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!

@ktp100 amen! You hit the nail on the head!

Nutrition wouldn't confuse so many people if it weren't for the diet industry making it sound complicated on purpose!

@marchplane

Absolutely, veryvery - and you've obviously done brilliantly. Which somewhat belies that article- which claims that people who have dieted and lost lots of weight have messed up their metabolisms to the extent that it's pretty much impossible to maintain weight loss.

Thanks lazy. And even if my metabolism was messed up a bit and I had to restrict calories indefinitely that is preferable to being immobile with the health problems I believe being overweight compounded. At one point, when the sciatica was bad, I couldn't do much more than lay on the sofa and walk short distances. And as it is my metabolism isn't that low, I manage to eat some lovely food without gaining too much weight. I enjoy running and generally being stronger and more active.

A diet is a way of restricting calories. Yes it works if your stick to it. If you don’t the weight comes back on. It isn’t rocket science. I don’t understand the problem with being careful for a while using whatever diet works for you then relaxing when it suits you as well i. e. Christmas, holidays, lockdown. I don’t think Many people’s weight stays the same throughout the year. If the op has has food issues of her own perhaps she should judge other people less.

I think I view it all differently because with me being fat as fuck my "restricted" calories to lose weight are basically what normal sized human eats.
I do 1400 and then one day up to 3000. It's actually how I used to eat naturally before I... Erm. Started eating for a whole village?

Diets do work. Its just when you stop 'dieting' and go back to eating all the stuff that made you fat in the first place that doesn't!

Any type of eating with the intention of losing weight is a diet. If you’re overweight and want to lose weight, you can’t do it just by exercise. Human beings fall into bad habits very easily - and even easier when it’s a previously very well established bad habit!

What you’re describing is people saying they’re dieting but are actually 90% cheating and 10% dieting.

People also aren’t stupid. As a fat person, I know I shouldn’t overeat at every meal. As a greedy person, I still do. I’ve gained back every single pound at least twice that I’ve ever lost. The diets work - maintaining momentum and restriction obviously doesn’t for a lot of people.

@Didyousaynutella

A diet is a way of restricting calories. Yes it works if your stick to it. If you don’t the weight comes back on. It isn’t rocket science. I don’t understand the problem with being careful for a while using whatever diet works for you then relaxing when it suits you as well i. e. Christmas, holidays, lockdown. I don’t think Many people’s weight stays the same throughout the year. If the op has has food issues of her own perhaps she should judge other people less.

thats pretty much where I am at the moment. I've lost 3 stone over the last 18 months, and have another stone to get to my goal but I'm now at the stage where I am ok to take it a bit slower and have the occasional blow out and then having a stricter couple of weeks to compensate.

It will probably take me longer to lose this last stone but I think overall its a more sustainable method.

That should have read longer to lose this last stone than it has to lose the 3 I've already lost!

YANBU.
Some people spend a fortune on fads and clubs, when they just need to stop shovelling so much food in their mouths.
Cutting down on non essential fats, and sugar will see the weight drop off. As will cooking from scratch and not using jars and packets.
Fresh food cooked from scratch followed by a bit of fruit and you'll be nice and slim.

I'm sorry you had an eating disorder in the past. One of the things that annoys me a lot is eating disorder survivors trying to lecture the rest of us on what we should eat and what diets we should use.

A poster (on another thread about diets) said weight watchers was great, she'd used it lots of times and it always worked

This is a funny line but is it that silly really? Saying diets don't work is implying there are two options 1) a fad diet for a week or 2) eating a sustainable healthy diet forever. Actually there are more choices 3) alternate dieting and not worrying about it and 4) be obese. For some people 3 and 4 are the easier choices, 2 is so difficult they can never achieve it. So clearly for them 3 is the better/only choice.

You might see someone doing ww/sw and think "hmm they a still a bit chubby, it isn't working". But you have no idea what they would be like if they didn't do those programs from time to time, they might be 1000lbs!

OP, if you have never been overweight and your eating disorder goes the other way (anorexia), maybe you aren't the one to give advice to overweight people about their best course of action. You won't be able to get in their mindset and understand.

If your recovery means you can't engage in diet talk then don't. But apart from that don't concern yourself with what others eat, or spend money on.

