21 Reasons Why Dieting Isn’t The Answer

Diets are a map right? 

They’re a map from where you are to where you want to go. 

The map you get looks simple enough and straight forward; 

• Go here/cook this way 
• Turn left/ eat this 
• Go right/eat at these times 
• Go across/eat these foods 
• Keep going straight/don’t eat those foods 
• And you’re there 

But the map you bought is an incomplete map, its not 3D, it’s the difference between a paper map and then actually going out into the wilderness and trying to navigate your way through the dense woods, rocky mountain terrain and swamps. 

It looks straight forward but the reality is when you set off to follow it you find there's all kinds of obstacles that you have to navigate through or around that they never gave you any strategies, instructions or prepared you for: 

• Mountains/impulse eating 
• Swamps/emotional moments 
• Dead ends/families to cook for and please 
• Detours/over-stuffed schedules 
• Flooded rivers to cross/stress 
• Natives to deal with/work colleagues 
• Wild animals/marketing and media  

You try your hardest. 

You really do. 

But because the map you bought didn’t tell you about all this, didn’t warn you about the obstacles and give you strategies for dealing with them, you think there must be something wrong with you.  

 You think that the reason you’re having such a hard time getting from where you are to where you want to go is because you can't follow directions. 

EXHAUSTED & DISHEARTENED 

You try and you try and you exhaust yourself trying to get beyond the obstacles only to find another one just beyond it. 

You buoy yourself daily with your attitude, you continue to think positively; "today's the day it’ll be easy, I’ll get a straight run at it and find the highway then it’ll be easy cruising from here". 

But eventually, after repeated obstacles continuously popping up that you aren't equipped to deal you give up go home disheartened and reside yourself to the fact that you can’t reach your destination. 

IS IT YOUR BEHAVIOUR OR YOUR ATTITUDE THAT'S THE PROBLEM? 

Neither.  

The fundamental problem has nothing to do with you or your behaviour or your attitude. 

It has everything to do with the ineffective map and non-existent knowledge of what you will encounter and effective resources, success strategies and interventions for dealing with, and getting beyond those obstacles. 

If you’re properly equipped, then diligence and effort become important, and attitude is fueled and provides motivation to continue on. 

ARE YOU PROPERLY EQUIPPED FOR THE JOURNEY YOU'VE EMBARKED ON? 

21 reasons Why Diets Consistently Fail To Provide The Lasting Results You Want:

