If diets are the answer to weight loss, why does nobody stick to them? Dietitian Lucy Carey explains the diet trap.

The first real diet I tried was the lemon detox diet. It is just as terrible as the name suggests.

You basically consume nothing but a lemon-flavoured beverage for a week or so. No solid food. Like, at all. I had heard some celebrity on the radio (Beyonce maybe?) saying that she lost close to 10kg doing it and my young, naive eyes opened wide.

I lasted less than 24 hours. I got very faint while at work, had to ask my supervisor for an early break, and slowly fed myself cashews one at a time whilst trying to retain consciousness.

An extreme example of dieting, right? But this actually benefited me. Because any fool (even teenage me) could see that the lemon detox diet was rubbush, and I didn’t ‘fail’ it out of a lack of self-control.

The problem is, not all diets are quite that extreme. So many people can stick to their diet for more than a day. But over time, the deprivation, the slight starvation, it adds up. It’s like they go into a kind of food-debt. And when the debt becomes too great, they break the diet.

But because it was more of a stealth-attack on their system than the rubbish lemon detox style thing, people often feel that they couldn’t continue the diet because of some kind of failing in them. Because they lack self-control. Because they’re weak. Because they’re worthless. The doom spiralling kicks in. Hard.

But actually, there’s good evidence that a) diets fail for 97% of people, and b) there are solid reasons why.

Let me break them down:

The body is designed to protect against weight loss

Humans have evolved to get through famine, not to prevent obesity. Hormones kick in to make them want all the food they can get when they can get it. Food literally tastes better so that they eat more.

Hunger and fullness cues take a hike

Natural hunger and fullness hormones get all messed up because the body is trying to prep to get through the famine. Hungry hormones increase and fullness hormones decrease – double whammy. This gets tricky if dieting is a regular thing, too. That’s when you’ll hear people say, “I never get hungry” or “How do I know when I’ve had enough?” Their body isn’t telling them anymore. It’s lost trust that they’ll actually honour anything it says.

Metabolism slows down

Harder to lose weight, easier to gain it back. Makes sense with the whole protection against famine, right?

Important nutrients get missed long-term

A lot of fad diets are low in vitamins and minerals and totally mess with gut bacteria. Long-term this increases risk of disease and obesity.

Relationship with food and body is damaged

How can you truly nourish yourself, enjoy yourself, live life to the fullest, when you’re obsessed with every calorie? The stress of it all increases cortisol, too, making binge eating more likely. Plus the mental struggle of feeling unable to stick to a diet, being wracked with guilt over breaking the diet, the binge eating that it likely to follow, and the long-term weight gain is incredibly likely to occur – it’s soul crushing.

Is it really any wonder that hardly anybody can actually stick to a diet?

So, how are you meant to lose weight without dieting?

• You ditch diets, for good.
• You eat what you want. It’ll be messy and full of junk and things will go backwards for a while. That’s normal. It’ll start to settle down and the cravings will lessen.
• Then you start tuning into your body. Learning what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. You still eat what you want, but you focus on adding in nutritious foods (not taking anything away).
• You start prioritising sleep, positive social connections and managing stress.
• You forget about weight, it’s no longer the be all and end all for you. You’re focused on health and wellbeing and making memories, instead of calorie counting and weighing yourself daily.
• And after all that work, when the weight loss happens, it’s no longer a big deal. It’s just a side-effect of your gain in health.

If your nutrition clients are struggling in the starve-binge diet cycle, level up your coaching to support them through the journey to heal their relationship with food. Check out my courses and resources here.