Around this time of year, diets lose steam as old habits die hard. Once that person brings donuts into the office again all bets are off. But I get it. I’m not on a diet to lose weight, but I’ve had my share of treats at the office. Treats are one thing but underconsumption has consequences, usually increased hunger, which affects our mood and energy levels, so, understandably, dieting fails.  

For those trying to lose weight, on some level, I think there are parts of dieting we can all agree on. For one, it’s hard to change eating habits for the promise of a better lifestyle in a thin body. What I’ll never agree with is that body weight is completely controllable, especially since many other variables exist. Our body reacts to everything we do to it.

If you’re losing weight and are feeling good about yourself for getting smaller, I hope that you’re not feeling deprived and forcing a big smile while your body suffers through the restrictions you’ve chosen to put on it. I hope you’re getting enough food, water, and sleep, and are managing the stressors in your life. One word of advice, try to accept yourself a little bit more in the moment.

If you’re wondering why I’m skeptical of your weight loss journey, it’s usually because the story ends with someone losing weight but goes no further. The aftermath of dieting is weight gain. The weight loss movement wants you to believe that the body’s normal reactions to deprivation are a failure.

Having an appetite isn’t your fault.

Forcing your will against nature is futile. While dieting the body will fight undereating by increasing hunger cues and turning on carbohydrate cravings. This makes sense since the body digests them first for energy and cognitive function. The body wants to maintain a stable internal environment despite changes in the external environment. So, it has nothing to do with willpower when all the body is trying to do is survive. If you understand this, it should make the promotion of weight loss, on an otherwise healthy individual, look very cruel and unempathetic.

I’ve observed significant weight increases in patients after severely restricting their eating and losing weight. They don’t understand why they lose out to binge eating. Reasons for restricting their food intake were usually anxiety-related. However, since they believed they were better at a lower weight, the weight gain was accompanied by feelings of failure, inadequacy, and depression.

Patients entering adulthood often fail to understand the changes in weight trends from high school to college. Somehow, along the way, they learned that higher body weight is unacceptable, so they had difficulty accepting their adult weight. We are all told at a young age to control our appetites and are bombarded with misinformed ways to do so. And now we have a pharmaceutically successful way to do so artificially.

Weight loss medications focus our attention on the high failure rates of dieting.

With the rising popularity of weight loss drugs, the cruelty of diet culture has accelerated. As of this blog post, the drugs are mostly available to those who can afford them.

Even the weight loss companies understand this and they’re scrambling to stay in business by offering versions of these drugs not approved by the FDA. Whatever your opinion is on this, remember there’s a company out there making money off your desire to lose body fat— a lot of money.

While looking at social media, I saw an advertisement for a high-profile weight loss company. I won’t disclose which one it is. A good or bad promotion equates to a promotion, nonetheless. Anyway, the ad promoted offerings of a compounded GLP-1 drug as part of their new and improved weight loss program. People can lose even more weight faster than ever before, blah, blah, blah. So, they thought putting sharps into the hands of untrained individuals (without diabetes) to give themselves injections using needles was a good idea, but I digress.

Then I browsed the comment section. What I found was surprising, yet it wasn’t. Most already know that weight loss is temporary. The range of responses included life-timers who started dieting again using old notes when their weight went up, those who wanted the old program said they needed the one-on-one counseling, and others who declared they were not falling for the dieting hype anymore.

Overall, the commenters were blunt about the company adding medication. One said they thought the weight loss program was great but hated the constant changes and gave up. They said it seemed like a way to make more money, “I’m over it!” Another stated they lost respect for the company when they started prescribing drugs, “Everything you preached is not true now.”

The commonality was disillusionment with a company that always promoted food modifications and exercise. With the addition of medication, it became obvious to some commenters that the old advice wasn’t working. This didn’t jive with what they thought they bought into.

Go deep on why you want to change the body you have.

If you have strong feelings of guilt and shame around your body image and food, you deserve to pause and discover what’s going on inside. Do you find yourself:

• Unable to be flexible with food availability during family gatherings or unfamiliar environments
• Following specific rigid food rules that cause you to skip a meal if it doesn’t follow the parameters
• Avoiding hunger cues after missing meals to control weight or eating large amounts of food after a period of restriction
• Spending most of the day thinking about food or your body
• Feeling so much anxiety that it is difficult to meet your nutritional needs

If your thoughts and feelings are getting in the way of the positive intentions in your life, it’s time to take heed. Some things you can do:

• Stop watching social media influencers and TV commercials about health and weight loss
• Distract yourself by doing something you’ve been putting off for a while
• Talk to someone. Find a dietitian and a therapist specializing in disordered eating. If your behavior concerns you and those around you, it’s already past the time to do something about it.

Don’t ignore the signs. Some folks can shake things off like a little weight gain while others can’t. It’s okay to ask for help if you feel you need it.

Treat yourself with kindness. Eating what you prefer, rather than following someone else’s advice can still lead to positive outcomes.

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