There’s an extremely viscous mental disease running rampant through the ranks of folks trying to get in shape.
It’s not a disease that will kill you. Not physically, at least.
But it’s one that will lead you to perform irrational, uncomfortable acts, give away piles of your hard-earned money, and expect miracles … only to get a giant lump of coal in your stocking in return.
It starts with a seemingly innocent recommendation from a friend, or perhaps an ad whose message weasels its way into the inner depths of your cerebellum.
And it doesn’t end well for four out of five peeps.
I’m talking, of course, about the ugly “D” word: diets.
Filthy, nasty diets.
“But Scott, I lost 10 pounds on Weight Watchers and it’s rated one of the best diets for weight loss …”
Okay. But here’s the big question I have for you:
Will You Keep the Weight Off This Time?
For most, the answer is no.
It’s a fact, and you’re about to see proof. You might wanna put your big boy or big girl pants on because this may hurt some feelings.
First up, an important history lesson.
From Eating Real Food with Grandma to the Western Diet
Oh, the perils of the Western Diet, where do I even begin?
How about with our grandparents.
First and foremost, grandparents are awesome. If yours are still alive and kicking, don’t take that for granted. Learn as much as you can from these wise sages.
Second, our grandparents ate actual food.
By “actual food,” I mean food that was grown or raised on a farm.
Not pseudo-food experiments like this:
This Franken-food with 50+ ingredients, by the way, is Kellogg’s Strawberry Yogurt Nutri-Grain bar.
But I digress … back to our history lesson.
In the 1960s and 70s we saw a big increase in:
The amount of fast food available.
The consumption of processed, packaged foods.
And you can probably guess what happened next: we got fatter.
A lot fatter.
Basic economics tells us that the greater the supply of overweight and obese people, the more demand there will be for weight loss products and services.
And this bring us to the present.
Welcome to the 21st Century Diet Extravaganza. 69.2 percent of you are the guests of honor.
The Great Big Diet Scam We All Fall Victim To
There are now thousands of diets to choose from. Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, Mediterranean, Paleo, the Cookie Diet, the Hallelujah diet (yes, this is real).
Heck there’s even this bozo who went on an all-McDonald’s diet (and lost weight … it’s only a matter of time before some nut-job blogger proclaims this as the new diet phenomenon).
You’ve probably tried at least one or two of these, if not more.
I’ve personally dabbled in Mediterranean, Low-carb, Vegetarian, Paleo … and yes, my own version of “the fast food diet” during a particularly worrisome stretch in my late teens.
Except my daily trips to Wendy’s, McDonalds, and Burger King left me fat, bloated, and despising myself when I looked in the mirror.
I guess I wasn’t the only one, because a whopping 50 million people in the U.S. alone go on diets every year.
Only one in five will succeed according to the largest database in the world of people who lost large amounts of weight and successfully kept it off.
Yes, many diets will help you lose weight. But you have a 20 percent chance or less of keeping the weight off.
I don’t know about you, but I think those odds are shit.
If you’re still in love with your diet, consider this damning conclusion from a group of UCLA researchers who studied the long-term outcomes of diets by looking at dozens of research studies:
In the studies reviewed here, dieters were not able to maintain their weight losses in the long term, and there was not consistent evidence that the diets resulted in significant improvements in their health. In the few cases in which health benefits were shown, it could not be demonstrated that they resulted from dieting, rather than exercise, medication use, or other lifestyle changes. It appears that dieters who manage to sustain a weight loss are the rare exception, rather than the rule. Dieters who gain back more weight than they lost may very well be the norm, rather than an unlucky minority.
Think about it this way: imagine you get a “hot stock tip” from a friend. You do a little research and discover that this stock will almost certainly net you short-term gains … possibly large ones. But then you stumble on an “insider’s report” that shows you scientific proof that there’s an 80 percent chance you will lose all that money … and possibly more.
Would you make this investment?
Of course not.
Because the potential loss far outweighs the prospects of any gain.
It’s basic human psychology (see my article on loss aversion and framing).
Yet we continue to spend ridiculous amounts of money and time on these diets.
Why?
Because of a lot of reasons:
Diet companies spend millions of dollars concocting clever marketing campaigns to make you think you need their products.
The media perpetuates a false sense of what “healthy” is with their glamorization of skinny, cracked out celebrities.
Many folks suffer from genetic or deep-rooted physical, emotional and psychological scars that make them easy targets for the diet industry.
You just don’t know any better.
Enough diet-bashing though. Let’s talk about what does work for lasting weight loss
Permanent Weight Loss: What Works
The National Weight Control Registry gives us valuable insights into what it takes to keep the weight off. Take a deep breath though, because some of this is going to make permanent weight seem like the impossible dream.
People who lose large amounts of weight and manage to keep it off have the following habits in common:
Exercise an hour per day or more … every day.
Weigh themselves often.
Eat breakfast every day.
Watch less than half as much TV as the average person.
Eat less calories than the average person.
Support is crucial too. For couples, in particular, when one spouse improves his or her behavior, the other spouse is likely to do so as well.
Developing healthy eating habits is another key. In one study that tracked overweight and obese women for four years, the women who kept the weight off had the following four dietary habits in common:
Eating fewer desserts.
Eating more fruits and veggies.
Drinking fewer sugary beverages.
Eating meat and cheese in moderation.
