It seems the the American public is now more aware than ever that diets are bogus and there is no quick way to lose weight and maintain it. So we can soon say goodbye to diet companies … Thank God. Below is an excerpt from Women’s Health Magazine explaining why diets just don’t work and what you can do to lose weight and be healthy.
The Great ‘Lite’ Hype
It screws with our minds Over the past 15 years, the number of restaurants and stores offering diet options has increased dramatically–a change that has done more harm than good. A 2006 study published in the Journal of Marketing Research found that we eat more calories when a food is labeled low-fat, probably because we don’t experience the guilt that would otherwise make us put on the brakes mid-binge. “People think, ‘Oh, this is sugar-free or fat-free, so I can eat as much as I want,’” Painter says. Filling up on these foods (and on hope) only to end up heavier than before can be dejecting, so it’s understandable that chronic dieting is linked with depression, low self-esteem, and increased stress.
We can’t stick with it Diets do work–while you’re on them. But up to two-thirds of dieters end up heavier after five years than when they started out. And in clinical studies, the more time that passes between the end of a subject’s diet and the time she’s reassessed, the more weight she will have regained. The most likely reason for the rebound is that as soon as dieters stop following a strict set of rules (no eating after 7 P.M., no snacking between meals…), they lapse into the same habits that made them gain weight in the first place.
Our bodies rebel Depriving yourself in this way can slow your metabolism to a snail’s pace and make losing weight even harder. “Once your body realizes it’s not getting as much food, it starts to conserve energy,” Painter says. Thanks to evolution, your inner cave girl is fattening up for what she thinks could be another ice age. Continue to starve yourself and you’ll suffer from intense cravings and loss of lean body tissue, aka muscle; that further compromises your body’s ability to burn calories.
We have a need for speed Getting results fast is the American way, but losing more than one or two pounds a week is self-sabotage. Researchers have discovered that leptin, a hormone secreted by fat cells, helps control appetite by binding to receptors in the brain to tell you you’re full. But leptin and fat are a package deal: Lose fat and you lose leptin, too. “When leptin levels are low, the body reacts by conserving energy expenditure so much that you stop burning calories at a normal rate,” says Andrea Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D., national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “And that triggers weight regain.”
WEIGHT LOSS REBORN
As satisfying as it feels to kick the restrictive, taste-deficient, fat-obsessed plans of the past out the door, the last thing we want to do is check ourselves into the DoubleChin Hotel for life. The average adult gains about one and a half pounds every year after age 30, says John Foreyt, Ph.D., a professor of medicine and the director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. But even if their personal trainer looks like Matthew Fox, most women can’t spend two or more hours a day at the gym. So how do we take a bite out of our bloat? The key, experts say, is the opposite of quick fixes and trick foods: small, gradual, healthy, permanent changes.
Think forever “If you can’t see yourself eating or exercising a certain way for the rest of your life–say, consuming raw food and running five miles every day–you shouldn’t be doing it to lose weight in the first place,” says Linda Spangle, R.N., M.A., author of 100 Days of Weight Loss. The only changes that work are those you can continue indefinitely. If you reach your goal weight when you’re hitting the gym three times a week and cooking your own meals instead of getting takeout–and those are changes you know you can live with–then they’re going to work a whole lot better than any short-term shtick. “Weight management has to be an uncompromising, non-negotiable, everyday thing, like brushing your teeth,” Spangle says.
Think small Before you revamp your eating habits, take a few weeks to write down everything you eat, Painter says. “Don’t count fat, protein, calories, portions–just keep track of what you’ve already consumed before you put the next thing in your mouth. It gives your brain a chance to say no.” Once you see it all on paper, look for small, simple ways to scale back. It’s easier than you think: Switch from a roast beef sandwich on a bun with provolone and mayo to roast beef in a whole-wheat pita with light Swiss and mustard. Instead of eating cocktail peanuts, munch on pistachios that you have to peel one by one. “These small-scale techniques sound insignificant, but they are the answers we’re all looking for,” he says.
Think physical It’s called the “French Paradox”: the totally unfair way Parisian women linger over multicourse, très riches dinners, drink all the wine they want, and have dessert, yet still look great in their La Perla. The reason: studies show, is that the French rely more on internal cues (like when they’re comfortably full) and Americans rely on external cues (like when Desperate Housewives ends). “We’re not paying attention to what we eat or how much,” Spangle says, “and often, not even to whether we’re really physically hungry. People eat for social reasons, or because they’ve had a bad day, or for comfort.” To retrain yourself to heed hunger cues, imagine your stomach as a gas tank. After every bite, check in to see where the dial is hovering. Close to empty? Right in the middle? Learn to never let it push past full.
Think action In an on-going study of dieters who maintained a weight loss of 30 pounds for at least one year, 90 percent report that regular physical exercise is the key to sustaining their loss. And a study conducted at Baylor College of Medicine suggests that diet and exercise are more effective for losing and maintaining weight than diet alone. Researchers assigned 127 subjects to one of three interventions for one year: diet only, exercise only, or diet plus exercise. All participants lost similar amounts of weight in the first year, but when they were reassessed during year two, the diet-only crew gained two pounds over the weight they started at, while the groups that included exercise remained five pounds below. An exercise routine may be a bitch to start, but thanks to the happy-hormone rush we get when we break a sweat, it can quickly become a healthy addiction.
Sure, taking off the extra flab is more work than putting it on probably was, but even when the going gets tough, it’s better than eating nothing but cabbage soup, avoiding the bread aisle, or choking down food you hate. “People no longer have to make themselves miserable in order to lose weight,” Spangle says. In other words, dieting may be dead, but your beach-ready bod will live on.
