It seems that people that go on diets don't seem to be successful over time.
People look for the new book and new program that will be the key to success.
There are people that try a new diet every 6 months. What's going to work?

GeraghtyDurango

I believe diets don't work for a few reasons:

1 - people have unrealistic expectations of how fast they can lose weight and give up when they can't meet those expectations.

2 - people go on unrealistic diets and can't maintain the lifestyle called for in the diet, so they give up.

3 - people go on crash diets without a full understanding of how they're affecting their bodies, and after they quit "crash" dieting, they gain the weight back.

4 - people have no knowledge of nutrition and so they don't know how to properly judge whether or not a diet is healthy or hype.

5 - people are impatient and want instant results so they'll believe anything they read (which ties back to #4 - they don't have the capacity to judge a diet properly)

6 - people don't understand that they can't "go on" a diet - that they need to eat healthily and exercise as a lifestyle change if they want a sustainable loss.

What are you gonna advertise now GD? most your posts end up getting deleted or having links removed...its getting old. you show up and post a thread like the above and then take off for another week or so...what are you getting from it?

LOL - I think that he is hoping that people check out his biography.....

Diets suck because they are temporary. I have lost and gained over 50 lbs. three times in the past ten years.. Each time I was on a "diet" or exercise program, but I would always eventually lose control and go back to my bad habits. Now, I am as heavy as I have ever been and am thinking about "lifestyle changes" rather than "diets."

I think trying to learn these new habits is soo hard. A diet is easy. Thats why people go on diets and thats why they don't work. But lifestyle changes and kicking bad habits for good is like breaking nay hard addiction. I have never been addicted to drugs or alcohol so I can't comment with assurance, but I would imagine my addiction to food is equal to these other addictions. I spend every second of every day thinking about food, feeling fat and useless, andstruggling with my addiction. Losing weight for good and breaking the addiction is hard. Dieting is a fad not a permanant change that is needed to lose weight and become healthy. That's why diets fail.

Something Interesting to note based on my past experience with exercise and diets:

Diet and exercise are definitely an important part of loosing weight. HOWEVER, there is more to loosing weight than simply changing how much your eat or exercise. I believe that in order to truly see LASTING weight loss you must examin the emotional or psychological reasoning behind the patterns of behavior that led you to become overweight in the first place. Making weight the issue is simply a very superficial way of dealing with something that is about so much more. I do agree that exercising more and making healthy choices about what you eat is important. You may even see some results, but without examining what I previously said, odds are you will regain the weight. Sometimes people even gain more weight...

My two cents

well, diets as a standalone can do shit.

You need to workout hard too, and even if not, the term 'diet' is very elaborate. which diet are you talking about?

One thing you have to notice is that as you lower calories, there will be a short term weight loss but then your metabolism will catch up on it.

Although you may want to include things that boost metabolism: Caffeine, green tea, yohibime, etc. but at the end of the day it results in muscle loss because of the lack of exercise, so unless you are looking for less than say 8KGs of weight loss, diets are ineffective on their own.

If you keep in mind that "diet" is the greek word for "way of life", then you can be very successful on a diet long term - assuming that you actually do change your way of life for the better.

Eating properly, as well as excersing enough, is either a part of your way of life or it isn't. I managed to climb to nearly 240lbs because those things were not part of my way of life for over 13 years. I ate potatoes, and I was a couch potato. I was soft, weak, very overweight, and my overall health was in seriously bad condition. I had hemmorhoids, apnea, snoring, frequent respiratory infections, depression, anxiety, inability to concentrate, insomnia, and was always out of breath. I finally stopped lying to myself that I was OK, and I woke up.

During my journey to weight loss over the past year or so, I stopped eating potatoes, among all other high glycemic things, and sit less and less on the couch. The hard part is just beginning as I focus on lowering my bodyfat from 20% down to 9% over the next 9 months. I've never seen my six pack before, and many people tell me that it's "not genetically possible for everyone" or that being over 40 I can't do it anymore - that it's not possible to have the body of a 25 year old again. I say bullshit on both counts. It's 80% food intake and 20% exercise; it's discipline. I will do it, now that I am awake.