Why Diets Don’t Work, And What Does

If you are tired of riding the diet/riot roller coaster and tempted to start a new fad diet, join Andrea as she discusses the negative consequences of dieting and the alternative to a “die-it" that she calls a "Live-It." Whether you struggle with uncontrollable overeating, binge eating, body image, or all of these painful issues, this talk is for you.

For a comprehensive teaching on this topic, you might like to join Andrea in her 30-lesson course here on Insight Timer which is called Getting Over Overeating.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

My name is Andrea Wachter.

I'm a psychotherapist and author as well as an insight timer teacher.

I am also someone who spent many years on what I call the diet riot roller coaster.

I started dieting as a teenager and this led me into a painful spiral of food restricting,

Food obsession,

And uncontrollable overeating.

It would be many years and tears before I would find my way out of that painful cycle.

And as I began to heal,

I became passionate about helping others.

In my psychotherapy practice,

I've worked with kids as young as six years old who are already obsessed with their bodies and fearing certain foods.

I've treated people in their 80s who can barely remember having a natural and peaceful relationship with food.

And I've seen nearly every age in between.

For decades,

We've been taught that diets are the solution to eating and body image problems.

But if that were the case,

Then most dieters would go off on their happy way and live healthily ever after.

But that is generally not what happens.

Yet,

Despite the outrageously high failure rate of diets,

They can still be extremely enticing.

We are surrounded by messages and images that promise us happiness and fulfillment if we just looked a certain way.

And the diet industry feeds off of those promises by offering us an array of food rules that will supposedly help us attain those goals.

What happens for most people,

Especially people with a history of dieting,

Rioting,

And body image issues,

Is that dieting exacerbates their problems.

And in addition to a ripple effect of negative consequences,

Most diets fail to address the deeper issues that lead someone to diet in the first place.

More on that in a few moments.

I'm sure there are instances when someone has a health,

Eating,

Or body image problem and they go on a diet,

They feel great about their experience,

And they suffer no negative consequences.

I haven't actually met anyone like that,

But I'm guessing they must exist.

What usually happens,

More often than not,

Is that dieting leads people to additional problems on top of the ones that originally led them to diet.

If someone is struggling with eating or body image problems,

They certainly need and deserve help.

Unfortunately,

Dieting is not what will help,

Because eating and body image problems usually have deep and complex roots,

And they need compassionate and multifaceted exploration.

For most people,

Going on a diet as a solution to an eating,

Health,

Or body image problem is like taking your car in for a paint job when it has an engine problem.

And sadly,

Most chronic dieters end up thinking they failed the diet,

When really they've been failed.

They've been told that dieting is the solution,

And it's simply not true,

Because their issues need deeper solutions that most diets don't address.

Even though the word has been out on the streets for a while now that diets don't work,

Most of us continue to be bombarded and seduced by diet culture.

This makes it very challenging to take a stand against the external and internal pressure to start a new fad diet.

It takes courage to stand up to the culture's hypnotic spell that tells us what we should look like,

What we should eat,

How we should move our bodies,

And how we should feel.

But we can take a stand,

Just like we take stands against other important cultural issues that we believe in.

We can take a stand against the messages that lead us away from treating our bodies respectfully.

Okay,

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

I'd like to shift now to some of the psychological and biological consequences of dieting,

And then I'll get into some solutions.

So first,

I'll talk a little bit about the cognitive effects of dieting.

One significant toll that dieting can take is the way it affects us mentally.

Most diets deprive our bodies of the proper nutrition we need for optimal brain functioning,

And this makes it pretty challenging to think clearly and feel grounded.

Food deprivation is a form of torture,

So how can it possibly be a means to mental clarity?

Additionally,

The very nature of a diet involves someone else telling us what we should and shouldn't eat.

This leads most dieters to obsess on all the foods that their diet of choice prohibits.

It's simply human nature to think about and want what we've been told we can't have.

If someone tells you what you can't eat,

The chances are your inner rebel will start pawing the ground in preparation to eat or think about whatever you've been instructed not to eat.

And whether you actually diet or you just think you should,

Dieting and diet mentality lead most people to obsess on food.

Think about it this way.

If you're cold and you put on a sweater,

You're probably going to stop thinking about being cold because your need was met.

If you're tired and you get some sleep,

You're not likely to obsess about being tired all day because you met your physical need.

But if you are hungry and you do not eat sufficient and satisfying foods,

You will naturally keep thinking about food.

The way to stop obsessing about food is to feed our bodies respectfully,

Deliciously,

And regularly.

