The maintenance diet? Does not exist
I wanted to write the reason (or reasons) why diets don’t work starting from this excerpt from the book “Secrets from the Eating Lab” by Dr. Traci Mann , a researcher who has collected years of studies to explain precisely the reasons behind our current behaviors food , for example to go on a diet: instead, I realized that Dr. Mann’s point of view is not about weight loss diets, but maintenance diets .
Pay attention to it: if you go on a diet, you lose weight. Some diets may not make you lose weight as much as you hoped, but most dieters lose weight if they keep doing it and are patient. When we say that diets don’t work, in fact, we almost never mean it in the short term. If we go on a diet, especially if we are not used to the diet, the results come. It is enough to take a stint, or give up a whole series of foods that automatically leads us to eat less. It’s easy. But that is not all.
In fact, the problem comes later.There are two cases and they are the only two behaviors that I know of for those who leave a diet. In 95 percent of cases weight is regained, often with interests, and health is ruined. In the remaining 5 percent of cases, people remain thin.
But why is all this happening? The reason is simple. In both cases, the maintenance diet does not work, even in 5% of cases. And it doesn’t work because, in fact, a maintenance diet doesn’t exist.
I’ll give you some examples: let’s say the case of woman A and woman B, who both ate a 2000/2500 calorie diet before starting a, say, 1200 calorie diet. This diet was given by a dietician. In the dietician’s program, after the diet he follows a maintenance regimen, which generally amounts to 1500 calories. If A and B did some research before going to the dietician, they would find that a 1500 calorie maintenance diet is too poor a diet for their needs. Both A and B would most likely be doing great on a 2000/2300 calorie diet, leading a more active life and simply eating better. Instead, both A and B are convinced that:
– to lose weight they must follow a 120o calorie diet (or they will never lose weight)
– in order to stay lean, they must be on a 1500 calorie maintenance diet.
What happens? Let’s say both A and B lose weight. When you get to 1500 maintenance calories, both of them will start gaining a little bit.
A feels compelled, and she tends to eat more. In fact, she is bingeing, feeling guilty, and binging again. She feels she is out of control, she regains weight, tries other diets but loses less and less and takes more and more. Result? She is back as before or fatter than before with the passing of the years, the arrival of children or menopause. 95 percent of the population behaves like A. And you are right. It’s not A.’s fault. A is neither a monster, nor a glutton, nor one with metabolism problems.
It is the fault of the mechanism in which A has ended up.
Let’s see B.A lucky woman! She maintained the weight she lost, save for a pound or two dancing as soon as she realized that her maintenance diet was causing her to gain weight. What to do then? Get back to the doctor’s 1200 calorie diet! Easy isn’t it? Maybe adding some physical activity.
Too bad, however, that B fears gaining weight on every holiday, that B gains two kilos at every pizza out of the way, and that on balance, for example, according to B’s husband or B’s friends, B is always on a diet. Maybe something changes, but she basically eats little and is now used to a life of sacrifice. And if she eats a little more, she gains weight, which confirms her suspicions. Her metabolism has now settled on those 1200 calories,and the maintenance diet is now the sgarro, or the Sunday diet. With the result that B is always undone: unhappy, in a bad mood, with a dancing cycle, chilly, she prides herself on never catching a cold without knowing that she directly risks something more serious. She and she are very stressed: she often does not go to the bathroom or is bloated in the stomach.
You will tell me: wasn’t it easier to start with a 1500 calorie diet, and then get to a maintenance of 1800/1900 calories? In this way both A and B would lose weight, A would not binge and B would not go on a diet for life. Yes indeed, it is a pity that this is not the rule, but the exception.
The rule is a 1000/1200 calorie diet and a little more maintenance. So you lose weight faster, and everyone wants to lose weight fast!
Furthermore, it is certain that you will lose weight immediately and this will make you feel motivated. The cases of A and B show us, however, how the body does not agree. On the one hand it pushes A to overeat, on the other B to eat a more sustainable, more humane diet.
So are you sure that you are to blame for regaining weight? Wouldn’t it have been better to never go on a diet, but to learn to eat more correctly and embrace a healthier lifestyle, all but not the diet?
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