Why Diets Fail

Why Diets Fail - Diets have an extremely high rate of failure long term. The failure rate is around 95% or greater! 

Here are some of the reasons why diets fail:

• Unrealistic expectations. We want to weigh what we did as teenagers, and losing enough for health benefits does not satisfy us.


• Overeating issues are not addressed. Is it a habit, a health issue, emotional eating, or mindless eating? Have you ever even thought about what your particular problem areas are? Check out my 100 Unhealthy Diet Habits that Weigh You Down.


• The diet is never personalized to you. Diets are written to be generic, and do not take into account your likes and dislikes.


• Portion control is not practiced, and we eat too many good foods. Most of us see our trigger foods, and fill up on them because we might not see them again in the near future. We have not learned how to enjoy foods that we love in a proper serving.


• Medical factors are ignored.


• Lack of support. Many times friends and family say that they support us, but they are secretly happy when we fail, or kind of do things that sabotage us.


• Superficial motives. Dieting to be thin rather than healthy. We fall for the idea that we will suddenly be happy when we are thin. You could lose 10% of your body weight, and be much healthier, but still not be thin. This causes unhappiness and you eat poorly again.


• Lack of exercise which stimulates the fat releasing hormones. Exercising helps you to lose fat, and many of us give up exercising when we lose weight.


• Results are too slow and we give up. If we can’t lose it overnight, we become discouraged and give up. We fail to realize that it went on slow and it will come off slow also.


• It is depressing to deny ourselves. The denial set up by dieting is so difficult. Many people can’t enjoy their favorite foods in life because they associate them with denial.


• Dieting brings feelings of failure, shame, and guilt, and we can’t take it.


• Diets do not fill the empty places in our hearts, like the comfort of food.


• We miss out on enjoying all of that delicious food that our friends are enjoying.


• We miss out on being in control. The new diet controls us, or tells us what we will eat.


• Diets set the stage for binging later on.


• We want what we can’t have. You may not even like a particular food, but if the diet forbids that food, you want it.

Yale University Research Center, says that if dieting worked, there would be a bunch of skinny people walking around. Since the 1970’s, the overweight / obesity rate in America has skyrocketed to 2/3 of adults.

Dieting has not worked, because for most of us, it is not about the foods that we are eating, but it is about how we are eating these foods. Once we realize why diets fail, it is just about developing Healthy Diet Habits and making Lifestyle Changes that are permanent.

FACTS:

Only 5% of us have skinny genes, and the average woman is a size 14!