Another potential and quite common consequence of dieting is the increased danger of it escalating into an eating disorder.

In my 30 plus years as a psychotherapist,

The vast majority of people who came to me for an eating disorder started their downward spiral with a seemingly innocent diet.

And not only did dieting fail to address the issues that led them to diet,

But it exacerbated their issues and led to a host of additional problems.

Of course,

Some people can experiment with diets and not have it turn into a diagnosable eating disorder,

Just like some people can experiment with drugs or alcohol and it doesn't segue into a serious problem.

But for many people,

Continuous food restriction and body obsession turn out to be gateways to much more serious and destructive habits.

And even if someone diets and doesn't end up with a full-blown eating disorder,

Dieting leads most people to chronically and uncontrollably overeat.

Just try depriving any animal of food and then setting some food in front of them and watch what happens.

Needless to say,

Uncontrollable eating is a very painful pattern to live with.

It can lead to depression,

Isolation,

Physical discomfort,

And shame.

Unfortunately,

Most people think that the solution to chronic overeating is to go on a diet.

But if I have my way,

By the end of this talk,

You will not be one of them.

Another area that's affected by dieting is our metabolism,

Which is the way our bodies convert food into energy.

Oftentimes when someone goes on a restrictive diet,

Their metabolism will slow down in an attempt to preserve every bit of energy it can.

Metabolically speaking,

Our bodies are the happiest when we feed them lovingly,

Respectfully,

And naturally.

This means not starving them and not stuffing them.

Tips on all that in a few minutes.

I think it's also important for dieters and potential dieters to understand the concept of natural weight or set point theory.

Despite what we've been told by diet programs and fancy charts,

We all have a natural weight range that our bodies settle into when we treat them naturally.

And restrictive eating is not natural.

Someone telling us what our weight should be is like someone telling us what color our eyes should be or how tall we should be.

Imagine someone else telling you what your ideal height is and you spending your life trying to change your height.

That's probably unthinkable.

And yet this is what millions of people do to themselves.

They decide,

Or they're told,

What they should weigh,

And then they spend countless hours and dollars trying to achieve something that nature never even intended.

The way to discover your natural weight range is to feed and treat your body with respect.

This means you don't starve it,

You don't stuff it,

And you don't call it names.

You treat yourself with respect,

And then you decide if you want to spend your life arguing with your natural weight range or set about the roll up your sleeves work of making peace with it.

So how does natural weight tie back into metabolism?

Well I'm glad you asked.

If someone is dieting and attempting to go below their body's natural weight range,

Their metabolism will adjust to try to get them back to their natural weight because it's natural.

If someone is above their natural weight range as a result of chronic overeating or binge eating and decides to go on a diet,

Their body will detect the food restriction and their metabolism will decrease in an attempt to conserve energy.

So regardless of the circumstances,

Strict dieting is not the way to stabilize metabolism.

Respectful non-restrictive eating is.

And one final area I'll mention that's affected by dieting is our hormones.

Our bodies have various hormones that are responsible for hunger and fullness.

When someone goes on a diet and deprives themselves of food,

The hormones responsible for hunger will increase in an attempt to get us the food we need.

And the hormones responsible for fullness will decrease in an attempt to get us to eat more because we need more.

These hormonal changes are the body's brilliant way of trying to counteract the unnatural and unkind treatment that a diet is inflicting.

Hormonally speaking,

Dieting is like swimming upstream against the natural current.

Whereas when we feed our bodies respectfully,

Sufficiently,

And deliciously,

We are going with the current of our body's needs and there's more of a natural flow.

So by eating in a respectful,

Loving manner,

We help our bodies become more hormonally happy.

The good news is that hormonal problems from dieting can be repaired by long-term body respect,

Which means not under-eating or chronically overeating.

And if someone has difficulty feeling their hunger and fullness cues,

This too goes away over time with consistent,

Respectful self-feeding.

So those are some of the many potential negative and harmful effects of dieting.

The old paradigm has been that we're told or we think we know what our bodies should look like,

And then we spend our lives anxiously trying to look that way or feeling depressed because we don't.

But thanks to movements like health at every size and intuitive eating,

We now have a new paradigm.

The new paradigm is to feed and treat yourself respectfully,

Allow your body to settle into its natural weight range,

And then work on making peace with the body you live in.

Now I know that if you are someone with a history of dieting and body shame,

Learning to feed and treat yourself lovingly and respectfully is not a quick endeavor like most diets promise.

The alternative to a diet is what I call a livet,

And it involves exploration that goes much deeper than how many fat grams,

Carbs,

Or calories you're eating.

