As the writer of a popular fitness blog I get emailed almost every day by people asking what diet to use, why their diet does not work, and especially why everyone seems to gain after they stop their diet. Well the simple answer is that diets just can’t ever work.
OK, to stem the risk of seeming a little crazy (I have in fact given positive review of a couple of diets) I will expand on the simplistic so that you can know why a diet will never work and what will work.
Diets can never work because they are only temporary. How many of us have been awed by the loss of a coworker that was on Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig or Atkins? Of course after the came back on we did not congratulate them on the return of their old habits but it was in fact the old habits that came back to roost.
The life of a diet
There is always a sense of excitement when someone starts a new diet. It is like any other lifestyle change in that when we begin a diet we like to look at our perfect selves in the future instead of the warts and all that we live with now. The first few weeks on the diet are full of small victories, a pant size here, 5 pounds there and eventually we not only take pride in our loss but actually identify ourselves with losing weight. The trouble is you can not sacrifice forever and eventually you have to stop losing and oh yeah maybe the people in the office are not really asking to much about the exciting new diet anymore.
Eventually the diet ends. We have either reached a goal , stopped sacrificing or just given up. Lets for example say that the ultimate happens. You hit your goal ! Well now all of the stars have aligned and you feel great about yourself, have pride and a feeling of accomplishment and eventually go to bed. What happens tomorrow.
