Posted to Ode by Amber O’Neal
Stop wasting your time following someone else's plan for you. Make your own plan based on realistic changes because if you can't follow your chosen diet for the rest of your life, you're wasting precious time.
Most people who go on diets gain back any of the weight that they've lost. This is because it is very difficult to maintain a strict eating regiment and because dieting often disrupts our bodies' natural metabolism.
We often start diets with the thought that we will suffer through some type of unnatural eating plan for a set period of time and then we will go back to our old habits after losing the weight and finishing the diet. In these cases, we haven't really addressed our underlying reasons for why we eat and how we view food and self-care.
In terms of metabolism, when we follow strict diets that don't meet all of our body's needs, our body makes metabolic adjustments that make it increasingly difficult for us to lose weight. Our body becomes very efficient, and we then have to eat less and less and less in order to continue to lose weight. The fact that the same diet becomes less effective over time, makes it nearly impossible to stick with.
So, if diets don't work, what is the answer? The key lies in making lifestyle changes (not temporary quick fixes) that honor your body. This is not an easy process, but it is fulfilling and life-altering.
Whenever I say that diets don't work, I worry that people will interpret that to mean that they should just eat whatever they want and hope for the best. That is not the case at all. I have simply found that scripted diet plans rarely ever result in permanent weight loss. I've witnessed the disappointment and embarrassment that typically accompany failed weight loss attempts, and I've also seen the wonderful life changes that result in self-care and making peace with food.
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