Secrets the diet sellers don’t want you to know

There’s a lot of money to be made in promoting diet books, products and do-dads that claim to make it easier for people to lose weight and keep it off. But if they really worked, would so many people be overweight and struggling? Would we need so many products? Wouldn’t everyone just use the one that worked and then go on their way?

Weight loss secrets revealed

Brie Cadman at Divine Caroline recently noted a few weight loss “secrets” the diet industry doesn’t want you to know about. For example:

- You really do have to exercise, and probably more than you think. An hour a day is probably best for weight loss and maintenance.

- It’s easy to overestimate how many calories you’re burning and underestimate how many you’re eating, so don’t reward yourself with a treat every time you have a good workout, or you’ll never lose weight.

- You have time to exercise. Really you do. It may take sacrifice, but you can do it if you really want to.

- Eating more of anything — especially “diet food” — won’t help you lose weight.

- It’s not just calories in versus calories out; the quality and nutritional value of the foods you choose matters a lot, too.

- Your body, and the world around you, don’t really want you to lose weight.

- A diet won’t solve your problem; you need to change for life

If there were a secret, we’d all be thin

The diet industry is all about quick solutions that are supposed to be effortless and allow you to lose the weight you need to then go off the diet, presumably back to your old ways. But old ways are exactly what got you in the situation of needing a diet in the first place.

Even if diets worked temporarily — and certainly some of them can, for some people — they don’t do anything permanent if they don’t change your mindset and your behaviors. That’s why Kirstie Alley gained the weight back and then some; she thought she was through with weight gain and therefore cut herself immense amounts of slack.

She stopped exercising and weighing herself and was ultimately horrified to learn she was pretty much right back where she started. Her story isn’t an uncommon one. In fact, it’s the very thing that keeps the diet industry in business: people who try diets, have some success and go off the diets, or get frustrated and go off the diets, only to gain weight, decide they need to make a change and try a different diet.

Stepping off that cycle and really changing the way we eat, our feelings about food, how we exercise and more not only will make us healthier individuals, it might make for a healthier society when some of those diet pushers start running out of clients.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)