How to Screw Up Your Diet in One Second
Naweko San-Joyz
February 08, 2007
It’s all about mindset. One second you are losing weight and in a blink, you’ve reverted to the Porky-the-Pig patterns that caused your weight gain in the first place. How does a sensible weight loss plan that seems so easy- eat less, exercise more- spiral into the complexity of astro-physics when we try to make this formula work in real life?
For years the journal Sports Medicine, has queried the validity of the statement, “exercise more, eat less, lose weight”. This past January, the publication issued a study consistent with previous findings, as it once again declared combining calorie restriction with exercise a no-brainer way to loose weight, even for obese persons.
Yet, what goes wrong in this childish equation that has pushed two-thirds of the US population to obesity?
In recent media talk, lifestyle changes have taken center stage as the crux of the weight loss struggle. But, science has already challenged that theory.
Just this past October a studied entitled, “One year follow-up of overweight and obese hypertensive adults following intensive lifestyle therapy” was published in the Journal of Human Nutrition & Dietetics. In all, 42 participants from Maryland completed the study. In randomized groups, some participants received an intensive two-month program on lifestyle modification while the other group was just monitored.
Surprisingly, during the one year study, 95% of the lifestyle intervention group and just 52% of the monitoring group gained weight from by end of the study. What? Lifestyle interventions made people fatter!
Lifestyle changes are essential for weight loss. Yet, the fight against obesity in the US remains dilapidated because we continue to occlude the enormous power of the mind in dieting. A recent study in Eating Disorders illustrates this point.
In 2006, researchers asked male and female college students, “Are you currently on a diet to lose weight?” and, “Are you currently on a diet to maintain your weight?”
Next, study participants were asked to describe what weight control methods they used to either lose weight or to maintain their weight. The researchers found that women and men who diet to lose weight engage in a wider variety of weight-loss behaviors than those engaged in dieting to maintain weight.
In short, people do more to lose weight, than they do to maintain their weight.
Taking this study one step further simply means that when people get complacent with their weight, it is easy to imagine that homeostasis will set in and allow them to keep the weight off without doing anything extra.
Notwithstanding, this study does not bind us to forever distain our weight but to more realistically view the body as it is; a dynamic entity that does not maintain a homeostatic weight. In short, if you lose the “dieting mentality”, you gain weight because you essentially divorce the habits that helped you to lose weight in the first place.
Once you lose the weight, that’s not the end. The body’s natural tendency is to get fatter, not skinnier. So, the mindset for losing weight and keeping it off is about continuing to do all of the activities that led to the weight loss in the first place.
It only takes a second to screw up your diet if you say, “OK, I’m done, I lost the weight I wanted to lose,” and then revert to your old eating and exercising habits.
We make decisions in a split second. Likewise, you can make decisions to screw up your diet in a split second. “No, I don’t have time to exercise today.” “No, I can eat this pie and make it up later.”
Dieting mentality decision making is critical for successful weightloss. As Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Applied Economics at Cornell, observed, "So many food decisions are made on mindless autopilot." Take you mind off autopilot, or more appropriately, “auto-fat” and make decisions that are in line with staying slim.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick tock.” Where is your waistline going this second?
For years the journal Sports Medicine, has queried the validity of the statement, “exercise more, eat less, lose weight”. This past January, the publication issued a study consistent with previous findings, as it once again declared combining calorie restriction with exercise a no-brainer way to loose weight, even for obese persons.
Yet, what goes wrong in this childish equation that has pushed two-thirds of the US population to obesity?
In recent media talk, lifestyle changes have taken center stage as the crux of the weight loss struggle. But, science has already challenged that theory.
Just this past October a studied entitled, “One year follow-up of overweight and obese hypertensive adults following intensive lifestyle therapy” was published in the Journal of Human Nutrition & Dietetics. In all, 42 participants from Maryland completed the study. In randomized groups, some participants received an intensive two-month program on lifestyle modification while the other group was just monitored.
Surprisingly, during the one year study, 95% of the lifestyle intervention group and just 52% of the monitoring group gained weight from by end of the study. What? Lifestyle interventions made people fatter!
Lifestyle changes are essential for weight loss. Yet, the fight against obesity in the US remains dilapidated because we continue to occlude the enormous power of the mind in dieting. A recent study in Eating Disorders illustrates this point.
In 2006, researchers asked male and female college students, “Are you currently on a diet to lose weight?” and, “Are you currently on a diet to maintain your weight?”
Next, study participants were asked to describe what weight control methods they used to either lose weight or to maintain their weight. The researchers found that women and men who diet to lose weight engage in a wider variety of weight-loss behaviors than those engaged in dieting to maintain weight.
In short, people do more to lose weight, than they do to maintain their weight.
Taking this study one step further simply means that when people get complacent with their weight, it is easy to imagine that homeostasis will set in and allow them to keep the weight off without doing anything extra.
Notwithstanding, this study does not bind us to forever distain our weight but to more realistically view the body as it is; a dynamic entity that does not maintain a homeostatic weight. In short, if you lose the “dieting mentality”, you gain weight because you essentially divorce the habits that helped you to lose weight in the first place.
Once you lose the weight, that’s not the end. The body’s natural tendency is to get fatter, not skinnier. So, the mindset for losing weight and keeping it off is about continuing to do all of the activities that led to the weight loss in the first place.
It only takes a second to screw up your diet if you say, “OK, I’m done, I lost the weight I wanted to lose,” and then revert to your old eating and exercising habits.
We make decisions in a split second. Likewise, you can make decisions to screw up your diet in a split second. “No, I don’t have time to exercise today.” “No, I can eat this pie and make it up later.”
Dieting mentality decision making is critical for successful weightloss. As Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Applied Economics at Cornell, observed, "So many food decisions are made on mindless autopilot." Take you mind off autopilot, or more appropriately, “auto-fat” and make decisions that are in line with staying slim.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick tock.” Where is your waistline going this second?
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