Why Most Diets Fail

My sister works in the IT field.  She constantly gets calls from people who blame their computer or the software they are using when things don’t go right.  99% of the time she can actually replace the blame on the user.  When people fail to lose weight on a diet or weight loss plan, more often than not, it is also user error.

Compliance is the biggest indicator of success on a weight loss plan.  Most diets will result in weight loss if people could actually stick with them.  However, the diets should carry some of the blame.  Depending on how easy they are to comply with, improves their success rate.  So the fact that most diets fail, leads me to believe, those diets are just literally impossible to follow in the real world.

Here is a look at what makes a diet hard to follow in the real world.

1. Not enough calories.   A diet plan that is too low in calories leaves a person irritable, fatigued, unable to exercise, and just feeling lousy.  While a person may be able to follow a strict low calorie plan for a few days, the average person will soon start seeing donuts in their daydreams and eventually give in to the temptations.
2. The food is expensive or difficult to attain. Jenny Craig, The Cookie Diet, Nutrisystem etc. are examples of diets where the consumer purchases specific foods for daily eating.  While this might work in Hollywood, your average consumer has discretionary funds that fluctuate.  Some weeks they may be able to afford it, and other weeks they are simply out of money.  The other problem with diets like these is in social situations, it’s usually embarrassing to pull out your own meal replacement bar, while all your friends are ordering Nacho’s.
3. Habits are hard to break.  A diet is difficult to stick to because most require a behavior change.  That is understandable to lose weight, but it’s tough to do.  A behavior change might be they want you to eat sushi for breakfast, but you’ve been eating toast and juice for 35 years.  Another one could be they recommend you don’t go out to eat, yet every Friday night you have a date with your spouse.  Habits win when someone is trying to change.
4. People aren’t that committed. OK, maybe I’m only talking about myself.  My example, I have wanted to lose 10lbs for probably 10 years now.  I can follow a plan for a few days and then I see something delicious to eat.  I rationalize in my head, “I look fine! Why am I torturing myself. My husband loves me just the way I am”.  Then I give in.  Failed!
5. We have an “I deserve it” mentality. This is a problem when it comes to being compliant with a diet.  After a hard day of work, or after following a diet program for several days, have you ever heard yourself say, “I’m going to eat that cookie! I deserve it! I work hard.  I’ve been good for so many days?”  That one cookie leads to another, which leads to a meal, which leads to abandoning the diet altogether.
6. We don’t eat because we are hungry. I have often scoffed at supplements that help people lose weight because they suppress appetite.  The reason is most of us don’t eat because we are hungry.  There are a million reasons we eat, and appetite is low on the totem pole.  So, when a diet doesn’t address the issues of why people eat, it hardly ever solves the problem for people either.
7. It’s boring! Or should I say, the food is boring.  There are a few people who can live on broccoli and chicken breasts, but those people have extreme personalities.  The rest of us need a little variety in our lives, and a diet that only has a few foods on their ‘approved’ list is too boring.

CONCLUSION

People tend to agree that most diets fail.  Diets that work are hard to follow.  Generally any diet works for someone, they just don’t work for the general population because they are tough to adhere to.  A diet that feels restrictive to someone trying to lose weight, can find a lot of reasons why he/she should abandon it altogether.

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