So you want to lose weight…
But you’ve heard that diets don’t work.
And now you’re feeling torn, conflicted, confused.
If diets don’t work, what the hell does work?
You’re terrified of how much weight you will gain if you let yourself eat whatever you please. But you’re equally scared of the idea that you’re doomed to eat rabbit food for eternity if you ever hope to get your weight under control.
The prospects aren’t looking good so far… It feels like it’s either go on another diet, or give up on controlling your weight entirely. But you know that neither of these options are ideal.
If only there was a way to lose weight without having to force yourself on another diet, without spending your days running on a treadmill, or having to give up your entire social life…
You bet there is! And if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve certainly come to the right place.
Losing weight without going on another diet is like the hidden treasure of the weight loss world, and I’m about to show you the map.
Today I’m going to share with you:
- The real reason traditional weight loss diets don’t work
- Why the other extreme (anti-weight loss) isn’t helpful either
- How you can start losing weight for good, without self-loathing or diets (I’m giving you concrete steps here!)
Why people think diets still work (and the truth of why they don’t)
Diets feel exciting in the beginning. They shout grand promises that our lives will change dramatically in just a few weeks or months, if only we follow the rules. It feels doable in the beginning when excitement and motivation is high. We start to feel like things are really changing, like we could really do it this time…
But then life happens. Your anxiety flares up. Your boss demands something extra from you. You fight with your partner. Your kids get sick. A worldwide pandemic is thrust upon you…
And now you’re hanging onto the darn diet by a microscopic thread.
You’re desperately trying to force yourself to follow it… until you finally cave and eat everything in sight. You tell yourself you’ll just start again on Monday. You should be able to do better. You violently curse your sweet tooth. You cringe at your lack of willpower. You feel endlessly frustrated at your blatant lack of discipline…Maybe you should just eat less this week? Or maybe the answer is to go for a few extra runs?
Stop!! (If you’ve felt this way, I totally feel you. But I promise, you’re not the problem – it’s the diet.)
The thing with diets is that they never solve the real problem. (The real problem is much deeper than the weight on the scale.)
Diets are so persistent and still well-recommended because they give you results initially, if you follow it. If you continue to follow the rules, you do continue to get results. On the surface, it seems logical. Diets are sneaky that way.
So you force yourself a little bit more. You keep tasty foods out of the house because you don’t trust yourself. You eat when you’re supposed to, and only eat what you’re supposed to…
This works for a while, until life happens again, and you’re forced to deal with the problems you still have, despite how the diet promised your life would change.
When it all comes crashing down, so do you. Another failed diet on your record.
Diets create this environment where all our faith and trust is put in the diet, and we’re expected to bend the knee, and do what we’re told, as long as possible. Eventually we stop trusting ourselves completely, and hope another diet will ride in on a white horse to save us from ourselves.
Diets tell us what to eat, and they tell us what time to eat, and they’re very good at telling us we aren’t working hard enough…yet they never teach us how to eat. They never teach us the very important life skill of being able to stare the most delicious food in the face, and feel completely in control.
So we continue eating our problems, we lose sight of our true hunger signals, we desperately search for healthy snacks and shakes that will save us from eating cheese and crackers at 4pm, or from downing a bowl of ice cream at 8pm. We don’t trust ourselves around any food that tastes good.
And because we still have these little habits of overeating, and a general lack of trust in ourselves, as soon as there is tasty food in front of us, we lose all control and prove ourselves right.
We don’t know how to listen to our bodies. We don’t know what a positive relationship with food OR ourselves feels like. And we don’t know how the hell to enjoy our lives without food. Therefore we’ll always be at the mercy of shitty diets.
If diets don’t work, does that mean I should stop trying to lose weight?
The short answer is no, but it also depends on what you want for yourself. Let me explain.
An argument I’ve been hearing a lot lately is the idea that “diets don’t work, and weight loss requires dieting and suffering, and you must hate your body if you want to lose weight, therefore weight loss is harmful.”
I propose an alternative view.
Restrictive diets that require an entire lifestyle-overhaul with zero personalisation are harmful. Losing weight by jumping in a 4-week-challenge rocket ship propelled by self-loathing and destination addiction, is harmful.
What people forget is that suffering and self-loathing is not the only way to lose weight.
In fact, it’s not even a slightly effective way to lose weight at all (if keeping that weight off and enjoying your life is high on your priority list, that is.)
Just because most people have done something one way for years, doesn’t mean it’s the only (or best) way to do it.
Simply saying that weight loss is always harmful is keeping many people stuck, and it’s not solving the problem. This idea kept me stuck for many years, too. I almost felt guilty for wanting better for myself.
A true weight loss journey isn’t just about the number on the scale, and it’s certainly not about becoming better or happier once you lose the weight. It’s the journey where the magic happens, not the destination. It’s about getting to know yourself. It’s about acknowledging, and facing, then overcoming, your eating habits, your reliance on food, your poor self-talk, your lack of self-trust, and your avoidance of the real work.
When you embark on this journey, and consciously choose to look after yourself because you’re worth it, you will finally achieve the result that you’ve been looking for (the life you’re looking for, not necessarily a number).
