How are your NY diet resolutions going?

5 Feb

Did you make a New Years resolution around diet this year?

If so, how is this diet going?

If you are feeling like you are failing this diet, don’t. This is just what diets do to us. There is really no good way to reach your diet goals.

Diet culture leads us to believe that reaching diet goals is all about willpower. But you can’t use willpower to beat the biological drive from your hypothalamus (part of your brain), producing hormones to tell you you’re hungry, to eat more and obsess over food when your body is dieting (i.e. starving).

“There is not a single long-term study that shows that weight-loss dieting is sustainable. Study after study, shows that dieting and food restriction for the purpose of weight loss leads to more weight gain. Yes, weight gain (Rothblum 2018).” (Tribole, 2021).

While we usually make diet goals in the interest of bettering our health, diets in fact adversely affect our health. This is what the research is telling us about the negative impact of dieting on our health;

Disordered eating behaviours (Fairburn 2003, Tuschl et al 1990, Urbszat et al 2002)
Increased risk of premature death and heart disease (Framingham Study)
Chronic Dieting Syndrome (Grodner 1992, Ogden 2010)
Increased binge eating
Decreased metabolic rate
Depression and anxiety (French & Jeffrey 1994)
Working memory impairment (Green 2011)
Morbidity and mortality risk (Mann et al 2007)
Weight gain (Bacon et al 2011, French et al 1994)

If you really want to honour your health, create New Years resolutions that are;

Flexible
Sustainable
Realistic
Focus on adding in more nourishing whole foods, rather than taking food groups away
Move your body in a way that brings you joy and enhances your life

Be kind to yourself,

M x