Rachel Conway argues ‘Why Diets Don’t Work’

It seems that everyone is on some sort of a diet at the moment. Be it the post-COVID attempts at weight loss or something more long lived. There are different diets hitting the market constantly these days, and I say hitting the market, because most of them are marketed and sold by somebody. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, intermittent fasting, paleo, keto, weight loss shakes, the list goes on. Many people have tried, succeeded, and then ‘fallen off the wagon’ with one or more of these over the years, often regaining all of the weight lost and then some.

I’m here to say dieting does not work. Not that weight loss is impossible, but that by adjusting your lifestyle to fit someone else’s view of healthy is tough to do when those changes need to stick for the rest of your life. Restricting calories, or carbohydrates, or fat, or whatever the latest fad is, will only leave you looking for more. Depriving yourself of cakes/chips/alcohol, whatever your vice is, will only make you search it out whenever you are having a ‘weak’ moment. Same goes for any diet which socially isolates you. One that means you can’t eat out because nowhere caters for your strict requirements, or where you always find yourself not wanting to eat outside of your own controlled meals to avoid temptation. That’s no life to live!

So, what does work? In simple terms, making great food choices most of the time. Hunger is NOT your friend. If you are hungry you are likely to make poor choices, so keep on top of it. If you are hungry at 10am after a big breakfast, eat. If you are hungry after dinner, eat. If you are running late and dinner is hours away, eat. But make sure you make a good choice and consume an appropriate portion. Don’t let that hunger get on top of you and leave you reaching for takeaways, sugary pick me ups, or supersized portions. If you fall off the wagon, forget about it and get back on. That one meal out with a couple of drinks, or slice with your morning coffee, does not ruin your attempts at weight control. Letting that meal be the catalyst for a whole week of unhealthy eating with the thought of ‘getting back to it next week’ does. Get yourself organised with a meal plan that suits you, making sure there is enough food on there to keep you going, factor in the odd meal purely for enjoyment and get to it.  So, what’s holding you back?