Too many people give up on the entire journey when they give up on the idea that weight loss is possible. They start to tell themselves that they gave up because after years of diets, they’ve decided weight loss is not possible for them, which is rarely true (it was the forced deprivation and the negative self-talk, not the act of losing weight, that was the problem.)
I’m not saying everyone should want to lose weight, rather I’m saying that you deserve to make that choice for yourself based on correct information. Not just because someone convinced you weight loss was harmful or impossible to do in a healthy, non-obsessive way.
So, what’s the alternative to dieting for weight loss?
The alternative approach to weight loss, and in my opinion the most effective approach, is to get to the root cause of the weight struggle.
The surface cause of any weight struggle, on a basic scientific level, is overeating.
Overeating, of course, is relative to the individual. It means taking in more food than your body needs to keep you alive and support your activity level.
The act of overeating is often misunderstood. It’s not just sitting on the couch with bags of chips and chocolate surrounding you. Often it’s just eating an amount of food that most would consider “normal”, but that happens to be more than you physically need.
So if the surface cause of weight gain is overeating, the root cause is the reason WHY we overeat in the first place. And the answer to that usually comes down to our feelings, and what we think about them (and subsequently, how we respond to them).
As humans, we all have coping mechanisms that we use to numb out and avoid uncomfortable emotions. For some of us it’s shopping, or scrolling social media, or drinking wine. For many, it’s food.
Avoiding uncomfortable emotion is why we tend to eat more when we feel tired, or crave sweets when we feel stressed. It’s why we want to snack at 3 or 4pm, and why we want something extra at 8pm when the day is winding down. It’s also why we keep eating past the point of feeling full when food tastes delicious (sometimes to the point of needing to unbutton pants or getting stomach pain).
This need to eat (or keep eating), as well as the want to eat when not physically hungry, is driven by our thoughts about our emotions.
In order for us to fully experience life, be our best selves, and achieve a level of fulfilment in ourselves, we need to address the way we process our emotions – and address the way we think about our emotions and about food.
If food is one of your coping mechanisms, you’ll most likely lose weight when you learn how to deal with uncomfortable emotions without food. But it’s not the weight loss that will change your life, it’s the freedom you’ll feel when you aren’t afraid to face your emotions head on, and the freedom that comes with knowing you’re in control around any type of food.
This is why weight loss isn’t just about physical change, it’s about emotional change. It’s about changing the way we think.
Diets don’t address this emotional component, which is also why diets and meal plans rarely work well long-term.
You’ll know you’ve mastered the emotional component when:
- You can confidently eat any type of food, at any time of the day, without fear of overeating or gaining weight
- You can say “no” to food offered by others, without feeling left out or rude
- You can make a food plan for yourself for the day, and follow through on that plan no matter what comes up
- You can eat out at restaurants, get take away, and eat with friends/family without overeating (while still enjoying yourself!)
- You know how to deal with uncomfortable feelings without eating or drinking
- Losing weight no longer feels mysterious, impossible, or like a battlefield
- You feel confident and in control of your body, and your life
If you told me I could achieve all of this a few years ago, I would have pushed back because I had no idea how. It took me many years to learn that all of this was possible, because the approach to get there is so different to most typical diets and weight loss programs.
This new approach involves re-learning your natural hunger and fullness cues, and learning how to trust your own body again. It involves noticing your thoughts and feelings, and consciously choosing how to respond.
Most of us are so used to just following a diet plan someone else gives us. We feel like it would all go to hell if we had to choose for ourselves. But when you learn how to manage your thoughts and trust yourself again, you’ll see what I’m talking about – you’ll start naturally making better decisions for yourself.
And you deserve to trust yourself and your body.
Of course, it’s a process and it doesn’t happen overnight. But it’s very doable for all of us, if we’re willing to put in the work.
Battle of the brains (logic vs. emotion)
Now let’s talk about some concrete steps – how can you start living as the best version of yourself without relying on diets or gimmicky plans?
Most of us live on autopilot, and we sure as hell eat on autopilot.
This is thanks to our subconscious, or emotional, brain. Our emotional brain drives all our automatic habits, with the goal to make our life easier without us having to think too much. It’s designed to react in a way that will keep us alive and safe.
The other part of our brain, the conscious or logical brain, is the driver of decision making and planning. This is our thinking brain, and it’s the part of our brain that can think beyond our basic instincts and make decisions with our future selves in mind.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt uses a great metaphor that illustrates exactly how these two parts of our brain work together – the elephant and the rider. Chip and Dan Heath also use a slightly edited version of this metaphor in their book ‘Switch’.
Picture a human rider holding a whip, sitting on an elephant.
The elephant represents our emotional brain. The rider represents our logical brain.
The rider wants the elephant to move in a certain direction. The rider can whip the elephant and try to force it to move where it wants to using fear and pain, but the elephant ultimately has the final say. The elephant will likely comply for a bit, but when the rider gets tired and lets their guard down, the elephant will probably do what it wants, and the rider won’t be able to stop it.
