To think that diets make you fat?

[ShebaShimmyShake]

On the one hand, baby weight. I know I can't just lose it organically, so to speak, since I can't be as active as before (not least because a horrific birth has left me with some permanent damage). On the other, I really think diets make you fat. I know some people keep it off forever but most people, myself included, just seem to yoyo over the years. The only time I lost weight and kept it off for years (until pregnancy) was when I stopped pouring money into slimming clubs and diet books and just tried to eat sensibly. No plan or syns or ProPoints.

Has dieting made you fat and poor? Or thin and rich?

Also, if you're on Atkins or the cabbage soup diet, please stay away from me. I'm convinced those two work by making a person so smelly, nobody invites them out for meals or parties.

[EllaHen]

I have never dieted. I am fairly slim.

[AdjustableWench]

Maybe part of the problem is expecting to lose a lot of weight quickly? I think most people who start eating more healthily, and get regular (even gentle) exercise will lose weight over time. If you're happy losing a stone over the course of a year, instead of trying to do it in a month or two, it's easier to keep it off.

I put on a lot of weight due to a medical condition and lost it again over several years. It's stayed off.

[justilou]

I totally screwed up my metabolism by yo-yo dieting when I was young.... I was on occasion anorexic, but not for long periods. I'm now 44 with a thyroid gland that has stopped working entirely, and now have to watch every little thing I eat.

[Sirzy]

I have lost 6.5 stone, I haven't "dieted" though I have done it by changing my eating habits to something that is healthier and I can maintain for life - but still with plenty of variety of "good" and "bad" foods.

I have used SW to help me achieve this tnough, but for me that's not a diet it's a healthy eating plan.

[UmbongoUnchained]

It sounds cliche but it's a lifestyle change that's needed. My mum has lost 4 stone this year already by cuttin out processed food and getting a new mindset of only putting good nutritional food in her body. She has the odd treat. But she's doing so well and she had been yoyo dieting for 20+ years.

[sleepwhenidie]

Completely agree OP - and there's a TED talk that links to that...here

[cariadlet]

I don't think that dieting makes you fat - but if you don't want to put the weight back on afterwards then fad diets (shakes instead of proper meals etc) are a no-no.

I'm currently dieting for the first time in my life. I've lost a stone and a half, and 6 inches off my waist. I've basically shifted 20 years of weight gain (which had crept on so gradually that I hadn't noticed) in a couple of months.

The good thing is that I know the changes I've made to how I eat are going to be easy to maintain, because I'm enjoying my meals and don't feel hungry.

[TheUnsullied]

Previous diet advice hasn't really helped us as a nation, has it?

We've been taught to really reduce fat intake (which we now know is a big part of keeping us full). Low fat products were then pumped full of sugar, which actually is the problem, especially on top of the carbs we were already eating, and we all got hungry quicker. What we should really have been told is to eat a good amount of protein, not to restrict fat but not go mad on it either, be weary of filling up on carbs and avoid added sugars like the plague.

And of course, the blame gets put on the overweight people, not the set up that got healthy eating all wrong.

[Champagneformyrealfriends]

Dieting doesn't make you fat-overeating and lack of discipline makes you fat (unless it's a medical condition). I say this as somebody who is doing SW to try and lose my baby weight and struggling because I am often weakwilled and greedy.

[WorraLiberty]

Dieting doesn't make people fat

People make people fat.

For the majority of people without medical problems, eating less, eating healthier and taking enough exercise will keep them slim.

However, for a whole host of different/personal reasons, many people are unable to do this and stick to it.

But still, we are all responsible for what we eat and drink and how much we choose to do it.

[sleepwhenidie]

A diet the first time 'works' - you will lose weight relatively easily. There are problems that follow though...

1st problem, most people then revert to 'normal' eating (overeating to some degree) and regain weight.

When you diet and lose weight (unless you are being very very scientific and careful about macronutrients and weight training), weight loss is about 50:50 fat and muscle. But weight regained will be mainly fat because (again, unless you are eating lots of protein and weight training) then the body finds it much easier to gain fat than muscle. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat so start switching muscle for fat and you reduce your basal metabolic rate, ie, you require fewer calories to maintain your original weight that you did before. Repeated diets compound this effect, along with the impact of age it is easy to explain the 35-45 year old woman's cry of 'it was so easy to lose half a stone in my twenties, now it just won't shift!'

Problem number 2 - dieting fucks up your relationship with food and your body. You start levelling food as good or naughty, attaching moral value to how you eat. Denying your hunger. But no food is bad in itself it just depends how much of it you consume. And hunger serves an amazing biological purpose, telling you your body needs food (most of us need to parent ourselves a bit in this regard and make the sensible nutritious choice here most of the time, but more often we find reasons not to - tired, need a treat, diet tomorrow etc). The upshot of all this for most dieters is some degree of starve and binge, on a wagon, off a wagon. Miserable and unhealthy and hard to stop.

