{"id":88274,"date":"2022-06-14T08:47:54","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T16:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/?p=88274"},"modified":"2022-06-27T10:55:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T18:55:13","slug":"five-reasons-why-restrictive-diets-do-more-harm-than-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/five-reasons-why-restrictive-diets-do-more-harm-than-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Reasons Why Restrictive Diets Do More Harm Than Good"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you\u2019re anything like the vast majority of the population, you started this year with one of these goals as a top priority: \u201cget in shape\u201d, \u201close weight\u201d, \u201cget fit\u201d or \u201cget healthy\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get it. For the longest time my Januarys started with a rigid healthy eating plan to get back in shape <\/em>and lose the holiday bulge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having tried almost every diet imaginable, it\u2019s clear that most diets we follow do one of two things, they either restrict calories or restrict food groups. Even so-called it\u2019s not a diet but a lifestyles <\/em>are still a diet because you cut the amount of food, or food groups (despite the marketing suggesting they aren\u2019t diets).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diets \u201cwork\u201d in the short term because in one way or another you are reducing the amount you eat. Whether that\u2019s through counting calories or macros, limiting the time period in which you can eat, cutting out carbs or sugar, or \u201celimination\u201d diets. When you are eating less, the idea is that you will lose weight<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for the most part we do, at least to begin with… Research shows<\/a> that during the first six months of any diet (be it calorie counting or cutting carbs), the vast majority of people lose around 5-10% of their body weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far so good\u2026 but there\u2019s a dark side that people just don\u2019t talk about. In the long-run, restrictive diets actually do you more harm than good and here\u2019s five reasons why…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#1 Diets don\u2019t work.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know, I literally just told you that diets \u201cwork\u201d in the first six months. But what about afterwards?  What about after 2 years or 5 years?  After all, if you start every January wanting to get back in shape and lose the holiday bulge, surely it would make sense to find a diet that works – for good – <\/em>so that you never have to start again the following January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stats vary from study to study, but we can pretty confidently say that diets fail in about 80-95% of cases<\/a> when participants are followed on their diets for longer than 6 months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a pretty high failure rate when you think about it – imagine popping into a shop to buy an appliance and the store owner telling you that there\u2019s a high chance (80-95%) that the appliance will fail after 6 months? You just wouldn\u2019t buy it, would you?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

#2 Diets are the biggest predictor of weight gain.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously. Going on a diet is the biggest predictor of gaining weight in the long run. It\u2019s wild to think that we go on diets to lose weight, but actually we\u2019re more likely to put on weight<\/em> over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same research<\/a> I shared above also shows that within 2-5 years, the vast majority of dieters have put weight back on, and in two thirds of cases are heavier than when they started. There\u2019s a lot of other research that corroborates this finding – yoyo dieting is also implicated in several negative health outcomes, including increased levels of cortisol and stress<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe restrictive diets should come with some sort of health warning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#3 The diet industry wants you to fail – over and over<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the best way to make money?  Repeat customers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\u2019s this for a great money-making exercise? Offer your customers something that fails 80-95% of the time, and when it doesn\u2019t work you blame the customer (yes, it\u2019s your fault, your willpower<\/em> is the reason it didn\u2019t work). Then, <\/em>you make the customer feel so bad that they try a slightly different product, but this has an equally high failure rate and so your customer starts the diet-fail-repeat cycle over again. All the while you blame the customer when they fail, over and over again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a GREAT way to make money (hence, multi-billion dollar industry), but terrible for your self-esteem, self-worth and feelings of failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#4 Diets mess with your biology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diets mess with your hunger hormones<\/a>. When humans face a famine (i.e. diet), they are biologically programmed to stay within a certain weight range (that\u2019s called set-point theory), so your body does everything in its power to prevent you from losing too much weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the cleverest things your body does during a famine\/diet, is make you feel more hungry by stimulating hunger hormones, and also makes it harder for you to feel full by down-regulating your fullness hormones. It\u2019s exactly why you have an insatiable appetite when you are on a diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#5 Diets are a big predictor of eating disorders.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may have been on several diets and it\u2019s never messed with your relationship with food. That\u2019s awesome and I\u2019m so glad that\u2019s the case. However, in many instances, diets create a very negative relationship with food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a very fine line between diets and disordered eating. If you examine diets closely you\u2019ll see that many of the recommendations are disordered – such as low calorie diets (1200 calories is less than the calorie needs of a toddler) and intermittent fasting which is really just skipping meals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the National Eating Disorders Association suggests that diets are a precursor to eating disorders<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, you may be wondering then, if restrictive diets don\u2019t work and are bad for your health, what can we do instead to \u201cget healthy\u201d? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are officially ready to give up dieting, you can focus instead on health promoting behaviours <\/em>that are related to long-term positive health outcomes (weight isn\u2019t a behaviour). These include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n