Do Diets Really Work?

Verywell.com has some good articles about fitness and diet. I often read their posts and even reblog some of the material. This one is worth the read.

From VeryWell.com

Men and women have struggled for years, searching endlessly for that magic diet pill to reverse all the bad diet and lifestyle decisions they’ve made in the past. Diet pills come in all shapes, sizes, and colors with different fantasies attached to each one. They range from celebrity-endorsed campaigns to more science-based programs that guarantee success. However, the major question still persists as to whether or not all this diet talk is simply a lie.

Don't Fall for Diet Myths and Illusions

People are sick and tired of being sick and tired. To make matters worse, a majority of the confusion about diet myths stems from the fitness and nutrition experts, who cannot seem to agree on anything diet related.

The Importance of Behavioral Change

I would like to break here and mention that I’m not writing this article to point fingers at diet experts. I want to give the truth, and the truth is that diets don’t work. They are a temporary fix with failure built right into them. The sadness lies in that we as a highly intelligent society continue to fall for the ridiculous and glorified diet trap.

The idea is to intercept the negative chain of emotions by introducing a new positive point of view instead. This pattern disruption would help redirect lifestyle choices and create environmental changes, which would ultimately result in positive sustainable outcomes. In addition, I created simple nutritional awareness strategies, such as understanding the psychology of the supermarket and combined these easy to follow strategies with moderate exercise.

Reaching Self-Management

I simply drew upon Maslow's Hierarchy, which helped lead me to creating positive momentum at each level of that Hierarchy until my client was able to develop self-management or self-actualization. The levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy from the bottom up are physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, which is the goal for self-management.

Yet, I still needed to address my client's 'why' or reason for whatever or whoever brought him to this point. I wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t become triggered in the future long after he and I went our separate ways. He might have chosen a habit other than food to suppress his negative emotions. I felt that in order to create a sustainable resolution, I had to have him resolve the trigger that brought him to obesity because it would be very difficult for him to make the needed small consistent changes within his daily eating behaviors if this emotional trigger were to resurface in the future.

Making small changes

Small, consistent behavioral changes can lead to a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.

"Making small easy changes to our eating habits on a consistent basis can lead to sustainable weight loss. The challenge lies in figuring out which changes work for each individual and how to stick with them long enough to make them second nature.

Small behavioral steps performed on a consistent basis, can lead to sustainable weight loss.

Figuring out your 'why,' disrupting negative patterns, and making small consistent behavior changes is a crucial step towards creating long-term and healthy-lifestyle outcomes.

The Diet Expert Era of "The Soap Box"

These days anyone can be a diet expert by simply posting highly appealing pictures of food, exercises or your gluteus maximus and 'bam!” You are a diet expert! We have seen this throughout all media fronts including YouTube, Reality TV, and Social Media Platforms. People with minimal knowledge and a great smile become highly "liked."

The whole dieting paradigm is false. Diets are temporary with failure built right into them. Yet, the marketing of diet solutions essentially lies to you, with the promise of "you are going to look sexy and be cool if you follow this plan."

How come these social media experts never address behavioral, neurological or hormonal changes when it comes to sustainable weight-loss? Why are we not educating the public about nutritional awareness and making small improvements with moderate exercise? Because these answers, though crucial to success, are not "sexy." They’re not attractive enough at face value to sell. The simple fact is that the diet industry can make more money off the public if they can keep them coming back. So failure has to be built into every plan.

Miseducated Equals Misguided

I want to put my two cents in right here.

Every time I read about gluten-free diets, an expert comes into the conversation to tell you "that you don't have to be on a gluten-free diet," only 1% of those people need a gluten-free diet. Yes, that's true, 1% do need a gluten-free diet for medical reasons, but the processed or enriched wheat that the rest of us are eating isn't good for your health and no one says anything about that. It's not that it could kill you because it won't, but enriched wheat will spike blood sugar levels the same as sugar and in most cases is worse than sugar. There is nothing wrong with gluten, but there is something wrong with enriched wheat and if we can substitute products to avoid enriched flour, that would be a good thing for your health. Many people know this and the easiest way to avoid enriched flour is to buy products that are gluten-free and that's why they are very popular.

Let's Go Food Shopping

The grocery store is set up to have you spend money on food that you do not need. They aim to have you eat from a box, while you live in a box, so you can keep visiting your doctor in a box, telling him/her all about your illnesses that will eventually lead you to dying and being placed in a box. And why you might ask. All for the sake of making money.

Weight Loss Tips

To help find your way to successful weight loss, follow these simple tips:

Focus on small consistent behavioral steps.

Surround yourself with friends and loved ones who support your journey.

Understand that what the food and beverage labels really mean.

Realize that what people say on social media may not always be the truth.

Diets and exercise programs have failure already built into them and will send you down a path to more failure, so don’t fall victim to these typical ploys.

Give you body a break and stop judging yourself by your weight.

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