To think that weight-loss diets don't actually work

[AKMD]

SILs and MIL are morbidly obese. They have been on weight loss diets for years, SILs since they were early teens, and are still hugely overweight.

A group of women in a certain department at work are morbidly obese. For the first year I was there I noticed that they always got x + chips from the canteen for lunch, then they all switched to WW ready meals to heat up in the microwave. Three years after the switch they are still morbidly obese.

DH decided to lose weight about 6 months ago and got those stupid milkshake meal replacements. All that happens is that he gets very hungry during the day and overeats when he gets home.

Back in the days when I was into women's magazines I was always when the celebrity being interviewed raved about x latest diet and how great it was, then went on to describe how they did 2 hours of yoga every morning, then went for a run, then worked out with their PT for an hour or so, followed by a massage. Who in the real world has the time or money to do that kind of exercise regime?

AIBU to think that most weight-loss diets don't actually work short-term, none of them work long-term and the only long-term solution for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is to eat a balanced diet and do regular exercise?

rhonda - I guess it depends what you call a "diet". My dietician taught me to eat in a certain way and that is still more or less how I eat. I don't consider it a diet anymore, but to anyone who watches me prepare my meal, it would probably look like one - I cook rice without oil, steam my fish and chicken, and half of my plate is always salad and/or vegetables. I like what I eat, though.

You can post links on an iPad by the way. Copy the website address, then write it in your post as explained below, next to the smileys list.

Ahhh cote. - you have made a lifestyle change and well done.

It's semantics I admit - but dies has connotations of people losing weight for an event.

Thanks about the links I'll practice - I didn't know that.

Cote - thats what I was referring to as "small changes in habits" rather than a diet, most people think that they will lose wight on a diet then eat "normally" afterwards. I'm sure that can work if you have a stone to lose but not if you are morbidly obese like OP's MIl and Sil

I have been morbidly obese - by that point it takes a great deal more than a few changes in habits because often by then you are pretty much sedentary and the time you might have spent exercising is often spent eating.

morbid obesity is a whole different kettle of fish to being overweight.

YANBU. Some people do manage to lose large amounts of weight and keep it off, but they are vastly outnumbered by the people who put it back on again, plus a bit more. I read a terrifying piece about the lifestyles of people who really did beat morbid obesity and the lifestyle they had to adopt was just insane, their entire existence revolved around exercise.

i ate sensibly, logged all food and exercised a lot and went from a bmi of 40 to 23 in a year a half. granted my bmi went above 30 when pregnant but once again i'm logging food and exercising and it is going down again. it can work even though the doctors said it would be harder due to my pcos.

YANBU. Any diet that severely restricts your calories causes your metabolism to slow down. WW and Slimming World are a wee bit better than some of the fad diets because at least they based on real life eating but having done WW myself it takes an enormous amount of energy to constantly monitor everything you eat.
I have been doing a lot of reading and the real culprits for weight gain are processed foods and sugar. I have been trying to cut down the amount of sugar in my food and its amazing what contains huge amounts of it - dolmio sauce and chinese chicken chunks for example.
What is amazing to me is that there are not more morbidly obese people around than there is already.

Oh goodness, this is one of those things that drives me CRAZY. No, healthy, balanced diets do NOT make you lose weight. Only eating fewer calories than you expend makes you lose weight. A healthy balanced diet won't make you put on weight but equally it won't make you lose weight. For example, aA day's food consisting of salmon, nuts, avocado etc. is fantastically healthy and balanced but it also contains a lot of calories and will not make you lose weight.
In summary, yes, of course weight loss diets work. Not sticking to these diets is what doesn't work.

YABU to think that diets don't work in the short term. They do work, as long as you actually stick to them and don't just say that you are on them along with 'just one won't hurt' a few times a day.

I'd say they definatly work in the short term for people that really do have weight they need to lose, weight drops off people who are fat from a non medical issue easily.

Long term is a bit different, but I'd blame people rather than a diet. No diet plan can force people to stay motivated, or to want to change their lifestyle. But if people can do that for themselves, then diets can work extremely well.

Yanbu. I've read on more than one occasion that only 10% of dieters maintain weight loss over a year. I agree it is about calories in/activity to a certain extent but it's more complicated than that. If you eat under a certain amount of calories, your body think its starving and stops you losing more weight. I think with overweight people it's not just what you eat but how you eat. I've been doing Paul McKenna since Christmas and realised his flawed my eating habits were. The thing that struck me was the phrase obese people think about food nearly all the time, except when they are eating. I was eating unconsciously, stuffing food in then shocked when the family size chocolate bar had disappeared! I think 'dieters' have to change their attitude towards food. If you have flawed habits developed over several years, no diet with pure calorie counting will be successful. Breaking those habits is the route to success.

