Do diets fail people or do people fail diets?

Experts of Healthy Meals Delivered reported that 95% of dieters regain all weight lost within a few years. Scary statistics right? Are all diets doomed to fail? Is it because 95% of people are just plain lazy? It’s a little more complicated than that.

Typically, the fitness industry is very quick to blame people for their inability to follow diets. They often write them off as unmotivated, lazy, or undisciplined. To claim that it is always the dieter’s inability to adhere to their plan, and to not question the sustainability of the diet is simply asinine. Diets often fail people because they often take a blanket approach, not tailoring the diet to the individual. People also need to be accountable for their actions and there needs to be a balance between a sensible dietary approach and self-discipline for a diet to be successful.

Why do people struggle to stick to a diet?

There are a lot of psychological and physiological factors that explain why people struggle to stick to their diets. Physiologically, when you go on a diet or a calorie deficit (due to increased exercise or decreased calories), your body responds by decreasing your metabolic rate. Not only this, but your appetite is increased which makes it more harder to lose weight over time. Due to this the risk of regaining the weight becomes greater. Psychologically, we have to remember that self-discipline is exhaustive and consuming. We simply cannot be perfect 100% of the time. Implementing a plan that includes personal preference and is flexible helps to counterbalance this issue.

A calorie deficit promotes weight loss

Regardless of the diet approach chosen, weight loss only occurs when the dieter goes into a caloric deficit. Some people will try to tell you otherwise, but it is not scientifically possible to lose weight without being in a caloric deficit. Other diets are sold on the premise that you should make certain food choices (‘clean’, unprocessed, wholefoods, organic, no sugar, etc), and this results in the dieter believing that they are getting results because they are restricting certain foods, when in fact the calorie restriction and deficit is real reason for these results. It is undeniable fact that a calorie deficit will eventually result in weight loss, and a calorie surplus will eventually result in weight gain.

-Paolo

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