Why your diet isn't working...

Dieting is misunderstood.

The definition of "Diet" is: the kinds of food that a person eats habitually. 

BUT it often implies the specific intake of nutritional foods or the restriction of unhealthy ones to induce weight loss. 

Now the simple reality is that weight loss can only occur when a person is in a calorie deficit.

In the most basic terms: eating less and exercising more will cause weight loss. 

Calories In - Energy Out = Fat Loss

The best analogy for this is:

Imagine you are being paid £2000 per Month. If you spend £2200 a month, you are spending more than you are gaining, therefore you will lose money (I don’t recommend this finance strategy but do what you will).

The same is true for your food intake and calorie consumption.

For weight loss, the same is true. 

Your body is the bank. 

The amount you spend is the exercise you do and the amount you earn is the calories you eat. 

If you can eat fewer calories than you spend, you will lose weight. 

So if it's that easy, why are 42% of Americans obese? 

The main reason is a lack of knowledge and a huge availability of unhealthy, sugar dense, calorific foods.

So let's paint the picture. 

It's January 1st. It's Christmas, all your family was around your house, you were drinking, eating and celebrating the coming of a new year. 

You've just weighed in on the scale and you've hit your all time highest weight in the last few years!

But it's January. 

So it's time for new goals, to finally keep your promise of going to the gym and getting in good shape. 

This is it. This is the year you finally do. 

Sounds about the same as last year right? 

Correct. 

But you tried Dieting? It's never worked. 

So what can you do differently this year to actually lose that weight and feel more confident about yourself? 

Let’s start by understanding a rational person's approach to this problem. 

Seems pretty simple right?

Now let's look at someone who has "tried" dieting but has never lost any weight. 

Notice the difference. Yes, the excuses eel is there whispering in your ear,

The excuses you make to yourself when dieting are normal, standard even. 

"It's one piece of cake, that can't hurt right?" 

Well yes maybe, but if that piece of cake leads to another one and then because you feel guilty you don't adhere to your restrictions and eat that burger and skip your exercise for the day, all of a sudden you're way off track. 

Your calorie deficit is out the window and you're back to telling yourself that diets don't work and it's just your genetics that are the problem. 

Do you really think that the proven scientific method that works for every other person in the world is wrong?

That you are a 1 in 1 Billion anomaly?

OR

Is it that you are just not doing what you should for weight loss to occur? 

It's most likely the latter. 

So how can you not let the excuses define your actions? 

Given the excuses, how can you ever manage to accomplish your weight loss? 

The Guilt Monster can lay dormant for years, decades even. But when you really start to try and kickstart your weightloss it becomes apparent that it has always been there. 

You know that feeling you get on a Sunday morning when you've come home from a terrible night out on the town. You smashed pint after pint, going round for round with your pals and you ended the night at Mcdonalds or the kebab van and you just stuffed your face with burgers, fries, milkshakes, everything. 

Yeah that feeling. It's partially a hangover and hangxiety but also just pure guilt of knowing you feel like a pig for what you consumed last night. 

It turns out that guilt can be used to keep the excuses eel in check.

You see the excuses that you come up with are in the spur of the moment. 

But after you let yourself slip, the guilt comes flooding through you like the lava in Pompeii in 79 CE. Holding onto this guilt can help you keep an iron mindset and scare off the excuses eel. 

Now of course you will slip up. 

Eventually. 

No matter how hard you try or how well you start off. 

The temptation of those unhealthy foods will infect your mind. 

One indulgence leads to another and before you know it you're back to your old "diet". 

BUT if you stick with your calorie deficit you may see some progress. 

AND that's really the simplest way to see results. 

Just keep going. 

The main reason people never see results is because they cut their calories, eat those healthy foods, and stop drinking for a week. Maybe two. Or Three if they have the willpower. 

But after that when they see no progress in the mirror they stop. 

That's the problem. 

Longevity. 

If you can be consistent for a long period of time you will succeed. 

So what else can you do to induce these changes? 

How can you tip the scale in your favour? 

Find out more about how to improve your diet in articles coming soon.

Inspiration taken from waitbutwhy.com