One hundred and thirty-five.

Is that the most biscuits I’ve eaten in one sitting? Might be close, but no, it’s not that.

The number of times I’ve watched Dirty Dancing? No, not nearly enough.

How many cups of tea I consume in a week? Possible…

But no.

One hundred and thirty-five is the approximate number of diets I started between the ages of 20 and 45.

To show my workings here, if I started a new diet roughly every 2 months (allowing for 3 weeks of diet, 5 weeks of failure-induced despair) and kept that up from 1996 to 2021, then minus time spent being pregnant or a new mum (about 2.5 years), we get to this frankly ridiculous number.

That means one hundred and thirty-five times of starting again on Monday, of clearing the treats out of the house, of stocking up on SlimFast/mushrooms/low-calorie everything.

One hundred and thirty-five times of being hungry, tired and irritable.

One hundred and thirty-five times of missing out, giving up, feeling like a failure, blaming myself (“If only I had more willpower”), of looking for the next solution that might just work.

And that is one hundred and thirty-five times too many.

Until, finally, the realisation dawned that it’s not me, it’s them.

Why diets don’t work

It’s the diets that were keeping me stuck in this exhausting loop, leaving me sad, confused, ashamed and sick of the sight of grilled tomatoes. Their success as business enterprises depended on my inability to stick to them for long enough to reach my goal. I’d suffer the rules, restrictions and weird foods for as long as I could, then fall off the misery wagon in spectacular style before grabbing the next dangled diet carrot with both hungry hands and doing it all over again. 

One hundred and thirty-five times.

That is not ok. Not for me, not for you.

But what’s the alternative? How can you lose weight without going on a traditional diet?

This is what I learnt at the grand old age of 45.

You can change what you eat and, crucially, why you eat.

So, how can you lose weight without dieting?

You can nourish your body with great food and still shed the pounds. It’s possible to make simple, small changes to your habits that make you feel better and let you manage your emotions without using food. Over time, you can learn to trust yourself to make choices that work for you, and not be held back by complicated plans, very low calorie meals or nonsense systems that leave you confused and second-guessing yourself.

And you can stick two fingers up to Big Diet for making you doubt yourself and for letting fear and failure feel like a default setting.

Go on, I dare you, get angry. Ditch the diets and find a better way to be happy with your weight.

That’s what 1:1 Nutrition Coaching is here for, whenever you’re ready.