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

people make people fat
^^ This
'Diet' covers so many different approaches to losing weight. If you need to lose weight then you need to eat less and move more. I think if you rely on 'diet shakes' or 'diet ready meals' then you're likely to put the weight back on. If you focus on eating healthily then you are more likely to keep the weight off. Our culture has played havoc with people's ability to judge portion size and to know when they are full; and I think a 'dieting' approach is helpful to actually re-calibrate that thinking.

[wowfudge]

In addition to all the valid points made by pp, an awful lot of people delude themselves that they are eating healthily and aren't losing weight because the diet they are following isn't working for them. I've done it myself.

Often they are just not following the diet or healthy eating plan as they should be. I find writing down everything I eat and drink helps as does planning what I am going to eat.

The biggest thing of all for me though is being in the right frame of mind and wanting to do what is needed to lose weight.

[ginorwine]

I think that portion size in restraunts are really big
Also a lot of food can be really fatty
I think in the 1950 s plates and portion sizes were very different for eg
I think that healthy balanced eating with a few treats works
It's often a lifestyle - exept for some medical condition s - as well as realising that I can't eat choc cake and wine when I want to these days without weight gain as exercise won't make up for huge cake anymore
It's annoying but true for me

[cariadlet]

I think a 'dieting' approach is helpful to actually re-calibrate that thinking.

Definitely. I've never calorie counted or weighed food before and just hadn't realised how big my portions were. I've now got a fitbit and the myfitnesspal app. I log my food religiously and can check the calories I'm consuming, my daily nutrition (if I'm getting enough protein, vitamins etc) and how many calories I'm burning through exercise and through just trying to be a bit more active instead of sitting on my bum all evening.

[queenMab99]

The Ted Talk (link given on 1st page by sleepwhen) is really informative, I know I eat when not hungry, so will now aim for health rather than weight loss.

[heron98]

I have never been on a diet in my life and have never been fat.

A lady at my work did a juice diet for 2 years. Fair play to her, her self discipline was incredible - she did it birthdays, Christmas, everything and she lost loads of weight.

A year later, she'd put it all back on again.

[constantlycuntinglyconfused]

I've been on 3 major diets in my life. Each time I lost stones in weight. Problem was that when I stopped following the chosen diet the weight came back on plus more.

I won't go on a diet anymore as I know the outcome will follow the same pattern. I'm happy just to maintain my weight, even though I am fat.

[ShebaShimmyShake]

Slimming World seems to be the fashionable one at the moment, which is funny because it's essentially high carb, low fat.... which was in vogue in the 90s and for the last ten years or so, we've been told carbs are the devil and it should really be low carb, high protein. I know several people who lost with SW but none have maintained the loss two years on (except one who hit target yesterday) and several fell off the wagon before reaching target. I even know a couple who gained on it... I think the idea is that you don't eat much as the potatoes etc are so filling, but I can see how it's possible to go overboard if you don't learn portion control.

I guess all diets work if you stick to them but I know my head goes into crazy places when I know the points or syn value of everything. Which is why I'm reluctant, plus the money.

And yet I know I won't shift the baby weight if I don't do more research or get more discipline....

[BIWI]

I've been on 3 major diets in my life. Each time I lost stones in weight. Problem was that when I stopped following the chosen diet the weight came back on plus more.

Well of course you did! Because you stopped thinking about 'the diet' and just started to eat like you had done before - which is what made you overweight in the first place!

The crucial thing is to find a way of eating that will not only deliver weight loss, but that you can sustain once you reach your target weight.

[Fortybingowings]

I think you're dead right about slimming world. No portion control and hopeless for me. That said, I'm a big believer in calorie limitation and exercise as the only way to shift weight. Therefore I've gone back to weightwatchers pro points (old system before 2016)

[ShebaShimmyShake]

WW have changed yet again? What's their system now? It used to be so simple....

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

I think part of the problem is the mindset of 'I'm on a diet' and now 'I've finished my diet' because the latter usually means reverting to how you were eating pre-diet (ie big portions; unhealthy food) and that's going to lead to the same result ie being overweight. The problem isn't the diet but our attitude to eating.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Exactly Aplaceonthecouch People gain weight because they eat too much, and eat the wrong food.

They lose weight by reducing/cutting out these foods and then if they go back to eating the wrong things in too large portions, they gain weight again - if they continued to eat a slightly more relaxed version of their weight loss diet, they wouldn't regain the weight. But instead they think 'I'm slim now, I can eat and drink what I like'.

It's not because dieting doesn't work, or it fucks metabolism, it's because eating more calories than burnt off makes people gain weight.

[BIWI]

Actually, reducing calories significantly does fuck with your metabolism.

Jason Fung explains it really well in his book The Obesity Code