Why do you keep dieting?

For around 25 years, I bounced from one diet to the next, stuck in a cycle of weight loss and weight gain. Whichever diet I chose, I could keep it up for a couple of weeks or months at best, before giving up and moving on to the next one. I always felt like I was doing something wrong: surely, it shouldn’t be that hard to maintain a steady weight?

The yo-yo cycle

In a way, I was always doing something wrong. By continually searching for the magic wand of weight loss, I just kept repeating the same behaviour pattern. Start diet, lose 4lb, get bored and hungry, give up, regain 6lb. Over and over and over again. The type of diet didn’t matter. Meal replacement shakes, intermittent fasting, Special K, nothing but eggs and grilled tomatoes… The cycle would begin again, several times a year, with the in-between binging episodes getting more impactful each time.

The diets promised so much. A new me, body confidence, a chance at being the unhealthy skinny that was idealised in the 90s. And each time they failed to deliver, I assumed it was my fault. If I had more willpower and if I worked harder, I too could look the way I “should”. No thought then of my natural build or how important is to be fit and strong. Nothing about nourishing myself, in fact, just the opposite with most of the weird plans I followed. I was set up to fail from the outset. And because these diets preyed on my biggest insecurities, I fell for it. Every. Single. Time.

What’s really going on with my weight?

This is the question I never thought to ask until I retrained in nutrition (better late than never).

Starting any new diet without understanding the reasons for your weight gain or taking steps to make changes to your relationship with food, makes giving up or regaining the weight almost inevitable.

As a child of the 80s and a teenager in the 90s, I took dieting to be a fact of life. It was just something women (girls?) did, reinforced by media messaging and the fat-shaming of celebrities. But when, decades later, I came to pause and reflect, I realised that dieting isn’t a default lifestyle. It’s a construct that pretends it wants us to feel better but is built around keeping us feeling rubbish.

What diet companies or diet plans have never wanted us to do is stop and think “What’s actually happening with my weight?”. What is it about my lifestyle or eating habits that has me stuck in this place that makes me miserable? Surely there must be another way.

There is (hooray!). We can step off the dieting rollercoaster, shove two fingers up at Big Diet and manage our weight without the enforced feeling of failure.

Questions to ask before your next diet

Before you start on the Next Big Thing, here are a couple of questions for you to think about:

• Do you overeat? What, when, why?
• Why does your weight bother you?
• What would be different if you were lighter?
• Is your next diet coming from a place of poor body image, low self-esteem, a need to show you have willpower and can stick to something, someone telling you you ought to?
• What is your relationship with food like? Is if for fuel, comfort, support, enjoyment? A source of anxiety, overwhelm, confusion? Does it make you happy, or miserable? Where does that come from?

There are all sorts of other things to consider, but these are a great place to start.

Lasting weight loss, comes from behaviour change and mindset development. Following a plan lasts only as long as you can follow that plan, and that’s no way to live long-term. It was only when I started to think of my own answers to these questions that I could see how dieting was never the answer. It wasn’t always easy to reflect on these things, but I felt the weight lift off my shoulders when I accepted that diets made me sad and it was time to stop.

Maybe hold off from that new diet plan for a couple of days to give yourself time to understand what’s really going on behind the scenes.

I can help you work through these questions and find a better way to manage your weight. Find out how here.

If you feel you might need extra help with your relationship with food, please seek professional support from your GP or an eating disorder specialist.