Why Your Diet Isn’t Working

Have you tried every diet under the sun? Paleo, Atkins, low-carb, keto, low-fat, and more? Found little to no success? Perhaps you’ve even tried one or two that helped you lose a few kilos, only to find that within a few short weeks after you stopped the diet the weight was back again – and then some!

There’s a reason the diet industry is so incredibly lucrative – because fad diets simply don’t work. The diet industry relies on people coming back again and again, hoping for a new ‘magic bullet’ that will zap away the fat for good. The trouble is, looking at diets this way is the wrong way to lose weight and keep it off. The good news? There is a way – it might just not be what you’ve come to expect.

The low-fat myth

The decades, the myth of the ‘low fat’ magic bullet myth has done the rounds of the diet industry. Just take a look at your supermarket shelves and you’ll see it in action. Low-fat yoghurts adorn the dairy aisle. Low-fat cheese, low-fat milk…the list goes on.

Way back in 1960s the sugar industry launched a campaign – an all-out war- against the fat industry. Deflecting the attention of consumers and the diet industry towards fat made some people very, very rich. Calling out fat as the enemy of waistlines everywhere had dieters around the world began to banish fat from their weekly grocery shops. Low-fat and no-fat alternatives quickly became the most sought-after supermarket items for entire families across the western world. And of course, anybody making these foods watched the dollars roll in.

The trouble with the ‘fat is what’s making you fat’ myth is that it’s simply untrue. Slowly, the dieting industry is beginning to pick up on the fact that people are more educated about nutrition these days, and that with the help of the internet, they’re finding new ways to diet. New studies arise almost daily which challenges the myth that fat is what’s causing our obesity epidemic. In truth, fat is not only necessary for your body’s core functions, but it is actually good for you. The ‘good’ types of fats include omega 3’s for example, those kinds found in oily fish, avocado, green leafy veges, seeds and nuts. These types of fats shouldn’t be avoided but embraced as a part of a well-rounded healthy diet.

The real killer

So, who was it that benefitted so hugely from the low-fat myth? The sugar industry, of course. Simply pick up any of the low-fat items from your supermarket shelf and read the ingredients label to see as clear as day: the inclusion of loads and loads of sugar.

“The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show.” – New York Times, How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

The way that manufacturers make low-fat products tasty is by adding sugar – and lots of it. As a part of a worldwide crusade to war against fat and boost sugar sales, the sugar industry managed to convince us all that fat was killing us, when in reality, sugar is most strongly linked to heart disease, obesity and cancers.

“Findings that have accumulated since 1990 inform us that the role of SFA [saturated fatty acids] in the causation of CHD [coronary heart disease] has been much exaggerated. The evidence linking carbohydrate-rich foods with CHD has been steadily strengthening. Refined carbohydrates, especially sugar-sweetened beverages, increase the risk of CHD. Conversely, whole grains and cereal fibre are protective. An extra one or 2 servings per day of these foods increases or decreases risk by approximately 10% to 20%.” – Fat, Sugar, Wholegrains and Heart Disease: 50 Years of Confusion

Your unhealthy relationship with food

The number one reason most people fail at dieting (that is, fail to lose weight) is not simply because of the amount of sugar or fat that they eat. In fact, it’s not solely about how much they eat at all. The root cause of most weight struggles lies in an unhealthy relationship with food.

If you’ve struggled to maintain a healthy relationship with food, you can largely blame the dieting industry, for they are the ones constantly barraging you with a tonne of conflicting evidence around what dieting should look like and how you can really lose 10kg FAST. What you really need to take a look at is how you feel about food, think about food, and behave because of food. This is not a simple process, but there is help – expert and non-biased help – available.  

It is not just WHAT you eat, but WHEN you eat, HOW you eat, and WHO you are as an eater!  It is also imperative that you understand the link between stress and weight.  If you have constantly high levels of the stress hormone – cortisol; this has a direct link with your challenges to lose weight (keep an eye out for our next blog where we will describe this in more detail).

Uncovering your most deeply held beliefs and behaviours around food is the key to understanding and overcoming your unhealthy relationship with food, and to curbing those factors. Creating new, healthy and beneficial ideas around food is what will truly help you to overcome your long-term struggles with weight. That’s where we come in.

Losing weight involves your mind AND your body

“If I simply stop eating carbs, I’ll lose weight.”

“I can’t lose weight because I’m lazy and have no self-control.”

“I can’t lose weight because I don’t have time to exercise.”

“I can’t get by in a day without some sugar!”

Can you identify with any or all of these statements? Many people believe that losing weight is as simple as managing self-control. However, those who are successful at losing weight and keeping it off for good are those who develop a healthy relationship with food by creating new beliefs and habits for their bodies AND their minds.

What does this mean in practice? It means breaking down your mental barriers around food and healthy eating. It means creating a healthy eating plan specifically tailored to your needs and goals, and it means building a long-term, realistic and sustainable plan for exercise. Easier said than done, right? Wrong.

We’ve spent years developing a range of weight loss programs which tackle each of these areas, to help our clients lose weight and start living the healthier, more fulfilled lives they’ve been dreaming of. Our 3-month  Holistic Wellness Program, for example, provides you with three dedicated coaches, to achieve just that! You’ll have a health and fitness coach to help you work on your weekly nutrition and fitness (the ‘outward’ part), a naturopath to work on solutions to improve the biochemical factors that are hindering the process, and a psychologist to help you understand and overcome your beliefs and behaviours around food, weight loss, health and fitness (the ‘inward’ part).  

This program also includes the most valuable scientific testing available – Nutrigenomics (DNA testing) to find out your personalised lifestyle and dietary recommendations based on your individual genetics to work towards optimal health and weight!  It is a fact that there is NO one diet that fits all!  And this process will get you off the dieting merry-go-round once and for all – you will never have to try another fad-diet again in your never-ending search for the one that will work!  What a relief!

This program also includes a range of other incredible techniques and analytical tools (such as bio-impedance analysis, real-time blood screening, , IHS trolley overhaul, hypnotherapy, NLP (neuro linguistic programming), and EFT (emotional freedom technique). This is a power-packed program for those who are truly ready to lose weight, but more importantly improve your health dramatically to increase longevity.

For more information about this program and others, visiti our website today. Better yet, give us a call and have a chat today about we can help you to change your life and stop fad dieting once and for all!