In my Insight Timer course called Getting Over Overeating,

I go into great detail about how to heal from chronic dieting,

Uncontrollable overeating,

Binge eating,

Or body image problems.

But today I want to give you a little summary of four important areas that need attention and healing.

To introduce these four areas,

I'd like you to imagine a four-legged table.

In order for the table to be stable,

All four legs need to be sturdy and strong.

So the four table legs,

Or areas that need healing,

Are physical,

Emotional,

Mental,

And spiritual.

Physical,

Emotional,

Mental,

And spiritual.

Now we certainly don't need to address these four areas perfectly,

And it's very important to know this is not a quick fix like most diet programs promise.

It can also really help to have safe support and guidance along the way.

So these four areas,

Physical,

Emotional,

Mental,

And spiritual,

Need to be tended to in order to heal from disordered eating and body image problems.

I'll say a little bit about each area,

Although I could talk for days about each one,

Which I often do.

The first and obvious aspect of healing is physical,

How we approach and deal with food and our bodies.

Most people who struggle with eating and body image problems have two distinct internal voices when it comes to food.

An inner dieter voice that sees foods in terms of good or bad,

And an inner rioter voice that wants to devour everything that's been deemed off limits.

Many people vacillate back and forth between these two internal voices,

The dieter and the rioter.

And whether you actually diet or you just think you should,

This can still set you up for riotous rebellion.

If this talk was going to be one sentence,

And I was only able to say one single sentence to you today,

This would be it.

Most people think that their inner dieter voice is the good voice,

The goal,

The voice they should be obeying,

And that their inner rioter voice is the bad one,

The one they need to get rid of.

But the truth is that the inner dieter leads to the inner rioter.

The inner dieter is part of the problem,

It is not the solution.

Okay,

That was a very long sentence,

So thank you for bearing with me,

But it's so important,

So I'm going to say it one more time.

Most people think that their inner dieter voice is the good voice,

The goal,

The voice they should be obeying,

And that their inner rioter is the bad voice,

The one they need to get rid of.

But the truth is that the inner dieter leads to the inner rioter.

The inner dieter is part of the problem,

It is not the solution.

How crazy is it that we've been taught that dieting is the answer to body image and eating problems when in reality,

Dieting leads most people to food obsession,

Body preoccupation,

Disordered eating,

And eating disorders?

So if you are someone who has been riding the diet riot roller coaster and you are ready to step off,

What other option is there?

Well,

There is a third option,

A third internal voice that you may or may not be acquainted with,

But I know you have it inside of you because you were born with it.

This internal voice is wise,

Compassionate,

Loving,

And respectful.

Many people refer to this as intuitive eating,

And I think it's important to know that if you have a history of dieting and or rioting,

Feeding yourself respectfully and non-restrictively might not be very intuitive at first.

So this will take practice and patience.

So I want to offer you a tip that can help you get in touch with your internal wisdom.

This is a question that you can ask yourself anytime.

How would I feed someone I love who doesn't diet or riot?

I'll say that again.

How would I feed someone I love who doesn't diet or riot?

And I always include the part about it being someone who doesn't diet or riot because many people encourage their loved ones to diet or push excessive amounts of food on their loved ones.

So how would I feed someone I love who doesn't diet or riot?

One other aspect of the physical leg of our stable table is regarding movement and rest.

In a similar way that the diet industry has done a number on so many people with good and bad food rules,

The fitness industry has done quite a number on us regarding movement.

Many people exercise out of fear,

Pressure,

And shame.

Or on the other end of the spectrum,

A lot of people have a hard time getting themselves to move at all.

So just like with eating,

You have a wise,

Loving,

Respectful,

Internal voice that can guide you to know exactly how and when to move and rest your body.

And if you have difficulty tuning into that inner knowing,

You can get to know it with desire and practice.

It might be hard to hear this inner knowing at first if your mind has been clouded with messages about sets,

Reps,

And calorie burning.

But again,

It's in there.

You were born knowing exactly how you like to play and move and when you needed to rest until you met the culture and everyone else who was already well acquainted with the culture.

So if you are someone who feels out of balance with pleasurable movement and guilt-free rest,

I will leave you with another question you might ask yourself on a regular basis.

If my body stayed exactly the same no matter how much I exercised,

How would I like to move and rest?

I'll say that again.

If my body stayed exactly the same no matter how much I exercised,

How would I like to move and rest?

Now if you've been anxiously exercising or depressively immobile,

Your body's wisdom might be hard to hear at first,

But it's in there and with practice,

You can become very well acquainted.