And another study of over 120,000 healthy women and men spanning 20 years found that eating the following foods resulted in the most sustained weight loss: vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts, and yogurt.
On the flipside, the major culprits for weight gain over time were potato chips, potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages, red meats, processed foods high in starches, refined grains, fats, and sugars.
I’ve just thrown a lot of information at you. If all this seems overwhelmingly daunting, don’t go running for the hills just yet.
Try this first …
How to Keep the Weight Off in Two Simple Steps
There are no shortcuts or magic pills or potions for lasting weight loss.
And for most of you that are overweight, there are major emotional and psychological challenges at play that you need to learn how to overcome.
The truth is, whatever path you choose your road will be bumpy. You WILL run into roadblocks and walls that seem to bring your weight loss journey to a screeching halt.
Accept it.
Embrace it.
And then find a way over or around that wall.
Life will kick you to the curb more times than you think you can handle.
But here’s something I’ve learned:
Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it
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Think about it: how many times have you been knocked down? Probably a lot. But you’re still here. So that means you got up, dusted yourself off, and hopefully learned something from every bad experience.
Losing weight is no different. We just don’t see it though.
It’s time to open your eyes and see the possibilities.
I will simplify it for you right here, right now. If you want to lose weight and finally keep it off, you absolutely must do these two things:
1. Learn.
Listen to me very carefully: take the time to learn how to be healthy. You may think you know, but if you’re still struggling to keep the weight off then you don’t.
It’s not your fault.
You’ve been bombarded with misinformation from every which angle.
Learning goes well well beyond “eat healthy and exercise.” It’s realizing how the science of getting healthier works. It’s understanding how to retrain your brain to make healthier decisions … knowing how to eat healthy when you’re on vacation or during the holidays … how to read a food label when you’re confused and in a hurry at the grocery store … how to get those people you love on board without pissing everybody off … how to not alienate yourself from all your friends.
The truth is, 99 percent of people don’t know this stuff. They skip straight to the honeymoon phase, falling head over heels in love with their diet and thinking they will magically jump into the Lose 20 Pounds Promised Land.
Take the time to learn. Stick with me, and I’ll help you do it.
2. Apply
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
-Bruce Lee
Once you absorb the right knowledge the second step is application.
Applying means consistent action.
Because if you want to experience lasting weight loss, it's what you do consistently that matters.
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To lose weight and keep it off, it’s not enough to just have a goal … you need practical ways to reach that goal.
The approach I recommend is the same one the super-smart behavior change psychologists use: changing your habits. Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg says there are three steps involved to do this:
Pick one behavior you want to change. I suggest you stick with one of the four dietary habits we talked about above that are proven to help you keep the weight off: eating fewer desserts, eating more fruits and veggies, drinking fewer sugary beverages, eating meat and cheese in moderation. And remember–just one of these at a time. Don’t try to do everything at once. This is important.
Make it as easy as possible. Take small, simple steps every day. For example, if you want to create the habit of eating more fruits and veggies, pack a piece of fruit when you make your lunch every day. Or if you want to drink less sugary beverages, don’t add them to your grocery list this week and DON’T buy them when you’re at the store. It’s really that simple. Don’t let your impulses dictate your life. You’re in control. Just keep it simple and focus on one thing at a time.
Trigger the behavior. Triggers are the things that tell you, “Do It Now!” A trigger can be the time of day, a location, or an emotional state. Identifying your triggers can help you eat healthier and recognize the things that set off your unhealthy eating habits. Triggers help program your mind to do these automatically (“If this happens, then I’ll do this“). Using the example above, “eating more fruits and veggies,” your trigger might be the time of day (“It’s 6:30 a.m. and I will eat a piece of fruit and some yogurt for breakfast”), or another event (“I’m done with dinner … time to do the dishes and make my lunch for tomorrow … better pack a piece of fruit”). Find your triggers, attach a simple healthy behavior to them, and the habits will come easy.
Wrap Up / Action Steps
If you’ve learned one thing from this article I hope it’s this: creating healthy habits will exponentially increase your odds of achieving lasting weight loss.
Diets won’t for most of you.
I understand diets do, in fact, work for some people. If you’re one of the lucky few who has kept the weight off for a number of years by sticking with a particular diet, more power to you.
But research clearly shows us the odds are NOT in your favor for keeping the weight off with this approach.
And realize that with most diets, you’ll dish out a crap-ton of money–I’m talking thousands of dollars over the course of a year for some of the more popular ones.
I don’t have all the answers. But I know a hell of a lot about how to get healthy and stay that way because I’ve studied this stuff and have lived it for over 10 years.
I back up every word with scientific research. Any other piece of health advice you read should too. In fact, with the massive amount of information at our disposal these days, you should demand this.
Start being more inquisitive and questioning things. Never assume, especially when it comes to health claims. Any time I read something new, if there’s no proof (or the proof is sketchy), I toss it in the junk pile.
In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be rolling out new articles and some exciting stuff to help you keep the weight off.
If you’re interested in further reading, I recommend checking out my article on getting in shape.
And if you haven’t signed up for weekly updates yet, DO IT NOW and I’ll send you an article like this every Tuesday.
Finally, do you have a friend or family member who is frustrated with their diet? If so, do them a favor and share this article with them! You can do this easily by clicking on the little grey square below.
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