[Article updated on 19/09/2023]
Be careful, this article will open your eyes to the reality of diets.
Before reading on
I’m not an expert in this field, but I am passionate about nutrition and health.
The articles you’ll find on my site are the result of in-depth research that I’d like to share with you. However, I would like to stress that I am not a health professional and that my advice should in no way replace that of a qualified physician. I’m here to guide you, but it’s important that you consult a professional for specific questions or medical concerns. Your well-being is important. So be sure to consult the appropriate experts and take the best possible care of yourself.
As a Dietitian Nutritionist I must be honest with you, diets do not make you lose weight, they even have the unfortunate tendency to cause the opposite: they make you gain weight!
The truth is hard to believe I grant you, since the diet business is a fruitful and profitable windfall, fashion being thinness as a criterion of beauty.
Do you want to free yourself from diets? Stop the yoyo effect? Lose weight without depriving yourself? Find peace around the plate and the food? I invite you to read the following lines.
Diets make you gain weight
Here is what diets generate in those who follow them…
Food beliefs
What makes you gain weight is believing that certain foods make you lose weight! Foods considered “healthy” with a low caloric density, such as vegetables and fruits for example, will not make you lose weight more than foods considered “bad”, with a high caloric density, such as pizzas, burgers, pastries,…
What if I told you that it’s your balanced plate that makes you gain weight and not a good slice of pizza. How it is possible ? It’s simply eating more than you need for energy that causes you to gain weight. If you eat too many vegetables, too much quinoa or too much zero percent yogurt you will gain weight, whereas if you eat the right amount of pizza, the one that corresponds to your hunger, you will not gain weight and will probably lose weight.
It’s all a question of quantity, this being defined by the intensity of your hunger as well as respect for your satiety.
Fear of missing out
Impossible to leave on your plate? Need to finish the last bite even if you can’t take it anymore? Afraid of being hungry? To have hypoglycemia?
We touch on one of the central problems among people suffering from hyper-control over eating.
It’s good because you control your diet: its calories, categorizing foods (good vs bad), what you can or cannot afford to eat that makes you afraid of missing out,… That you gain weight.
When we fear lack, we tend to overconsume food and eat without hunger.
THE diets maintain these fears that make us gain weight or experience the yoyo effect.
Eating without pleasure but with guilt
When we go on a diet we follow a list of foods with a low calorie content, a low glycemic index or those that have the virtue of accelerating intestinal transit.
When we respect these rules we forget ourselves. Being in a restrictive state is not natural, it will push you to indulge in pleasure foods that will be eaten in large quantities, with guilt, without hunger and without end.
What makes you lose weight is respecting the true needs of your body, its demand for energy, its sensations and its needs.
Losing weight without dieting is possible
Here’s what happens when we say stop dieting…
If you would like to view other of my articles:
- What I think about food supplements
- What I call a healthy lifestyle
Free yourself from control
When we get out of diets we decide to get out of food control.
Getting out of control means freeing yourself from fears and letting yourself be guided by your desires, your needs and your food desires.
What makes you lose weight is respecting your food desires while enjoying what you eat to take maximum taste pleasure and respect your satiety.
I’ll stop you right away, it’s not because I’m talking about the desire for food that you will constantly want pizza, fries, burgers or pastries.
The body is fabulous when we let it lead, it has different desires every day and needs all types of foods.
Maybe you’ll want a good juicy apple, a pan of vegetables seasoned with a spice you like, some freshness, some color. Trust yourself, your body will seek balance and it needs all the foods to get there.
Listen to this body, it will give you all the necessary information to be healthy and enjoy all foods, and I mean all foods.
Listen to your food sensations
The heart of what I am explaining to you is in this paragraph. To get out of the control of diets, your fears of gaining weight, your emotional desires to eat and so on, there is only one solution: you reconnect with yourself.
Are you hungry ? Can you identify the levels of hunger intensity you feel? Do you know how to recognize satiety and respect it?
And of course, can you eat without doing anything else? By being mindful of your plate and the food you put in your mouth?
Everything is said: it is by listening to and respecting your eating sensations that you will lose weight sustainably, in a qualitative manner and reach your balanced weight.
Diets: what are they initially?
The term “diet” was initially used in the hospital environment.
A diet is assigned to a person with a pathology, an illness. Someone with Crohn’s disease will have a specific diet, just like a diabetic, a person who is undernourished or with cardiovascular diseases.
Do you have an illness? If the answer is no, you don’t need a diet, you need to reconnect with yourself!
You may be wondering why the belief in the miracle diet, the cure for all your ills, continues to exist and be promoted?
Why are we constantly tormented by diets of all kinds?
As I announced to you in the introduction to this article, this is a financial windfall maintained by fashion, stars and social media influencers. All of these people earn money in your account when you go on a diet. It’s sad but does that surprise you?…