If you find that over time you don't get any inklings of enjoyable ways to move your body,

You might ask yourself a similar question to the one I suggested earlier regarding eating.

What would be a loving and balanced way to treat my body regarding movement and rest?

What would be a loving and balanced way to treat my body regarding movement and rest?

So there's a bit about the physical aspects of healing from chronic dieting,

Uncontrollable overeating,

Or binge eating problems.

Now a bit about the second leg of our stable table,

Which represents the emotional aspects of healing.

In the same way that most of us have been taught that there are good and bad foods,

Many of us have been taught that there are good and bad feelings.

Namely happy is good,

And scared,

Sad,

And mad are not so good.

It's usually an innocent legacy that gets passed down.

Our parents and caregivers simply wanted us to feel better,

Quiet our tears,

Or settle down our anger.

Or perhaps they wanted us to feel better so we would be less upsetting or disturbing to them and their feelings.

Regardless of the intention,

If we received messages that led us to think we need to stuff down our emotions,

We need to learn how to get better at feeling as opposed to just trying to feel immediately better.

Eating and chronic overeating are often attempts to make ourselves feel better,

But what usually happens when we try to stuff our feelings down with food is that the original feelings remain plus we have additional feelings about overeating.

We either deal with the feelings we are eating over or we deal with the feelings we have about overeating.

There is no other shortcut.

But the good news here is that as people get better at tending to their emotions,

They experience that emotions can be soothed and resolved.

Whereas the feelings we have about chronic dieting,

Uncontrollable overeating,

And binge eating remain as long as those patterns remain unchanged.

So depending on your upbringing and your current values around emoting,

You may need some practice learning how to identify,

Honor,

And welcome your emotions rather than judging certain feelings as good or bad.

Of course,

Certain feelings are more pleasant than others,

But they are all part of the deal here.

And just like the weather outside,

We have internal weather patterns,

And if we are only okay if it's 70 with a light breeze,

We are going to be chronically unhappy.

It's ironic that most of us have been taught that we're supposed to be happy and live happily ever after,

And yet depression,

Anxiety,

Addiction,

And medication prescriptions are all on the rise.

If I had it my way,

We would end movies and children's books by saying,

And they all lived healthily ever after.

And this would include the vast array of emotions we humans experience.

So a tip in this area is to offer yourself and your emotions lots of self-compassion.

Practice identifying your feelings throughout the day.

Most feelings are one word,

Like sad,

Scared,

Mad,

Disappointed,

Lonely,

Confused,

And then offer yourself compassion.

This could sound like,

Of course I feel sad right now.

It makes complete sense that I feel sad.

Or I feel angry.

It makes complete sense that I feel angry right now.

And as we get better at welcoming and honoring our emotions,

We begin to see that they come in waves.

Perhaps we feel peaceful and present in one part of our day,

And then a wave of emotion comes.

If we don't judge it or attempt to stuff it down,

It will eventually pass,

Until the next wave comes.

And not only will this give us more moments of peace and presence,

But having a healthy relationship with our emotions alleviates the need to stuff our feelings down with body obsession or excessive amounts of food.

The third leg of our stable table represents the mental aspects of healing.

In large part,

Dieting,

Rioting,

And body image problems are really thinking problems,

Because they all start with thinking that we are somehow not okay,

And if we changed our bodies,

We would be okay.

In truth,

We need to change our thinking.

Of course it's fine to be educated on nutrition and learn how to feed ourselves non-restrictively and respectfully,

But we also need to be aware of our constant internal soundtrack and what station is frequently blaring,

Because this soundtrack affects how we take or don't take care of ourselves.

I like to identify what I call three different mind moods,

Unkind mind,

Kind mind,

And quiet mind.

What I have found is that most people who struggle with dieting and or rioting tend to have a very loud unkind mind,

And they tend to speak to themselves in ways that they would never speak to their friends.

In fact,

They might not have friends if they did.

So this leg of the journey is to regularly upgrade from an unkind mind to a kind mind,

And to spend more time in quiet mind.

Of course,

Mind quieting is one of the biggest challenges we humans have,

But it is certainly a worthy practice and an avenue to peace.

The tip here is to stay on the lookout for the nature of your thoughts.

When you become aware that your unkind mind has taken over,

You can ask yourself,

How would I speak to a loved one right now?

How would I speak to a loved one right now?

And if you're not sure,

You might ask yourself,

How do I wish someone would speak to me right now?

How do I wish someone would speak to me?

And finally,

The fourth leg of our table is about the spiritual aspects of life.