1. It doesn’t fit into your life. 
   • Diets are a one size fits all formula – even if there is a few formulas to choose from each formula is still a static solution. There is no flexibility in the solution no adaptability, no individuality and no autonomy  
2. If you have more mouths to feed than your own and they don’t need or want to be on the diet or they’re picky eaters, then you have to make different meals for different people; It’s not always convenient / tends to be more time consuming and eventually you end up having what they’re having. 
   • It has you preparing food that most likely on your ‘forbidden’ list and therefore putting temptation right under your nose and it's simply making it harder for you to change your habits as you succumb with a mouthful here, a mouthful there, leaving you with a feeling of ‘wanting’ the food you’re not meant to eat while you’re eating the food you’re supposed to eat.  
3. Diets do not take into consideration anything about you, about you’re individual characteristics; lifestyle, body requirements, behaviours, attitudes or beliefs, working schedule, thought processes, life circumstances, skill level, state of mind, metabolism, what you like to eat, what’s important to you to eat, what you’re not prepared to give up for the long haul, how much time you have to spare or any of the other myriad of individual circumstances applicable to you. 
4. You're never asked about your eating patterns or what triggers you to binge eat or to simply go off the rails completely in regards to any pre-designed diet or exercise program. You're not provided with strategies or intervention to deal with that. 
5. No one ever asks any questions at all that would shine a light on the real problem for you. 
6. You're not given the knowledge and skills that empower you to be autonomous and create your own solutions and discover and learn about yourself. 
7. We eat to socially bond with others. Whether it’s eating together at home or catching up with friends at their place or at restaurants and cafés. All of that puts a dieter under tremendous pressure; 
   • Putting temptation right under your nose; menus’ full of tasty delights, cooking smells, the visual of seeing other people’s foods. You look through a menu for something that fits your diet, while the people you’re with are eating things you want.
   • Social pressure, we want to be a part of the group – if you’re friends are overweight  – studies have proven that those that we associate with we emulate and we don’t go against the grain because we want to be part of the group. 
   • Being on a diet makes it incredibly challenging when you’re dining at someone else’s house, you have to eat what they prepare – or be different and take your own or ask that they make you something special or alter the meal to suit your needs makes you the odd one out. 
   • Parties; there's always temptations that you don't need; the usual party type foods and alcohol
8. Psychological Eating; we mistake a whole range of emotions for hunger. We eat when we’re bored, when we’re thirsty, when we’re around food (when aren’t we around food), when we’re in company, when we’re alone, or simply when the clock happens to tell us it’s time to eat. We eat just because it feels good. 
9. You’re up against marketing – it’s everywhere, TV, radio, bill boards, magazines, social media – it’s all brain washing you. Why do people reach for sugary, fatty, salty stuff when they're stressed? If we look at the principle of being motivated by pleasure and pain then it's easy to see why, all marketing does through their slogans and pictures is acquaint foods to happy, bright, fun times with lots of people and usually to sexy women…yep, that’s why you think all the stuff that’s making you fat & unhealthy is pleasure – instant pleasure – rather than the delayed pain they ultimately give you through various health issues and obesity. 
10. We never pay any attention to what we eat. 
    • We eat on the run, rushing about doing 50 things and eating in-between 
    • We eat when we’re stressed out and/or experiencing some other distracting emotion 
    • We eat in front of the TV every night 
    • We eat at our desk while we work. 
    • We eat while we drive 
    • We eat while we walk around doing the shopping 
11. You still have the same stresses in your life, the ones that caused you to eat in the first place. So what do you do to release that tension now….? 
12. When you're on a diet there becomes a void, a social void and a personal void where you used to eat food. “What do I do now?” becomes a regular question. 
13. Endless meal planning. There is no spontaneity in following a diet. No convenience either. 
14. Not able to indulge in your comfort food of choice because it’s not on the diet – leads to binging at some point. 
15. You have to learn a new way to cook – either strategically or the recipes. When you’re busy or flat out with kids, careers or simply just not that interested, it becomes a chore and then drops away. 
16. It consumes your resources; thinking/thoughts/focus; time and energy, it sucks the life right out of you, and the money right out of your wallet. 
17. You’re at war with yourself basically the whole time because you’re internal triggers, thoughts habits and behaviours have not been addressed and you fight against impulse eating
18. Sugar addiction – yep, it’s a real thing. 
19. You’ve got to look at the 60+ thousand items that line the supermarket shelves. 
20. You see fast food and fast food marketing at every turn. 
21. Dieting fails because you’re focused on; 
    • Weighting your food and yourself
    • Measuring yourself and measuring your food
    • Judging food – good, bad, indifferent 
    • What to eat and when to eat 
    • Focus is all on the food 
    • It’s all on your body 
    • Focused on heart rate, fat burning zones, pushing hard and pushing through 
    • Time frames 
    • Results rather than behaviours

WHAT YOU FOCUS ON IS WHERE YOU GO 

If you’ve ever done a defensive driving course, or learned to ride a motorcycle, they will teach you that when a car is skidding out of control on a corner, you have a couple of choices – you can look at the tree you’re skidding towards or you can turn your head and look to where it is that you want to go. 

They will tell you that if you’re looking at the tree then that’s where you’re going to end up. You will hit the tree. 

To get out of a skid, to get to where you want to go, you have to turn your head, ignore the tree altogether and look directly to where you want to go. 

When your eyes are locked on that spot, that place where you want to go, all of your body will follow your eyes to there. 

It cannot help but follow to where you're looking. 

Your hands will start to turn the steering wheel in that direction, every muscle and fibre of your body will be leaning towards that spot. 

If you’ve ever done any type of dancing, you'll know that it’s the same principle, you have to be looking to where you’re going to next, where you’re going when you finish the twirl or the side step – your eyes and your head are always turned in the direction to where you want to go long before your body follows. 

Dieting demands that you look at the tree; your whole focus and attention is on your body and on food, it’s on FAT – how much you’re eating and how much you’ve still got to lose. 

You desperately want to get your mind off of food but because you’re on a diet, there's no way you can take your mind off food; 

• You have to meal plan 
• Pre-plan your day and where you will be and what you’ll be able to eat 
• You have to count calories or carbs or protein or fats or points 
• You have measure and weight what you eat 

Seriously, if you’re reading this and you’ve been on a diet, you know what I mean! 

There is not one moment that you're not forced to think about food or how much weight you still have to lose, you’re not thinking about how thin you are, you’re thinking about how fat you still are. 

The tree you’re looking at is the tree you’re going to hit. 

Wouldn’t it be better to focus on having fun, being playful, getting out and being actively involved in life and doing something that you enjoy that doesn't involve food? 

Wouldn’t it be better to forget about food and focus on living life and head towards that? 

Do you have the right person beside you giving you the knowledge and the skills you need to get from where you are to where you want to go?