Dieting Makes You Fat – How Is That?
People go on a diet to lose weight don’t they? So how can one say dieting makes you fat? Everyone knows the equation.
Food Consumed (Calories in) – Exercise (Calories used) = x
If x is less than zero we lose weight and if x is greater than zero we put on weight. The main reason why people are overweight is because they eat too much. The solution must be eat less and lose weight. How simple is that? How can one say dieting makes you fat? A diet reduces Calories consumed so go on a diet to lose weight – right? WRONG!
Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason One
Tell someone they cannot have something and they will start to desire it. A diet restricts the consumption of certain foods – things like chocolate or the so called fattening foods. Being restricted in what you eat will make you crave those foods; it is basic human psychology. At the extreme diets can give you a fear of food because of your apparent inability to resist eating everything you are told to avoid. Even if you can resist the temptation of your cravings while on your diet, what happens when you stop that diet?
Part of the reason dieting makes you fat is what happens when you stop your diet! (Explained more in Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Five.)
Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Two
This is another of the body’s survival mechanisms. This one kicks in if you allow yourself to get over hungry. Typically this happens if you miss a meal or when you eat insufficient due to the restrictions of a diet.
You will have no conscious awareness of this effect but there is an area in your brain that will become active. Activation of this part of your brain will direct you to foods with higher calories that are readily absorbed – “high carb” foods like cakes and sweets.
You get a double whammy here as Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason One and Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Two ensures that you have both a psychological and physiological pressure to eat the things the diet tells you to avoid!
Maybe this is some scientific wisdom behind the advice “never go shopping when you are hungry”.
Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Three
We have an internal control mechanism and if we listen to it, we will know when to eat, what to eat and how much to eat. Our internal control mechanism speaks to us through our stomach. In one experiment, it was discovered that people on a diet lost the ability to register how much they were eating. If you “cheat” on your diet due to “Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason One” above, you will tend to overeat. Even foods regarded as non-fattening will make you fat if you eat enough of them. When you finally stop your diet, you will be inclined to overeat because you will have lost the ability to interpret signals from your stomach.
Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Four
Our bodies are extremely sensitive to starvation. As soon as our bodies suspect starvation, our metabolism changes and we start to convert a higher proportion of any food we do eat to fat. Experiments in America determined that starvation for a man is eating less than 1800 Calories and for a woman it is less than 1500 Calories a day. Most diets advise a calorie intake of between 1000 and 1500 Calories. Going on a diet is, therefore, making your body resist weight loss. This is a literal example of how dieting makes you fat!
The typical experience of a dieter is that they lose a certain amount quickly but then it gets harder and harder and discouragement sets in: “Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Four” goes part way to explain this effect.
Then if you are constantly “watching your weight” and periodically starving yourself, your body will perpetually be in as state of trying to survive and anything you eat will seem to go “straight to fat”. If someone says “I just have to look at chocolate and I put on weight”, the odds are that they are on an almost perpetual diet!
Dieting Makes You Fat – Does This Seem Familiar?
You decide you need to lose weight and start a diet:
- It all goes well to start off with and you lose a couple of pounds
- Then things slow down (Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Four starts to have an effect)
- You lose some enthusiasm and those “naughty but nice” treats become a temptation (Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason One)
- Maybe you just deserve a treat as reward for all your hard work (have you ever considered that presenting certain foods as treats or rewards to your children may be training your children to comfort eat?). Or maybe you just start to find the diet food unattractive (Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Two)
- When you eat your “treat”, you start to wonder if you have eaten a bit more than you intended – but you cannot be sure (Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Three)
- Then, of course, you have put back on another couple of pounds and we are back to Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Four.
Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Five
So what if you are one of those lucky people who go on a diet and lose all that unwanted fat? The diet must have worked – right? Sorry, wrong again!
In 1944, the University of Minnesota in America carried out an experiment in starvation on a group of conscientious objectors. For a period of six months, their daily food intake was reduced to 1800 Calories. After two months they had lost about half of their body fat. After six months they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. Many of the prisoners reported having an “insatiable hunger” and would eat 4000 to 5000 Calories in an attempt to satisfy their hunger. This “insatiable hunger” did not leave them until they had returned to the weight that they were at the start of the period of starvation.
This experiment, carried out many years ago explains Yo-Yo dieting but the diet industry still advises that overweight people diet. “Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Five” explains why so many people hailed as “slimmer of the year” end up fatter than ever the following year.
Dieting Makes You Fat – An Independent Comment
It is well known that diets do not work for weight control. A report on the billion pound diet industry published in 2003 by an independent analysis company (Datamonitor) described the number of dieters achieving permanent weight loss as ‘appallingly low’ at around 1%.
Dieting Makes You Fat – What Are The Alternatives?
If you are overweight the likelihood is that you are that way because you overeat. This is probably something that you have been doing consistently over a long period of time. You may not want to accept that you overeat but “Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason Three” above could explain why you do not realise you are overeating. Even when people are Calorie counting and record their food intake, it is know that up to 50% of the Calories they eat are missed.
You have to reduce your Calorie intake but “Dieting Makes You Fat – Reason One” has a nasty habit of rearing its ugly head. Using hypnotherapy it is possible to get back in touch with your natural weight control mechanism and eliminate comfort eating. What you eat becomes a matter of choice and how much you eat is determined by what your body tells you.
If you have found that dieting makes you fat or you are trapped in Yo-Yo dieting and want to control your weight without dieting, make an appointment to discuss how hypnotherapy can help you.
Book a hypnotherapy appointment with Stephen Rigby at his Guildford or Woking, Surrey practice now! For priority treatment ring Stephen Rigby at your selected location:
- Hypnotherapy in Guildford on Guildford 01483 566115
- Hypnotherapy in Woking ring Guildford number
You can also book online. Free introductory sessions available at Guildford.