We all need to find ways to go deeper than our busy minds.

We all need to find things that comfort us and truly fill us up without any negative after effects.

I like to make a distinction between time killers and spirit fillers.

So often in today's plugged in world,

It can be very easy to get sucked into our screens and feel depleted rather than fulfilled.

When we truly fill our spirits,

We usually feel better afterwards.

So while the initial high of a diet might get some endorphins going,

In the long run we usually feel worse.

But when we fill our spirits in ways that truly offer us comfort,

Nobody gets hurt.

So a question I will pose to you here is,

How do you fill your spirits?

Some of my favorite spirit fillers are being in nature,

Listening to music,

Connecting with loved ones,

Meditating,

Watching movies,

Reading,

Swimming,

Resting,

And yoga.

What about you?

I encourage you to make a spirit filler list if you don't already have one and keep it in a place where you will regularly see it.

So just like a four-legged table needs all four legs in order to be stable,

Addressing all four of these areas,

Physical,

Emotional,

Mental,

And spiritual is the alternative to diets and can help you get off the diet riot roller coaster.

By taking a deep,

Brave look at your emotions,

Thoughts,

Needs,

And the part of you that is making your food choices,

You can learn to feed,

Treat,

And speak to yourself like a loving parent would treat their child.

And there will be nothing to memorize,

Obey,

Cheat on,

Or rebel from.

So if you have been considering embarking on yet another fad diet,

I hope you have found this talk useful.

I hope if you decide to seek help,

It will be from someone that understands the complexities of disordered eating and body image problems.

This could be an intuitive eating counselor,

A health-at-every-size therapist,

Or a non-diet dietician.

Someone who does not assume to know what your natural weight is,

And someone who will help you discover and heal the deeper issues that led you to diets,

Body shame,

Or uncontrollable eating.

I also have several free Insight Timer meditations and talks that are dedicated to this topic,

As well as a course called Getting Over Overeating and a course called Making Peace with the Body You Live In.

You can find all of these on my menu of Insight Timer recordings if you're interested.

For now,

I will sign off by wishing you a respectful and pleasurable relationship with food,

A compassionate connection with your emotions,

Many moments in kind and quiet mind,

And lots of spiritual fulfillment.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing your insight. I have had a love hate relationship with food since as long as I can remember and dieting has been a big part of that. I look forward to listening to more of your talks so I can get off the diet riot rollercoaster.

Words can't express how much I enjoyed this track. It was a fantastic talk, delivered very well.
Myself, I am a bit of an anomaly because intermittent fasting has actually HELPED my bulimia, but I no longer restrict what I eat. Healthy foods like nuts, good oils , cooked fruit and avocados are back on the menu and I'm loving it.
I continue to practice noticing when my needs are met so I don't over eat .

Every one of Andreas tracks are worth their weight in gold 💐✨

Excellent, very helpful and wise words!! Thank you.

This was excellent and I may become a member to hear Andrea’s courses too. Thanks.

Thank you for helping me to understand more fully why we do what we do about food and eating. I t has given me a deeper understanding of my whole life.

I really heard you, and you spoke to me thank you. I have a long journey ahead

It was really helpful! I'm trying to overcome binge eating and was caught by surprise by the fact that I don't need to eat to feel happiness.

Practical and non-judgmental guidance on healing an unhealthy relationship with food and body image by honouring bodily, mental, emotional and spiritual needs in all their complexity. A very insightful talk!

As always Andrea’s voice, her calmness in delivering important teachings
are a high point of many of my days. Her messages have been beneficial to my growth and understanding of myself.

Andrea is a genuis. So glad to have discovered her on insight timer.

💖omgosh thank you💖

Definately will get me on the road to good health.

Thank you so much for your wide-ranging talk on disordered eating. I found is fascinating, insightful ... and debateable in a coupe of places but those are probably the areas I personally need to explore! I spent 44 years growing my eating disorder, only recognising and finding some answers late in life. I'm grateful for supportive people like you who share ways (such as here) to "catch" people before they struggle through years of misery.

Thank you 🙏🏽

How refreshing to hear such practical, healing advice. Thank you for sharing this very insightful information. Blessings, may you be well 🙏❤🥀

This is the most brilliant response to overeating I have ever heard. Andrea’s emphasis on emotional grounding and spiritual practice over dieting and self flagellation are key to overcoming overeating.

Fabulous and so helpful. Thank you

Full of easy little tweaks to change one’s relationship with food.

Very informative & helpful for me with what I'm going through right now. Love the talk & will listen to it regularly.