Our logical brain can only control the emotional brain for so long. When we get tired, our emotional brain takes over (often without us consciously being aware of what’s happening).
What we want to do is get the logical brain working WITH the emotional brain.
In the metaphor of the elephant and the rider, there are three main requirements for the elephant and the rider to arrive at the intended destination:
- Awareness of the situation.
The rider first needs to be aware of the general direction they need to head in to get where they want to go (like a map). The rider also needs to be aware of the needs of the elephant – what it responds to, what it doesn’t like, what keeps it happy. The rider needs to be willing to make changes to accommodate the elephant’s changing needs. This is like you being aware of your goals, the best way to get there from the position you are currently in, and also what adjustments you might need to make along the way to keep you on track. - Treat the elephant with kindness and respect.
If the elephant feels scared or threatened, it’s highly likely to run off on a rampage where the rider would lose control completely. Treating the elephant with kindness and respect is like YOU treating yourself with kindness and respect. It’s reminding yourself that you’re willing to figure it out, it’s learning from setbacks instead of quitting, it’s choosing doable actions instead of hardcore challenges, it’s listening to your body instead of forcing it to comply with someone else’s rules. - Build a path to minimise obstacles on the journey.
If an elephant is following a path, it’s going to be much easier to keep it going in the right direction and get to the destination sooner. The path you build is like your environment – it’s getting a coach, it’s finding a plan that works for you, it’s keeping your journal in a place where you’ll see it, it’s stocking up your kitchen with fruit & veg, it’s scheduling exercise time. All of these things are you planning ahead to set yourself up for success when you’re not on your A-game.
These are the three requirements for lasting change.
Most diets don’t work because they entirely skip the first and second (and arguably most important) requirements for lasting change. Skipping these steps looks a little like:
- Focusing all of our time and energy on what foods we should or shouldn’t be eating, yet we can’t seem to stop wanting those foods that are on the “naughty” list.
- Focusing on our guilt and shame after we eat something from that naughty list, but at the same time, we’re torn because we feel like we deserve to treat ourselves (and it tasted so good!)
- Being unable to control our cravings, and finding ourselves giving in to what we want in the moment.
- Realising we ate wayyy too fast and past the point of being full because we’re now feeling bloated, sluggish, and in pain.
- Beating ourselves up when we don’t see the results we think we should see
Getting our logical and emotional brains on the same page is how we avoid the above problems, and instead make changes that are sustainable – changes that feel good.
How to start losing weight without ever dieting again
The first step is to build the skill of awareness, particularly when eating. All the other things can’t happen if we aren’t aware of our current thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how they all influence each other.
Too many of us sit back and wonder why we aren’t seeing results. The answer always lies with our current thoughts, feelings, and habits. If we aren’t seeing results, something needs to change.
As we discussed earlier, weight loss happens when we eat less food than our body needs to sustain its current activity level. We can influence this without changing what we eat at all. Simply listening to our natural hunger signals and being aware of our eating habits is all it takes. (Yes, really!!)
Your body is literally telling you how much food it needs, you just need to stop and listen.
Wondering what this looks like in practice? Usually it starts with questioning what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it. The simple act of questioning yourself before you eat makes this behaviour intentional instead of automatic – a huge step towards your goals.
Here are a few awareness questions to ask yourself before you start eating:
- Am I really hungry?
- If the answer is no, why do I want to eat this? (Consider how you feel right now and what thoughts are going through your head)
- Based on my previous answers, do I still choose to eat right now? (Whether you choose to continue eating or not is totally up to you – there’s no right or wrong! It’s now a conscious decision which changes the whole experience, regardless of what the food is you’re about to eat.)
While you’re eating, stop half way through your meal and ask yourself:
- Based on how I physically feel right now, have I had enough to eat?
- What thoughts are coming up when I think about stopping right now?
- Do I want to stop or continue eating?
This is how we bring awareness to the act of eating. And weight loss happens when we are living and eating intentionally, and listening to what our body wants and needs.
Asking yourself these questions, knowing there is no right or wrong answer, allows you to jump back in the driver’s seat of your own life. This is important because most of us are so used to letting other people make these decisions for us – the diets, the meal plans, the trainers.
This is the stuff that diets will never teach you, because they are too focused on specific foods.
When you eat with intentional awareness, it doesn’t matter what food is in front of you. You will enjoy the food more, and be more likely to eat less of it, because it is a conscious choice instead of an automatic reaction. Your elephant and rider are in harmony, and happily trotting along the path to success. This is also how you start to rebuild trust with yourself, which is the key to making this last long-term.
I know this might sound too good to be true, especially if you are like me and have been dieting on and off for years. Most of us avoid this work because it requires us to face what we’ve been avoiding for so long – our own thoughts and feelings. It’s much easier to jump on another meal plan or challenge and have someone tell you what to eat.
You don’t need anyone else to tell you what to eat to lose weight. You don’t need another diet. You are more than capable of making food decisions for yourself.
Diets and challenges have proven over and over again to be ineffective long-term. If they worked, you would not be here reading this right now. It’s time to try something new. It’s time to choose better for yourself.