"Any diet that severely restricts your calories causes your metabolism to slow down"

Which is why you should also (1) eat all your meals + a mid-afternoon snack + evening snack, and (2) exercise. Eating often and exercising significantly increase your metabolism.

"I have been doing a lot of reading and the real culprits for weight gain are processed foods and sugar"

And oil! Salads are healthy and low calorie, but not when you douse them in loads of olive oil. One tablespoon of olive oil per meal is sufficient, and that includes the oil your food is cooked with. You don't need butter, so forget it completely .

"If you have flawed habits developed over several years, no diet with pure calorie counting will be successful. Breaking those habits is the route to success."

And how do you expect to change those habits if not with a diet?

I'm not talking about a fad diet like Dukan or no carb, but a proper balanced diet that teaches you (and your palate) how to eat (and to like it). You stick to it for a couple of months minimum and your habits change, as long as you actually enjoy what you eat. If you don't and can't wait for it to end, clearly it is not going to work.

Thing is OP, you don't know what your in laws and colleagues are eating in secret

If they really are morbidly obese and reducing their calorie/fat intake, they WOULD lose weight.

Cote that's really good advice. I think it's just that what you mean by diet and what most people do differ. Although technically you are correct - we are all " on a diet " all the time.

Oh I totally agree with you. Within 5 years, over 90% of weight lost on any diet will be regained. I dont even think you have to eat "balanced" - you just have to eat less. When you are overweight, this is the hardest thing in the world to do. The high you get from the initial weightloss can boost you to lose more, but then the high wears off, it becomes hard work & you regain or fail. This can be weeks/months/years, but it will happen, and you will be heavier than you were before. This is where I am now.

I have read a book called Eat Less Without Trying To Eat Less, and it has been such an eye opener for me. It is quite often free on Kindle, so keep an eye out if you are interested.

Weight gain is a side effect of diet thoughts, not the other way about. You tell yourself you cant have cake/bread, then you get stress feelings when you crave it/want it, all your brain knows is that you are thinking about cake that you cant have, so you stress out more, your brain knows that having the cake will stop the stress, so will drive you to eat the cake more. That is what a craving is. You need to kill these thoughts at the root. There is also more to it, but I suspect I am boring people now

"You tell yourself you cant have cake/bread, then you get stress feelings"

Why would you want to tell yourself that?

I have a slice of bread or 5-6 spoonfuls of rice or pasta with every meal. This makes up a quarter of my plate. This is exactly how my initial diet was - the one prepared by a dietician and through which I lost 10 kgs.

If you have some carbohydrates with every meal and have a light mid-afternoon snack, you will not get these cravings.

Cote, you may start liking salads, but you are still going to crave cake!

YABU, but maybe it's simply because you group all forms of deliberate "trying to lose weight" under the same umbrella.

I agree with Kewcumber that it is not the idea of a "diet" that is the problem, but the idea that you diet and then lose weight and then go back to eating "normally" afterwards.

What you consider to be "eating normally" is actually "eating too much", or else why did you need to go on the diet in the first place?

Ignores psychological stuff just like everyone else on the thread is doing

No, you will still walk past a cake shop (or whatever it is you really like) and want it, no matter how many carbs you had at dinner. And then I would tell myself "no, i had carbs at dinner, I cant have cake now", then the stress feelings start (internally, you might not even recognise them as they are on a subconciuos level. One day, you will give in though, be it minutes/days/weeks, and by giving in your reinforce the idea that cake (or whatever) gets rid of the stress feeling, so it will happen again & again.

You dont have to believe me though, and if your way is working for you, thats fab, maybe you dont have cravings like some of us do. I wish I could just eat "balanced" I really do.

The one and only time that I followed a diet (calorie counting), I had a few months of successful weight loss, and then completely and utterly lost control of my weight.

Before the diet, I had kept a pretty steady weight for years without really thinking about it - at the upper end of normal bmi, but OK really. Then after the diet, I put on 15kg in about a year - moving me almost into the obese bmi range. The weight just kept going on, and I didn't feel able to do anything about it.

