Lifestyle change vs. fab-diets

Hey everybody These are some of my thoughts on weightloss and the affects of fab-diets vs. Lifestyle change. Enjoy! It is my opinion that weightloss and maintaining ideal weight can only be reached by a total lifestyle change. The reason for it is simple: If someone is overweight then the excess weight is almost always caused by eating the wrong things the wrong way (there can be many emotional reasons behind the overeating, and they should be addressed also to succeed in losing weight). The solution for overweight has been to diet ever since obesity and overweight started to become problems. That means that people eat in a certain way for a limited time to lose weight, and when ideal weight is reached they start to eat the same way as they did before the diet, if they havent given up on the diet before reaching the ideal weight. To go back to the old eating habits has one outcome, they made you turn fat before the diet, so you will of course get fat again!!! All those pounds that you have struggled getting off, will come back faster then it took you to lose them. It is similar as if someone is a drunk that is trying to stop drinking. If he would turn sober for a while, it wouldnt be logical for him to start drinking again as soon as he has made himself a sober good quality life. It is the same with the food, it wouldnt be logical to start eating the way that made you fat in the first place when you have reached the idealweight, because then you end up in exactly the same place you were in when you started dieting. You have to make a decision on what you want in your life. On one hand you can choose to lose weight and gain all those positive and good things that you wish for, but then you have to change your eating habits FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!! On the other hand you can chose to give in to whatever food you are craving but then you will keep on being overweight with all the negative input it has on your life. You simply cant have it both ways, believe me, people have been trying all those years to eat whatever they like while losing weight, and I am pretty sure they have all found out that it doesnt work. I am even surer that you have also found out the hard way that it doesnt work either. Just face it, dieting dont work in the long run, so it is time to try something else that will work. Dont spend the rest of your life constantly dieting with all the struggle it involves. That has just one result: making your life utterly miserable because you wont get any results despite the hard work you put into it, and that will make you constantly feel like a loser and a failure. It really doesnt have to be boring and difficult to lose weight, you can make it so much easier for yourself with making a lifestyle change. I know I have written about this thing before, but I think this is a thing that can never be repeated enough. I have been thinking of what is behind the whole overweight-dieting issue. It seems that the western world is obsessed with the concept of weight. If someone is overweight it is seen as a very negative thing, even if that person is very healthy and productive. It is seen to be more important and positive to be very thin then to be slightly overweight and healthy. The numbers the scale shows makes or breaks peoples happiness. The weight is seen as a measurement of peoples success or failure, and it is this thought has very deep roots in the society and our mentality. Even I have this perception of weight, if it doesnt show good numbers i feel like a failure, if it shows less weight then I feel like I am on the top of the world. Even if its just a number, I use it as a measurement on my personal qualities, like I am worth more if I lose weight, and less worth if I gain weight. To be overweight in todays society makes other people automatically make a perceptions on what kind of a person you are, you become a stereotype in the eyes of other people. According to that stereotype all overweight people are lazy, lack self-control, stupid etc. Thats why it is acceptable to degrade us, tease us, discriminate us, because when people see only the stereotype in us we become in their eyes simply stereotypes, instead of persons with feelings and emotions. We are just "fatty", acceptable target that can be ridiculed at any time without breaking the societys behavior rules, because everyone thinks the same about fat people (including us!). Being fat isnt accepted in the society and we feel the constant pressure of losing weight, so we can look like "normal" people. Dont get me wrong, I know that obesity is very dangerous for the health and I dont encourage anyone to stay obese, I am just diving into this perception to see what its all about, and pointing out what pressure society puts on us for being fat. The bottom line is that nearly everyone that is fat wants to lose weight because they want to achieve the "normal, beautiful" body, become normal and accepted. Of course many obese people want to lose weight because of health issues, but even for them the weightloss is in some parts based on a appearance issue. We want to be "normal" because that is what society is demanding from us, by letting us now constantly that we are not accepted. I also think that the discussion about obesity health issues is very tainted with discrimination against fat people. Even if I cant pinpoint the proof for it, I simply feel the dislike many people have against fat people. It is the same feeling you get when people are discriminating other groups, f.ex. people of other race, people with other religious beliefs etc. If obesity or overweight would only be a health issue then why do overweight people that are very healthy feel the same discrimination and pressure to become thin. The solution that society has been putting out for overweight people (at least the last decades, it seems to be now changing gradually) to lose weight, to make the number on the scale less, is to go on a diet. Just think about all the diets that have been out there, and we are still fat!!! It is also interesting to see what most of those diets were about. There were some crazy things that were supposed to make us lose weight. All kinds of pills, band-aids, sprayes and abstinence diets. Most of them had the effect, that the body simply didnt lose weight with the method promoted because it couldnt biologically and nutritionally. They simply couldnt work because the method would never be able (unless breaking the law of nature) to make the body lose weight. But people continued to try one fab-diet after another with no results. And who did they blaim for their failure? They blamed themselves, not the diet method! So not only did all those diets not work, but they created whole generations of women (that were more overweight and miserable) that had in the end no belief in their own abilities and talents, because the failure of becoming normal according to the demands of society and not overweight, failed again and again and they are constantly blamed themselves and no other for it. Just think about all those crazy ideas that were promoted and were supposed to work. It kind of reminds me of the era of travelling salesmen in the last century that were selling their "own special blend" of "medicine" that was supposed to cure everything. Of course they didnt work at all, but people kept buying those miracles in a bottle in the same way as we keep spending money on fab-diets, believing "that one will work for sure" even though we have tried hundreds of other fab-diets before with no result. Isnt the human being a marvelous creature? I think there cant be any other such race in the universe that is better in believing in things that dont work, like we are. We think that people in the middle-ages were a bunch of crazy people that believed in ghosts and witches. I assure you we are no better then them, it is just other things we believe in, but its the same madness. I guess its just a part of being human

Hello Heidrun, I think you mean fad diets. but I do agree with your post. I think all "diets" work, for a short time. If one can eat cabbage soup or tiny servings of pre-measured food that they pay a lot of money for, for the rest of their lives, then they have it made. The problem with that is, it is impossible. People have always bought into the "quick fix" or the "overnight miracle." We have become a society of people who want it and want it now. Sadly they don't realize that their quick fixes cause more damage to their bodies then can be truly measured. Yes, a lifestyle change is truly needed in order for a MO person to regain their lives. A MO or SMO obese person got to their weight for a reason. Simple diets cannot do the trick. To have over 100 pounds to lose is an overwhelming concept. To choose a fad diet, or a quick fix, is only going to hurt them in the long run. I think though that many people did blame the diet. A lot of people state that they got to be 100, 200 or 300 pounds overweight because "diets failed them." My belief is now, and always has been, to be completely honest with yourself before taking drastic measures. If you truly know that you haven't stayed on a diet for more than a week, or even a few months, then you haven't tried hard enough. If someone can say they have definitely done so, then they will have it licked. Lifestyle changes are needed to dramatically change ones outcome. If one adopted a lifestyle change along with a food plan, then they can't help but achieve their goals. Thank you for the post, it was very well written and right on the money. Donna

Amen! I keep trying to tell people what you stated below but no one else seems to get it! It drives me nuts! The solution for overweight has been to diet ever since obesity and overweight started to become problems. That means that people eat in a certain way for a limited time to lose weight, and when ideal weight is reached they start to eat the same way as they did before the diet, if they havent given up on the diet before reaching the ideal weight. To go back to the old eating habits has one outcome, they made you turn fat before the diet, so you will of course get fat again!!!