Why Dieting Doesn't Work

Results vary. For me, the experience of dieting was one of diminishing results. Essentially, my compulsion to eat too much, and for the wrong reasons, was made more resistant to external influences as I played at them. My issue is internal, an attitude change is what was needed, and no amount of external success could substitute.

Add to that the inherent nature of diets to be extreme examples of negative reinforcement, and I ended up in a downward spiral of ever more minor achievement. Weight Watchers is a fine example. Go in, pay money, get weighed. If you have lost weight, get ego strokes and smiles. If your weight remains the same, get pats on the shoulder and the ever popular, "You'll do better next week." And, heaven forbid your weight should go up, because there go the smiles, and eventually even the encouraging words. They will still take you money though.

There is an idea floating around the world that dieting is all about self-discipline, and that people who cannot keep to a diet are weak willed. Well, first of all, getting to 396 pounds (like I did) takes a kind of determined and steady effort that few professional athletes can match. The failing of the idea of self-discipline is the focus on the individual as inherently wired to be able to lose weight. Some of us aren't. For those truly afflicted with a compulsion to overeat to make a lasting change, an internal shift must be achieved, and that shift cannot be made from inside. It must first be directed by an external source, one that can be trusted and embraced. Discipline is key, but not self-discipline. The self is the one that got to an unhealthy weight, and left on its own will continue to follow the same patterns of behavior. A discipline given from outside must be accepted, then the self can be shifted, and then true recovery can begin.

In my opinion, for the above reason, all diets focused on following a plan are doomed to failure. For the person afflicted with true addiction to food, a shift must take place. That shift can only be made if we are given a path to follow, and work to do, and not just a schedule of when to eat and how much. The pain, and shame, that haunts us must be healed. Then our bodies can be set right.

At 192 pounds, I still have a ways to go. But, having embraced an external path I am finally making the internal changes necessary to address my condition. My days of yo-yo dieting are at an end, and my days of truly living have begun.