Why diets don't work for most people by Michelle May M.D.

If you are like most people, losing weight is at the top of your New Year’s resolutions. But if you are like most people, you have a hard time sticking to a diet. We have all been bombarded with information about eating right and exercising so you already know the fundamental principle of weight loss: the number of calories you eat must be less than the number of calories you burn. But despite all of the information available on the countless ways to accomplish this, you and millions of others still battle your weight.

The diet “experts” may recommend counting calories, exchanges, points, grams, or ounces. The diet may require you to eat pre-packaged food or meal replacements. There may be strict meal plans or complicated food regimens to follow. Some methods even eliminate entire food groups—or solid food all together. Diets often tell you that there are forbidden foods or magical food combinations, and they often impose food rules that most people do not, cannot, or should not follow for very long. And of course, the rules are always changing!

Accurate statistics are very hard to come by but it is widely quoted that 90-95% of dieters regain their lost weight. Whatever the true numbers, if dieting was truly effective, your problem would have been solved with the first one! Lets look at why diets aren’t the answer for most people.

Your Body is Programmed to Survive

While it seems that diets often backfire, this is simply the result of your body adapting to being under-fueled. Your body has primitive, complex survival mechanisms that help keep you alive during limited periods of starvation. However, now that food is abundant and readily available, most modern “famines” are the result of self-imposed diets. Your body just doesn’t realize that you are doing this on purpose!

Initially you lose water and fat. However, since muscle burns calories, some of your muscle mass may be given up to lower your metabolism and “save you” from starvation. And though it seems unfair, as you lose weight, your lighter body may not need as many calories. As a result, you burn fewer calories each day and your weight loss slows down. This is the frustrating “plateau” that dieters so often experience.

If you return to your previous eating habits when the diet is over, your body quickly replaces its fat stores. But unless you are actively exercising, you will not regain the majority of the muscle tissue you lost during the diet. Ultimately, this causes you to have a lower metabolic rate and a higher body fat percentage than before the diet. This explains the irony that most people are less healthy than before they tried to lose weight by going on a diet!

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BIO:

Michelle May, M.D. is a practicing Board Certified Family Physician with expertise in the cognitive-behavioral aspects of weight management. She is the author of Am I Hungry? What To Do When Diets Don’t Work in collaboration with a Registered Dietitian and Psychologist. Visit her website www.AmIHungry.com for more ideas on managing weight without dieting.

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