Diets and repeated dieting.

 Last week I gave a talk at Whole Foods in Kensington, London. The talk had originally been billed as being about ‘Supereating’ and how to incorporate this into a day to day diet. You may be aware that Supereating is a guide to pairing or combining foods so that the inherent nutrients work together in a synergistic manner. For example, the absorption of zinc can be enhanced by B6, so if you were looking to increase your zinc levels, rather than head to the health food store and buy a bottle of pills, you can eat zinc-rich foods ( such as oysters or poultry ) but have a piece of wholemeal bread too. So a chicken sandwich may be ideal. Less than 10 people signed up for the talk, which may seem like a small number but it’s a new topic and I am not a celebrity so its quite normal.

However, on changing the subject of the talk to ‘Healthy Weight Management’ all at once some 47 people signed up. Now this may be because the talk was imminent which encouraged people to express an interest. My personal status hadn’t changed, I wasn’t on the cover of Heat magazine ( Celebrity Big Brother can lay claim to that honour for the next couple of weeks ), my new single isn’t due out nor is my latest novel/movie/television show, so why the sudden increase in numbers?

It seems obvious that despite our best intentions, losing weight remains the most popular topic when it comes to nutrition. Interestingly, amongst the 47 people who came along to the talk, I didn’t notice anyone who one would term as ‘fat’, so why the interest?  

Seeing as the audience had an interest in weight loss I asked how many people had ever been on a diet. Needless to say most if not all had. Then I asked how many people had dieted more than 5 times, and several people indicated that they had indeed followed five or more diets.

But if a diet works, then why would we need to diet again? The answer may be simple, but diet’s don’t work in the long term. In isolation they do, of course they do, as they give us a template ( be it strict or otherwise ) but as soon as they are over, what then? Having sensed possible famine, the metabolic rate can change to meet the new input of calories, much like learning to get by on a reduced salary. Your metabolic rate has no idea ( nor does it care ) whether you have decided to lose some weight because you are going to a wedding and want to look slim in front of the family, nor if you let yourself go over Christmas because you deserved it. It simply reacts to how much energy you take in and how much you expend. Therefore diets and dieting can vastly increase the chances that you will have to diet again. And again.

My advice for anyone who wants to avoid this miserable cycle of weight loss and weight gain, boom or bust, feast or famine, is don’t diet, learn how to eat instead.