out their bad foods when reporting their nutritional lifestyle. Reason: because it is a hidden relationship and comfort between themselves and that item of food. 

By reporting that they indulge or binge on a particular food, they are hiding a relationship that they don’t want to lose. Again why? In admitting that they have a “treat” food, subconsciously they know that this is one of the first behaviours that will be tackles, and by removing the food from the equation they may have to consciously face up to the feelings that those bad or comforting foods are hiding.

Diets fail, because they merely cut out those emotional trigger foods, and don’t allow an individual to face up to why they gained weight through eating or binging on those “forbidden” foods. Furthermore, by going straight into the physical diet mode, an individual skips the emotional reason of why they are dissatisfied with their body and why they feel to lose weight.

Emotionally diets are tiring and unsuccessful as they force individuals to focus upon what they can’t put in their bodies, and food becomes stressful and the enemy.

Instead an individual should celebrate food, celebrate the nutritional benefits that foods have on everyday general wellbeing. Next time you go to eat a “bad” food, stop and ask yourself why you are tempted to eat that food. Does it have any nutritional benefit to your body? If not then begin to look at the food as an emotion instead, and assess why it is you are really eating that food.

When you eat a good/nutritional food, forget the calories and focus on the benefits it has on your body. Does it keep you full, does it give you carbohydrate/protein/essential fats and vitamins. If it does then go ahead and scoff to your hearts desire!