Over my years of experience and training in fitness, weight loss, and health, it is no surprise to me that diets have a depressing 5.2% success rate. And I also know through personal and professional experience that it is possible for people to eat their favorite foods without feeling guilty or punishing themselves, and lose and then maintain their weight.

The weight loss industry has led many to believe that they are failures for not being able to lose weight and keep it off, but the fact is if you were successful, the weight loss industry would have no way to squeeze your hard-earned money out of you. Keep this in mind there are thousands of diets, with more appearing each day. Does it make sense that as the diet and weight loss industry grows, so does the obesity in this country?

The Challenge

The primary reason diets dont work is what the American Dietetic Association has labeled Diet deprivation backlash this comes from black and white or good vs. bad thinking surrounding food we feel shame when eating bad or unhealthy. When you go on a diet and restrict certain foods, usually your favorite ones, you are much more likely to crave these foods, maybe even dream about them. Does this sound familiar?

Diet deprivation backlash simply means for every diet there is an equal and opposite binge. Lets say you are on a diet and you get a craving for a cookie. Of course a cookie is forbidden, so you search for something that is allowed on your diet. As you make your way through carrots, rice cakes, pretzels, fruit, diet soda and sugarless gum, the craving does not go away. By the end of the day you give up and eat a cookie. But by this time, you are out of control and eat 6 cookies instead! At this point, you have eaten around 1000 calories (including the cookies) plus regular meals, when if you ate a cookie or two in the first place you may have consumed 200 calories and been able to focus on more important things. This scenario is played out in various ways by everyone who goes on a diet.

The Solution

This backlash is human nature. You are told (even if by yourself) that you cant have a certain food. Therefore, it is all you can think about. Researchers have studied this phenomenon with interesting results.

In a study of a group of eight-year-old children, researchers put the group in a room with several bowls of candy and one bowl of carrots. They told the kids they could eat as much as they desired from any of the bowls, except the bowl of carrots. The amazing thing was that the kids ate a greater percentage of the carrots than the candy, simply because they were told NOT to eat them!

If you can refrain from labeling foods good or bad, you are on your way to ending the destructive diet and binge cycle. With every diet you go on, not only will you typically end up gaining more weight, but you lower your metabolism. By ending the dieting, you can maintain your weight and eventually lose it as your metabolism increases back to normal and by following the other guidelines in this report.