Why Diets Fail

By Wendy Dignan - Health Psychologist and Psychotherapist

It’s a defining moment when you catch sight of yourself in a shop window or a mirror and the reflection bears no resemblance to how you think you look. 

The question you ask yourself is ‘How did it get this bad, and how did I let myself get to a point where my weight is affecting my self esteem?’ Struggling with your weight is nothing new and actually affects most women, whatever their weight may be.  We just seem unable to get away from the notion that thinner is better. 

Particularly with women, weight is very much correlated with self esteem; the nearer your target weight you are, the better you feel about yourself. 

It seems so easy to devise yourself a plan that means you are burning more calories than you eat.  If it’s really this easy why can’t the majority of women achieve this?  The real answer is that our weight and therefore losing or gaining weight is actually a complex psychological process.  The psychological process comprises of your psychological predisposition, behavioural and thought patterns, upbringing, culture and past experience.  All the diets in the world will not help you if you haven’t got the correct mind set or psychological factors are getting in your way. 

Food is used for so many things other than fuel.  We reward ourselves with food; punish ourselves by restricting what and how much we eat; we use food to be sociable; we use food to feel in control of our lives.  Food itself is not addictive, but the feelings that we get from eating or restricting certain foods are.  When considering weight loss, what we drink has a huge impact.  You might have eaten like a saint all day, but that glass of wine you pour yourself as a reward is the same as eating a large slice of pizza and a piece of chocolate cake.

Quite simply, diets fail because they don’t address the psychology around eating and weight loss.  The psychological factors surrounding weight loss will vary hugely between individuals, and there is no set prescription.  The only way to really define these factors is to book a session with somebody qualified to assess these reasons.  A short list of possible barriers to weight loss may be:

Are you being honest with yourself? Knowing you need to lose weight and being motivated to actually do it are two different things.  Only start dieting when you are really ready to make changes or you will end up in a cycle of starting and giving up.  This will just lead you to feel worse about yourself.

Have you got emotional distractions in your life that could get in the way? Going through marital problems, having work stress or financial problems will not make for successful dieting.  Losing weight will not fix anything else.  Wait until you feel your life is going well.  Psychologically we can only change one thing at a time.

Are you willing and able to look at past success and failures in your life that motivate you?  Whatever area these things are in will give you clues about how best to achieve your weight goals.  Don’t get stuck in the mindset that you will always be a failed dieter.  If you can achieve success in one area, you can lose weight successfully.

For more information contact Wendy Dignan Tel 01625 532116.