I do crossfit too btw and I'm fat AF! As for annoying colleagues talking repetitively, remember this joke: how do you know if someone does crossfit? Don't worry, they'll tell you.

For me, it isn't about knowing about nutrition - I am very knowledgeable about nutrition. It is about preferring the taste of high fat, high sugar foods and struggling to restrict them to a healthy amount. I'd happily gorge on cake and chocolate, croissants and milkshakes all day long.

I do not enjoy or crave healthy food in the same way.

The only time I have been able to easily lose weight is in pregnancy when I went off sweet food and my appetite was decimated. Ended both pregnancies lighter than I started.

dot, I find if the snacky cravings start to escalate going cold turkey is the only way to go along with keeping occupied so the mind is busy with other things.

"This is a funny line but is it that silly really? Saying diets don't work is implying there are two options 1) a fad diet for a week or 2) eating a sustainable healthy diet forever. Actually there are more choices 3) alternate dieting and not worrying about it and 4) be obese. For some people 3 and 4 are the easier choices, 2 is so difficult they can never achieve it. So clearly for them 3 is the better/only choice."

Yep.
I've been on diet many times and fallen off the wagon many times as well. Have I failed? No, I wouldn't say so as I've never crossed the overweight line because my diets stop it before it gets to that point.

I always laugh when people complain that their diets stop working when they stop doing it. Well, yes, that's because you went back to your old habits!

For me, it isn't about knowing about nutrition - I am very knowledgeable about nutrition.

Yes, imo it's a complete myth that people get fat because they don't know about nutrition or because there are contradictory messages out there. In spite of the proliferation of fad diets, everyone knows really that they what they should do is eat plenty of veg and avoid processed, fatty and sugary foods. It's actually making yourself do it that's the problem. We are 'programmed' to seek out high value (i.e. high calorie) foods for survival. Fighting against that programming every single day is very hard.

I totally agree with you OP! I think diets really mess up people's metabolisms and are nearly impossible to stick to. It makes me so sad that so many women spend their lives on them.

avocadotofu so how would you advise I don't gain lots and lots of weight? Or do you think I should stop being a healthy weight and embrace the fatty inside?

Being massively overweight or obese isn't easy so people might choose dieting over that. For ppl who yoyo, maybe if they'd never dieted they'd be far bigger than they are now (just a thought). I do agree you have to find a way to make some permanent changes though but how you do that varies from person to person.

Diets only work if you stick with them I suppose. I have never done a structured diet like ww or slimming world as I can't be bothered to think and research the food I would need to eat to lose weight, so they wouldn't work for me. I am not overweight but carrying more weight than I would like to and I sense that if I don't make changes now I will continue to gain weight. My only form of diet is not to snack on crap during the week and eat a decent meal in the evening, friday evenings is my down time for wine and crap but even then not excessive in my choices. So being a conscientious eater is my way of doing things plus taking up more exercise as my current lifestyle of inactivity is most likely what put the pounds on in my case.

For people who are overweight and yoyo dieting I think still need to be encouraged rather than dismayed or somehow seen as not doing enough. Old habits die hard and new ones can be harder to make, kudos for trying to find what works for them.

Research has shown that your metabolism is only damaged by very low calorie diets (less than 1200 a day) for an extended period of time and even then, when normal diet is resumed the metabolism recovers. The damage isn't permanent.

Plus as you become smaller, the amount of calories you need reduces. That's not metabolism damage, you were artificially inflating your metabolism but putting pressure on your body to maintain a weight that was too high.

The only way to lose weight in my opinion is to drink loads of water, cut out the snacks and most importantly reduce your recommended calorie intake on most days by about 30%. I’ve done this and have lost nearly 2st since lockdown.

In two minds about this - I have been overweight as and since a child, to varying degrees.
I did a low-carb diet four years ago, lost a lot quickly but didn't stick to the maintenance plan.
Pouring through multiple spreadsheets after returning to "the way of eating" (rather than "diet") recently, I discovered that yes, I'd put some weight on, but only about 20% of the 15kg I lost - over a much shorter than I remembered it twelve week period.
I've almost lost that 3kg again quickly in the first week, so feeling optimistic.

I log obsessively when dieting - if I'm typing and playing around with charts and targets, I'm not eating, and less tempted to eat mindlessly.

Diets work it's the people that don't.