In hindsight, it seems that because I was thinking about calorie numbers during the diet, and trying to find a way to eat what I wanted within that artificial structure, I stopped thinking about whether I was eating in a balanced, sensible way. It was almost as if I gave up responsibility for what I was eating - because all I had to do was make the numbers add up. After a few months, I stopped checking the numbers - but my natural way of keeping things in check had been disrupted.

Of course, there was other (emotional) stuff going on as well - I think there always is with weight gain

It took a long, unhappy time for me to take control again - because I had to find a way to do it consciously, where it had always just happened naturally before. I make sure that I eat plenty of fruit and veg (for some reason, that stops me craving crap). I'm careful about portion size - especially with bread, which I can eat and eat! I try not to snack - if I'm hungry between meals (which is rare), I'll have some fruit. And I get a reasonable amount of exercise. I occasionally really want to eat a whole bar of chocolate or a cream cake - I say no a few times, but if the craving really persists (I blame hormones!) then I let myself, but then try to get back into balance as soon as I can.

It's working so far - not a diet, but trying to be mindful of what I eat, and in control, but with flexibility. Hoping that it'll keep working, and that now that I'm concious about what I'm doing, I won't ever go through that spiral of weight gain and unhappiness again - because it sucks! I'm certainly never going on a diet again.

Do people not think that if it was as easy as just "eating balanced", then there would be far less very overweight people? There is nothing more than most of us obese people would like than to be slimmer. If that, and possible health risks/even death isnt enough to get us eating balanced, does that not say there is something more? Something inside that is stopping it from happening?

There's a difference between simple and easy.

Even if it was just as simple as "eat less, move more", that doesn't take into account all of the psychological issues that mean it is not easy.

CoteDAzur (quoting HaveALittleFaithBaby) "If you have flawed habits developed over several years, no diet with pure calorie counting will be successful. Breaking those habits is the route to success."

And how do you expect to change those habits if not with a diet?

By changing the habits, rather than going on a diet! I completed agree with HALFB. Some people have said on the thread that of course diets work - if you apply motivation/willpower. But that's why they fail for most people. It's a real battle constantly applying motivation and willpower, and means that people on diets end up obsessing about food, eating, calories etc. But if you concentrate on breaking bad habits and creating good ones, your world does not need to revolve around food all the time. A classic bad habit of people on diets is falling off the wagon and overeating, with the justification that the damage has been done. People without eating issues don't do this. Eating more than normal doesn't trigger a binge cycle for them. They are more likely to make adjustments e.g. waiting until hungry before eating again. An example of a good habit to create (in lieu of formal dieting) - is after eating a meal, asking yourself if you're full and do you want/need to eat anything else. Being mindful puts you in control without challenging your body to rebel by overeating.

In my opinion, exercise plays a far greater role in weight loss/maintaining a healthy weight than simply increasing calories spent. Exercise clears your head, makes you feel strong and fit, gives you respect for what your body can do. For me, it helps keep a sense of balance in my life, and I think generally, it can help keep attitudes towards food/eating in perspective. There's no reason why people shouldn't eat reasonably healthily and still have some treaty/junk stuff.

blackaffronted the cravings really do go. I don't ever get them now, not really.

But then, if I want cake, I have some. But before I do, I just check that there's not something else going on (am I thirsty, properly hungry and needing proper food, sad, tired etc etc) I have lost the weight, and am keeping it off, through doing that. I swear, I never have the cravings - whereas in the past I would have eaten entire packets of sweet stuff and still craved more. It took a long while to stop those feelings, but they did stop.

(I lost the weight quickly, then maintained for about 6 months including over Xmas, am now trying to get less flabby and lose the last 10lb that will take me to a BMI of 21)

Black - I eat cake from time to time. Just had some yummy chocolate cake for my birthday the other day, actually Several spoons of it, rather than an entire slice, though. And I had two choc muffins and a peanut butter cookie at DS's birthday several days ago.

The important thing here is to know that 15 bites don't taste better than 3, and to adjust what you eat in the rest of the day accordingly - a lighter dinner, no evening snack, etc.

WW isn't really a diet, it is encouraging people to eat less and move more. That's the easy bit. Physics tells me that you can't NOT lose weight by doing that, but the hard part is the will power to maintain it.

I have used WW to help me focus on losing the extra stone I put on after having DS as well as having done scientific research into obesity and can honestly say that it has helped me focus on how much I eat and exercise in a sustainable way that will carry through my whole life - as long as I let it!