Why diets don't work

In my experience as a nutrition technician, many people have often asked me: "What is the best or most effective diet? Or "What diet should I follow to lose weight?" And after listening to so many stories of people who have suddenly lost weight and then put back the lost pounds (and even more), I came to the conclusion that diets not only don't work, but are very harmful in the long run, both for your health, but especially for your psyche.

Very interestingly, the word diet originally means "lifestyle, way of life".

Today, diet has come to mean, in short, "food frustration" or calorie restriction. If we were to give a more complex definition, then we can say that diets are eating plans designed to create a large caloric deficit, which is often achieved either by consuming a single food group in a single day, or by dissociated food combining, or by replacing 2 meals with protein shakes or bars. The examples go on.

As we see, diets are not designed to work in the long term. When you're happy with the image you see in the mirror, you fall back into old habits and often end up putting on more weight than before. This is the so-called yo-yo effect. This often also charges you with a certain energy of failurei, feelings of guilt may arise because you couldn't abstain from certain foods and you end up punishing yourself again by eating a different diet.

To permanently lose weight and maintain your ideal weight, it takes time and this involves a healthy lifestyle (not dieting) and of course, exercise.

Ask yourself honestly: in how many years have you accumulated those extra pounds? Is it healthy to melt those pounds in just a few weeks?

In most diets people experience the sensation of hunger, or cravings. Simply thinking about certain foods can create an unfavorable metabolic response and make it harder to lose weight. Studies show that only if we think about a certain food, the body starts to secrete the enzymes necessary to metabolize that food. Not giving the body the nutrients it needs will, over time, lead to disruption of the thyroid gland, which has the effect of lowering the metabolic rate.

One of the constant problems with diets is that they involve too few calories, which doesn't provide enough energy to exercise. No wonder dieters are often very tired.

Diets also have a negative effect on brain activity.

Because it no longer receives the same amount of energy that it is used to, the brain will slow down certain functions that are not necessary for survival. Thus: decreases memory capacity, imagination, creative thinking, mental tone is affected, depressive episodes may occur, etc.

Not in the end, diets create vitamin and mineral deficiencies that, over time, lead to all sorts of undesirable effects: hair loss, anemia, fatigue, weakened immune system, infertility etc. It's impossible to get all the nutrients your body needs on a protein-only or carbohydrate-only diet.

So the first step in losing weight healthily is, somewhat paradoxically, to abandon the idea of dieting. We must start by loving and accepting ourselves exactly as we are. And if you love your body, you certainly won't subject it to such dietary torment, which, as you have seen, dear reader, may do you more harm than good in the long run. Eat as pure and unprocessed food as possible, give your body the nutrients it needs, exercise, choose a sport you like and you will slowly but surely reach the ideal weight your body was designed to be!

Alexandra Iliuta

Wellness Advisor