If diets worked then you wouldn't have to start a new one every few months!

[marchplane]

I've just returned to the workplace and my colleagues (predominantly women between 30 and retirement age) have spent most of the week discussing weight watchers, slimming world, 5:2, basically every diet under the sun. It is doing my head in.

It's nothing new though and I'd forgotten all about it in the lockdown world as this inane chatter didn't translate over into zoom. It doesn't help that most people (myself included) have gained a few lockdown pounds.

I don't believe that dieting is healthy. Yes they work for the odd person (no doubt those people will be here to tell me!) but very few of them keep it off and most yo yo about all their adult life. Like my colleagues. These diets do nothing to address any psychological reasons they overeat and just encourage a devil and a saint attitude to food. One lady, doing 5:2 had eaten her 500 cals by 10am so is now having fish and chips for lunch because, well sod it.

I'm not perfect but I like to think that I have a balanced attitude to food and I like to exercise, I've worked really hard at it as I had an eating disorder when I was younger. Part of my recovery was to not engage in diet talk so I don't engage in these conversations unless I really have to. I really like my colleagues, they are lovely people generally but there are only so many times that I can be told that I should make roast chickpeas with spray oil, lemon and chilli for a healthy snack every 5 mins!

Different things work for different people. The only way some people are able to avoid morbid obesity is going through temporary periods of dieting and then regaining the weight.

I have lost a load of weight during lockdown, and I put part of that down to not hearing constant conversations about food, whether that be people’s meals out or diets. I just don’t think about food now.

I agree that diets are not good. Even though that I am basically on one but I just count calories to re learn good portion sizes. It works. I am really realising where I went wrong now. I am now changing my eating habits to normal ones and it is long term sustainable. I am actually massively enjoying it!

What's needed is this, sustainable change of lifestyle, but people want quick fix and that's where diet industry gets their money. 🤷🏻

I think most diets would work given time. However people want quick results (noticeable changes within weeks) and when they don't get them say the diet didn't work. In most cases it's taken years to gain the weight, so it will take time to come off.

I've been on a 1200 calorie diet for 15 years. It's working perfectly.

It's definitely about changing your lifestyle and that's easier said than done. Often once you slip up, people just think "well fuck it, there's no point". People seem to need to cling to extremely black or white images of themselves.

We started eating healthier in March and it's taken til now to really be eating healthy meals most days. I think the trick is to do it gradually. So we switched to just soup for lunch for a month. Then we started eating healthier dinners too. Then we stopped eating chocolate. If you try to do it all in one go, it just doesn't work. It will probably take a year for us to be fully "healthy", but we're getting there.

Diets work, but people just don't seem to realise that they need to be a lifelong commitment.

If you have a propensity to overeat, then you will need to watch every mouthful, every day for the rest of your life.

Most people can't/don't want to do this and therefore their weightloss efforts will always be doomed to failure.

@lukasiak

I've been on a 1200 calorie diet for 15 years. It's working perfectly.

I would call that a lifestyle now rather than a diet.

@lukasiak Congrats on being the exception to the norm.

The majority of people who diet do regain the weight, and some. Time and time again.

@lukasiak

I've been on a 1200 calorie diet for 15 years. It's working perfectly.

Surely that's not a 'diet', it's just how you eat.

Surely that's not a 'diet', it's just how you eat

That's exactly the point.

Weight loss is only ever going to be sustainable if you maintain the 'diet' for life.

discussing weight watchers, slimming world, 5:2

Of course they don’t work. If they worked the businesses would make no money! They need their customers to keep coming back.

I know women who have been doing WW or slimming world for a couple of decades. A few pounds lost here and there but always regained and sometimes more. And still they pay their money every week and buy the promoted foods. They’re out a complete fortune for no change.

You can't really blame diet companies for the lack of willpower of individuals.

If the diet companies were actually about helping people lose weight and maintain it, then willpower would be the biggest focus of their product and their customers would be able to stay at their ideal weight.

@NikeDeLaSwoosh

You can't really blame diet companies for the lack of willpower of individuals.

