“I’m on a diet.” How many times have you heard that? How many times have you said that? What about “I’ll start that diet tomorrow…” Yeah, that one always plays out, doesn’t it? Does tomorrow ever come? Maybe Little Orphan Annie was right. Tomorrow is perfect because it’s only a day away, but it’s also ALWAYS a day away… But, then when you finally do start that diet, do the changes ever last? Or do you eventually find yourself searching for that next “tomorrow”? Diets like this just don’t work. There are a myriad of reasons why. Today, let’s just go over the top three reasons why so many times people find themselves right back where they started, or worse…
Diets are perfectionistic
You expect to do too much too fast
When you go on a diet you expect perfection from the start. You expect “I’ll always be this way” or “I’ll always do that”. But that is rarely the way it plays out in reality. Things happen. Life gets messy. And sticking to a rigid plan for any real length of time is pretty much impossible. Diets offer no flexibility. They offer no wiggle room. They offer no room to get messy or for real life to happen. This also creates a lot of unnecessary stress. It’s like, if you ever watched Magic School Bus, Ms, Frizzle’s catchphrase: “Let’s get messy, let’s make mistakes!” That’s the way the kids learned.
You go to extremes
Diets also tend to lead to extremes. You cut out an entire food group or an entire macronutrient. Or, you cut your calories WAY back. None of these things are healthy. Nor are they sustainable in the long term. You’re not going to be able to keep these types of extremes up for long. You may see the weight drop immediately. But after a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, or however long it is, these behaviors are going to come to be just too much to keep up with. Again, life happens. Then they’ll fade away. Then the weight starts to come back. And what do you do then? It’s the classic yo-yo going back and forth not really getting you anywhere.
Falling short causes discouragement and leads to giving up
All of these things lead to a situation where one slip is like walking off a cliff. It’s all gone. This can lead to discouragement and even depression. That’s when giving up happens. Giving up is the computer crashing without “saving file”. All that work, for nothing. All that time, for nothing. You might even end up worse than you started. It’s a paralyzing all-or-nothing mentality that achieves no real results. Therefore you have got to “save often” with small habits.
Diets still aren’t whole food
Meal replacement bars/shakes?? Keto candy bars??
Many diets have meal replacements of some kind. It could be shakes or bars or even “keto candy bars”. They could be for a whole meal or just a snack. The problem is that these replacements are still highly processed. It doesn’t really matter how “healthy” they say it is. If it’s processed you’re losing fiber and retaining sugar. Much of the digestion process is already done for you in processed food. The body likes to do its own digestion. What this means is that a lot of the calories you would otherwise be burning to digest the food aren’t being burned. That means that the food is inherently higher in calories. Something to think about is this; fiber is chewy right? Or crunchy? It gives your mouth and teeth something to work on. Well, your gut and your body need something to chaw on too. That is what works your gut and keeps food from passing right through. One more thing here, let’s be honest, is a meal replacement really all you’d eat for a meal? If not….then you’re packing on even more calories…
How do they get the food to last so long?…
So… These meal replacements often last quite some time…right? So… They’ve got to do something to increase the shelf life and make them last, don’t they? This could be an increase in chemicals to increase shelf life. It could also be an increase in sugar. Sugar acts as a preservative as well as a sweetener. Therefore many manufacturers use it to increase the shelf life of their foods. This is also the reason candy can last so long. Because it’s chalked full of sugar. Neither of these options are good for you. And you could argue that both are poison.
Whole foods are the best option- picked, hunted, or dug up
The best option is always whole foods. The fruits and veggies, the meat, the eggs, and so on. The kinds of things that you can pick, hunt and kill or dig up from the ground. This is food the way God meant for it to be eaten. This way you’re retaining fiber, you’re getting your micronutrients, your vitamins and minerals and added chemicals and preservatives are minimal (pesticides and herbicides are another post for another day).
Diets are temporary
Diets are not a permanent change. By nature, diets are only for a set time or to reach a set goal. After that, the idea is the diet will be over. What you need is a lifestyle change that you will stick to for the rest of your life. Lifestyle change is permanent. You are making realistic changes that will last the rest of your life. These are behavioral patterns that reach your goals that work for you. That’s when real change happens.
Not about meeting a certain goal and being done
Diets often have a focus. Such as “I’m going to lose ‘x’ amount of weight” or “I’m going fit into this dress/swimsuit”. The problem is that the diet often ends there. It’s good to have goals and something to work towards, however, in a diet, you often meet the goal and then go back to eating like you were before. If you think about this it’s really pointless. Because, if you stop you will undo any and all progress you’ve made. If an old train in chugging along and you’re shoveling coal to power it and you stop feeding the fire, what happens? The fire dies, and eventually, the train stops. Because you stopped doing what was required to keep it moving forward. If the train is on an incline it might even start rolling back… You’ve got to keep feeding the fire to keep moving forward.
Do what you did before, you’ll weigh what you did before
If you do what you did before, you’ll be what you were before. Going back to your old habits will bring back the old you. And it undoes all the work you’ve done in the diet. Why do all that work just to go back to eating junk and have it all undone? Being where you were before is a comfortable place. Because it’s what you’re used to. But, there’s a reason you wanted to change in the first place. Proverbs 26:11 in the ESV reads: Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. And Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. We need to learn and grow as humans. That requires change. To KEEP growing requires that we KEEP changing. Growth requires change, continued growth requires continued change.
Small manageable steps for life
Small manageable steps for life
What makes real progress are small, manageable steps over the long term. That is the change that will last. Small steps that build into habits and become part of who you are will change who are. You won’t be going back to old habits, you’ll be building new ones. You won’t be going back to the old you, you’ll be forming a new you! You won’t be repeating your folly, you’ll be learning from your past mistakes. You’ll no longer be stuck in the loop of insanity…
So, maybe we need to get rid of the all-or-nothing thinking and crazy restrictions that come with “diets”. Maybe we need to just start living life. Maybe we need to quit focusing on meeting temporary benchmarks and focus more on sustainable results. And we don’t have to wait for tomorrow to take the first small step, either! We can take it today! Then we can start moving forward for real.