Why Diets Consistently Fail

Wednesday, 3 July 2024

Why diets consistently fail is something that always crops up in my mind. Yesterday was classic Franklin. A good day is ruined by gorging on rice cakes with peanut butter, mayonnaise, chicken thighs, and two bags of snack-a Jacks. Nothing weighed naturally! In front of the telly. All rational thought was demolished, and whilst I went to bed and slept extremely well on a full stomach, my estimated calorific intake was around 1500. Ouch, that gotta hurt! I hate that feeling of waking up after eating way too much the night before.

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Lifestyle changes are subject to failure, but how you respond to them is important.

Lack Of Willpower

This is one of my most hated aspects of why diets consistently fail. You’ve done everything right, then suddenly, out of the blue, you lose your willpower and overeat. Eating without thinking and eating with no care in the world is a horrible feeling but one which the food addict constantly does. This is what the food addict must accept: there will be many moments where all willpower is lost. The important thing to remember is don’t beat yourself up when it does happen!

Difficult

No one ever said it was going to be easy. You have to realise that losing a substantial amount of weight takes a lot of time and a heck of a lot of energy. Yes, it’s bloody hard work and a lot of effort. If you don’t think this way, you’re destined to fail because you’ve lost the battle before you even began. It took me many years to realise and accept this, and I’ve just shared that advice for free! Food addiction is something even medical experts seem reluctant to talk about, but trust me, it’s very real. The easy option will always be to overeat.

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There are many lose-weight plans on the market, but these can be difficult to implement and stick to and often are a major reason why diets consistently fail. The cynic in me suggests some of them are deliberately set up this way, so you fail, but keep subscribing!

Hassle

In a nutshell, being on a diet is a hassle. Weighing food, reading labels, forward planning, and always staying one step ahead. And like last night when I’d planned the day meticulously, everything went horrendously wrong at the close of play. My brain went out of control, and in a puff of smoke, I’d devoured a stupendous amount of calories.

An incident like that would have pushed me over the edge in my past life. I have many incidents like that these days, but they don’t put me off the long-term goal of reaching 80 kilograms. This goal stays at the back of my mind, which helps me to keep going, but there are days when I think, “fuck this” It’s seriously too much hassle. I’ve been fat my whole life, so where’s the harm in being fat for the last 20 or 30 years of my existence on planet Earth? My answer to that is I hate being fat, and I think back to how damn miserable I was when I started this long and arduous journey!

Weakness

I should have written books on why diets constantly fail due to weakness. I get timely reminders of my food weaknesses all the time. We are only human and have to accept we are weak. Even the strongest have moments of weakness. When you accept, you can be weak; this goes a long way to success in the long term. There’s a fine line between a moment of weakness (me last night) and a sequence of weakness. Descend into a sequence, and you’ll find yourself in big trouble.

Once you get it in your head, you will be weak and have moments where you beat yourself up because of your weakness; this goes a long way to achieving more success than failure. And this is what we’re trying to achieve. If you succeed more, the diet won’t fail in the long run.

Excuses

Another easy option, eh? How many times have you been there? A food addict will ALWAYS find an excuse. More often than not, it will be the flimsiest excuse known to mankind. After all, eating too much food is ALWAYS the easiest option. Do it too often, and your plan will fail because you failed to plan.

Plateau

Nobody likes a plateau. I’m going through one right now. It is important to accept that plateaus are part of the journey, and if you stay focused, you will come out of it eventually. Accepting that they can last a while (between one and three months or even longer) takes some getting used to, but if you can get this in your mindset, you’ll feel so much better about achieving your long-term goals.

Losing Focus

This can be linked with a plateau. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve lost focus and given up. Losing focus is a massive reason why diets consistently fail. Your brain gets weary, having to focus on food, planning, and all those other aspects of a diet every single day. At some point, enough is enough. Results aren’t coming quickly enough, and you return to old ways for good. The easy option is to go back to what you were before.

Restrictions

Personally, I loathe plans which implement restrictions. For example, keto diets are extremely popular these days and having tried such a diet, albeit very temporarily, I can vouch that any eating plan with too many restrictions is not for me. It seems I’m not alone in this, either! Keto dieting can be very effective, but the restrictions are too much, and whenever I’ve cracked, I’ve cracked for good. I’m not a fan of restrictions in any shape or form, but as I always stress, everybody is different! In my experience, whenever I’ve tried to restrict myself, I’ve failed.

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Life

Life is such a bugger, and you never know what’s around the corner. A major life event can affect us and is another reason diets fail consistently. Life brings emotions to the table, and comfort eating is perfectly normal when things out of the ordinary happen. But it’s not always major things which trigger bad eating days. A tough day in the office, an argument with a partner, etc. A food addict will find any old excuse to eat!