I am with you on that, but many of the diets sold are genuinely unsustainable and in many cases just gimmick.

I think there should be harsher regulation around it. It's someone's health, isn't it.

'Diet' just means what you eat. If you temporarily change it to lose weight you probably will, but if you then return to your previous diet, you'll gain weight. The only way to loose weight is to change your diet permanently and do a bit more exercise.

Slimming world worked for me.

YANBU about the chatter though, diet talk is just a bit dull.

@ShrodingersImmigrant exactly, lifestyle not diet. People mis-name it, I think. You have to make permanent changes as opposed to diet.

Ok. I’m obese. What do you suggest I do? Exercise alone isn’t going to do it unless I’m doing hours of cardio every day which I don’t have the time or inclination for.

So.... I either stay obese, or I go on a diet to lose some weight. Is there a third option I’m not seeing? Yes it needs to be a change of lifestyle but surely all lifestyle changes start in the same way a diet does? So I cut down my calories (diet!) or manage my food intake some other way (diet!) or just eat sensibly (diet!)

Diets do work. Then you stop dieting and the weight goes back on. Call it a lifestyle change if you want, if I change back, I’m gaining weight again. It was a lifestyle change that caused my obesity - just a change for the worst!

Any advice on how to not be obese without dieting?!

How about you educate yourself on what and how much you should be eating (maybe you know this already)? How about you find some form of exercise that you enjoy?

How about you make sustainable changes to both of these long term? That's not a diet.

Then you stop dieting and the weight goes back on. Call it a lifestyle change if you want, if I change back, I’m gaining weight again. It was a lifestyle change that caused my obesity - just a change for the worst!

That's the thing. You should make lifestyle changes which will last, not just diet and then go back to how it was. Or do some unsustainable diet and then when you stop...

You need to change lifestyle the way that you will not have problems keeping it up for ever. No one can last on diet shakes or 2 carrots a day for ever. That's diet type which usually doesn't work, because it's temporary. But going at it slower, changing your meals bit there and there to make them better, thinking about your portions, thinking about what you eat and making changes which you can sustain for decades and decades and basically for ever is a different matter. Learn new recipes to keep it interesting and find exercise which fits with your ability and time.
That's lifestyle change.

Temporary quick fixes don't work on anything, even our bodies.

I can happily imagine eating what I am eating now for ever. And for someone who hates exercise, I can even imagine doing the HIIT short sessions and own body weight workouts for ever😂 And I hatttttted exercise.

@marchplane

How about you educate yourself on what and how much you should be eating (maybe you know this already)? How about you find some form of exercise that you enjoy?

How about you make sustainable changes to both of these long term? That's not a diet.

I do plenty of exercise (I don’t enjoy it but I do it!) but exercise doesn’t equal weight loss.

I have to change what I am eating in order to lose weight. What makes these changes sustainable or not? And what is the difference between “making changes” and “going on a diet”?

I know how to lose weight. I have to eat fewer calories. I need a calorie controlled diet. I don’t want to because I enjoy food and 1200 calories a day for the rest of my life is miserable and rubbish. I like cake 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don’t want to because I enjoy food and 1200 calories a day for the rest of my life is miserable and rubbish

This is what it boils down to.

I don't want to have to constantly watch what I eat, but neither do I want to be obese.

I have to pick one of them though, and I prefer to be slim, so I accept that I have to constantly count calories, weigh my food, be hungry a fair amount of the time etc.

Lasting, sustainable lifestyle change works.

Diets don’t, because they fool people into thinking there’s a temporary solution for a permanent problem.

@Littlepond You might eat 1200 calories a day, get down to your goal weight and live happily ever after.

Or you might lose some weight and realise that counting every calorie is soul destroying, miss all the food that you have been denying yourself and binge your way back to your starting weight.

Most people go for option 2. They don't want or plan to but they do., doesn't that speak volumes? I can see that you're very invested in a diet right now and I get it, I've been there, I've thought losing weight would make everything wonderful too. I wanted to do it as quickly as possible.

I don't know your weight, height, age etc... but why 1200? Why not something a bit more sustainable over a longer period of time?