Is Your Diet A Bad Idea?
God, this is effing depressing. According to researchers at UCLA, dieting is not an effective treatment for obesity.
‘You can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back. We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more’ …They discovered that it would have been better for most [dieters] if they had not gone on a diet at all. ‘Their weight would be pretty much the same, and their bodies would not suffer the wear and tear from losing weight and gaining it all back…The benefits of dieting are too small and the potential harm is too large for dieting to be recommended as a safe, effective treatment for obesity,’ “
There’s good news for those of you who enjoy the gym, though:
“Exercise may well be the key factor leading to sustained weight loss. Studies consistently find that people who reported the most exercise also had the most weight loss.”
I knew the anti-dieter was onto something. I am off to buy myself an elliptical trainer and some Ding Dongs.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Health, Science, Weight Loss
I totally agree with this statement. I diet and diet but lose next to nothing. I exercise, continue to eat large amounts of food, and I lose weight.
I’m just not consistent enough with my exercise to see long term weight loss.
It would be nice if they had defined exactly what they meant by “dieting.” I was talking about this on my blog recently and there seems to be some confusion over what that word means. I’m assuming the study refers to temporary changes in eating behavior that typically include deprivation or hunger. If that’s the case, I’m not surprised they don’t work. Whatever you’re doing you’ve got to do forever or else the weight will come back.
Every time I read a study like this, it makes me even more determined to keep the weight off just so I can piss people off. I don’t like people telling me what I can’t do.
It doesn’t look like the original study is online yet, but since it’s a review paper (meaning that the authors looked at a large number of previously published studies and compared them to get their results), they probably looked at a pretty wide variety of diets. I’ll try to find the paper when it comes out and report back.
I would agree with PastaQueen. It depends on what they mean by “diet”. I have had a lifelong problem with binge eating. As long as I tried desperately to ignore that, no “diet” ever worked. Once I started facing up to it… well, I didn’t start suddenly losing weight, it just became easier to maintain my weight without gaining. However, at that point, when I had a really strong handle on what was going on with the binging, then I went on a “diet” and lost weight and have maintained it by staying conscious of the binging issue.
Without fixing the underlying problem (binging) no diet would ever work. With that under control, *any* diet probably would have worked. Dieting alone is never a fix.
While recovering from an eating disorder, I had the epiphany that diets simply don’t work. Only a permanent change to one’s eating habits will work for sustained weight loss. Also, restricting oneself of “bad” foods only leads to binging. No food should be off-limits, but some should be consumed in moderation.
Also interesting… The Obesity Myth author Paul Campos suggests that much of the so-called health risk associated with obesity, is actually the product of dieting, rather than weight itself.
I think the article is referring mainly to “crash diets” which imply a type of eating that you’re only planning to stick with until you lose the weight. After you reach your goal you immediately go back to your old (bad) eating habits. It’s a pointless cycle if you are actually interested in your physical health instead of being able to fit into a dress for a wedding.
Making a lifelong change to your eating IS healthy and isn’t bad for you in any way. No doctor would say that you should continue to eat fast food and general crap rather than starting to eat more whole foods and healthy portions.
The reason so many people go through yo yo dieting phases is that they are looking at diet and exercise as something temporary that they can quit once they reach their goal. If you want to lose weight and keep it off the key is making lifelong changes to both your diet and exercise routine. It’s important to eat healthfully and in a way that is maintainable for you in addition to adding activity to your everyday life.
Another benefit to exercise is that – for me at least – if I’m consistently active and working out a lot, “healthy,” food is more appealing to me. I’m not sure why that is, but I’ve certainly noticed it as a pattern. I’m more likely to eat a great salad for dinner if I’m on a 6,000-calorie exercise burn for the week than I am if I’ve slacked off.
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