Oh, look! I’m holding a live grenade!
The current refrain in the popular media is that “diets don’t work.” We’ve all heard it; the idea being that calorie restriction and eliminating whole food groups leads to feelings of deprivation. It’s unrealistic, too difficult to maintain and we fall back into our old eating habits.
But that concept has always bothered me; just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
When I have disputed the “diets don’t work” mantra though, I get a lot of pushback.
“I’ve tried every diet in the book, only to fail at each of them!” I hear. (I’ve also said that too, so I know the feeling.)
Challenging the opinions of nearly everyone I’m trying desperately to reach can feel like I’m holding a live hand-grenade: I know what I’ve got is powerful, but I want to throw it as far away as I can, as quickly as I can, so it doesn’t blow up in my face.
But then something happened…
While on the treadmill last week, I had an epiphany. (I do some of my best thinking on the treadmill, but this really was revolutionary.)
I finally realized why diets don’t work.
Even though I talk about my own weight loss strategies and experience all the time, when I really look back at how it worked for me – what I did and when – I realized that what I did when I had 100+ lbs. to lose was entirely different from what I did when I was just 10 lbs. away from my goal weight.
The problem with most diets is not that they don’t work; the problem is that they treat all weight loss the same!
I hope you get a chance to listen to this week’s podcast as I take a look at the problem with traditional diets and how the new plan I’m working on solves that. I’ll be talking about it a lot in 2015, so stay tuned! If you know someone who’s interested in losing weight and recommitting to their health, pass along this email to them so they can join in the discussion.
There are big changes coming in 2015, I can feel it! In the meantime, have a happy, healthy and blessed holiday week!
-Marilyn
