"Diets don't work for me."

 

TTTT: “Diets don’t work for me.”

Truth:  Diets don’t work for anyone, lifestyle changes do.

 

I don’t recall ever saying this one out loud.  I reserved this one exclusively for the internal dialogue because, even back then, I knew it was a lie.  Verbally lying to someone else is a sin, but somehow lying to myself felt less dramatic. 

I told myself that diets (plural) didn’t work for me, but I had made a respectable effort on only one (singular) diet.  It WAS working. 
…It was also working for Matt (my husband).  It worked better for him than it did for me.  I fell victim to the comparison trap and I quit.

I said it didn’t work for me.  But it did work.  It worked better for him, and I used the relative comparison to convince myself that it wasn’t working for me.

Many of us are susceptible to this.  Maybe it is working but it’s not working as well for us as it did for someone else.  Or, more commonly, it’s not working as quickly as we expected.  Comparing ourselves to someone else’s results or the results we hoped to get causes us to become frustrated and discouraged.  Then, we quit and say it wasn’t working. 

We live in a culture of instant gratification, and it causes us to have unrealistic expectations about our weight loss.  Most of us don’t have the mental framework to embark on a project that we know will take a minimum of 12 months to complete.  Our attention spans are getting shorter by the day, and we don’t have the skill set to enter into a long-term war for our health.

The connotation of the term “diet” sets us up for failure.  When we talk about “going on a diet” or “trying a new diet,” we’re establishing upfront that this is a short-term effort.  We tell ourselves things like- “I’m going to do this diet for six weeks and lose twenty pounds.”  This is usually followed by a then statement… “then I’ll be at my goal weight,” “then I’ll have my swimsuit body,” “then I’ll look good in the vacation photos,” “then…

What we’re actually thinking is… “THEN I’ll go back to eating whatever I want.”

This is why “diets” don’t work anyone.  If it does work and you do lose weight, but you return back to eating as you did before, then your weight will return back to the number it was before.  After the weight re-appears, we believe that the diet didn’t work.  The cause and effect seems obvious, but if you’re struggling with this lie, I want to encourage you to shift your mindset…

There is more than one definition of “diet.”  It can refer to a short-term effort OR it can refer to what you habitually eat.  If you want long-term results, you have to forsake the short-term definition, this is a mindset change.  If you want results that last, you have to change what you habitually eat, this is a lifestyle change. 

As long as you’re viewing your diet as a short-term initiative, you’ll keep coming up disappointed.  You’ll keep getting discouraged and keep quitting. 

The New Mindset...

1.      Think in terms of months, not days.

a.       It’s not a short-term project. 

b.      Results will not be instantaneous.

c.       You are on a war campaign.  Some weeks you will win the battles, some weeks you will lose the battles.  Keep fighting!

2.      If you’re getting zero results after 3 weeks, don’t quit- try something else.

3.      Avoid comparisons. 

a.       Your body is different, your results will be different. 

b.      What worked for them might or might not work for you, but comparing results is counterproductive.

4.      Don’t set unrealistic goals tied to numbers.  Let progress be THE goal.  Focus on progress, celebrate progress. 

5.      Burn the ships!

a.       There is no going back.

b.      Keep being intentional about what you put in your body- now and forever. 

Summary-

“Diets” don’t work for anyone for 2 reasons:

•  We have unrealistic expectations for results
• We go back to eating what we did before

Diets don’t work for anyone.  Lifestyle changes do. 

Shift your mindset.

 

As always, please let me know if there is anything I can do to encourage you in your pursuit of health.  Keep fighting!