For many people this is the truth, Diets Do Not Work. Over the long term, the hard won weight loss comes back again as the old habits and beliefs creep back in.

For me this was true, I was a serial dieter, and it was not fun. Diets are a regime of deprivation, a constant battle of wills between that part of you that really really wants to eat that lovely scrummy nice thing, and the other part of you that so desperately wants be happy in a different way.

For so many the mind set is, “I want to have my cake and eat it too”. They really want that piece of cake, they see that piece of cake and all they see is the pleasure in eating that piece of cake; and then later when that need is fulfilled, they regret it. They look back and try to change the past;  “I wish I had not eaten that cake.”

The next step is to start a diet, to embark on a regime of deprivation, to daily, or hourly try to keep in mind what’s allowed to be eaten and what is not, and using sheer will power say no to all those things that call out to be eaten. A diet alone is nothing more than convincing yourself, day after to day, to avoid the very things you want to have.

The alternative is to create a new relationship with food. Why is it that weight control issues are only a problem for humans, and the animals we domesticate? It is only we humans, the most intelligent animal on the planet, who gets all emotional and complex about food.

As babies we naturally knew when to cry for food and when to refuse to take any more milk; since then it is all learnt behaviour. Very often it is deep down emotional associations that no amount of conscious dieting behaviour can truly long term make right again.

Until you have balance, until you have harmony in your relationship with food, no diet in the world will ever work; nothing will ever give you long lasting results until you change your relationship with food.

The Internet is awash with information, some if it is even true. I have seen quoted on many different web sites that 95% of all weight loss is put back on again, but I have yet to see anyone quote the source of that figure. After much searching, I can only find a few research papers that I would be happy to quote from*.  “Subjects regained substantial amounts of weight by the two year follow-up” The research source is quoted below; after 3 years 47% had regained weight. The method used? “Patients were 621 persons who had completed a 26-week weight loss program that included 12 weeks of treatment by a very-low-calorie diet.” 

I have a friend who lost a substantial amount of weight using the methods of a famous weight loss club, and to date, after about two years she has kept if off.  She is also an expert in the points value of every piece of food in the house, almost everything in her local supermarket, and can tell you to the minute exactly how many points are inside of her and how many are still in the fridge for that day…it’s a marvelous feat of mental maths; she is thinking about very little else most of the time.

After 12 weeks on a very low calorie diet, what would be on your mind most of the time? Forget dieting and start a new lifelong relationship with food. In 2007 a group of researchers at the Department of Psychology, University of California, reviewed long term studies on the effects of calorie restricted diets to assess their effectiveness for obesity treatment. Between a third to two thirds of dieters regained more weight than they had lost*.

There is a massive worldwide industry that exists to make people happy by making them thinner and slimmer, and for some people it is a success story. For many it is not, it is a false hope, a hard fought for temporary happiness that fades as old habits and beliefs find their way back in again.

This is all about returning to a natural relationship with your food, your body’s desires and hungers, and your long-term happiness. I am constantly amazed at the discomfort, torture, and deprivation someone will go through in the pursuit of happiness, bodyweight happiness. There is the mind set too "I only need to eat this special ready meal, its a slimming meal, and I will be happy because I will lose weight"

Who do you know who is a yo yo dieter? “This next one will work, I can do this one”

Food has a unique meaning for each of us. Beyond the need to give our bodies sustenance, food has a value, a specific emotional meaning to each of us; we all have a food that is just ‘to die for’ and something which is so horrid and yuck, ’ I could never eat that’, and a whole range of emotions in between.

Specific foods, and many specific situations are linked to foods. Sunday dinner could well mean a ‘roast’, stress may well mean ‘chocolate’, and boredom could well mean ‘anything that is to hand that is ready to eat’

‘and how is it we know when to start eating and when to stop eating? Until you have balance, until you have harmony in your relationship to food, no diet in the world will ever work; nothing will ever give you long lasting results until you change your relationship with food.

Have you ever ’just found yourself’ standing in front of the fridge about to eat that piece of cake, or leftover dinner…or, “I was only going to have one, but I could not help myself”. That’s your subconscious mind at work.

It can work for the good of the whole of you, or it can work against you. Your subconscious mind is like a very faithful servant. It does not think for itself it just does what it has been told to do, or learnt to do, and it is always looking to reinforce the things it believes in. It can influence, cajole, nudge and subtly co-opt your behaviours time and time again; without fail, back inline with its own out of balance, out of date beliefs and needs. It’s as if there is a part of you, which is not tuned to the same channel. The good news is, with a little co-operation it can be your best friend, always working with the same faithfulness for the good of you.

A diets is nothing more than a programme or eating system that tries to exert an external influence over what, when and why you eat. You can try to change your eating habits, impose a regime upon yourself, consciously remembering to do this or that; not to eat this or that - or you could allow a new relationship with food to develop in your subconscious mind in your fundamental beliefs, your emotional core, which in turn, drives new beneficial behaviours. This is the power of Modern Hypnotherapy.

*References

A multicenter evaluation of a proprietary weight loss program for the treatment of marked obesity: A five-year follow-up . Thomas A. Wadden, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104 David L. Frey Consumer Research Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Medicare's search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer. Mann T, Tomiyama AJ, Westling E, Lew AM, Samuels B, Chatman J. Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563