How serious are you about managing your weight? Losing it? Getting control over it? If you are serious, then stop dieting. Dieting is dumb. You are not. So, if you thought about it for a moment, maybe you’d consider an alternative way to go about it.

How is dieting dumb, you might ask? Starting another diet is like hiring a taxi to drive you in a circle. It’s not only pointless, it’s a waste of time, money and emotion. The only place a diet will take you is back to where you started. This is clinically proven. Neither you nor I are the only ones to have experienced this.

The Deal with Diets: What You See Isn’t What You Get

Diets are commercial products sold for a profit. That’s not bad or even wrong. The problem is the way they are sold. I admit, it’s enticing. They sell us our own dreams, but can’t take us there. They show us pictures of happy women in bathing suits and form fitting clothing. We picture ourselves in an outfit we used to wear, or would wear if we could zip it. How do you feel when you imagine it? (The hills are alive…with the sound of…)  A better life is just ahead, we tell ourselves, as we type in the credit card digits. A few weeks later, the fantasy gives way to reality, weight loss slows down and stops. Soon, we round the last turn to the place we started. Again.

When you lose weight quickly at first, you believe it’s “working.” This time is THE time. What you don’t know is there are unseen factors guiding you right back to where you started. What factors? Things you don’t yet know or didn’t take into consideration when you chose the diet you believed would get you there.

When you buy a diet, you are paying for:

  • Someone else’s plan – so you don’t have to plan. BUT you never learn how to plan.
  • Someone else’s decisions – so you won’t have to decide. BUT you don’t grow stronger and wiser in your decision making.
  • Someone else’s knowledge, so you won’t have to learn. BUT you never learn how to manage your weight for yourself.

You’d be better off not taking that ride.

What should you do instead? What if you could:

  • Learn how to do it yourself?
  • Make your own good decisions?
  • Plan your food and eating the way you prefer?
  • Be the driver rather than the passenger?
  • Enjoy more flexibility and freedom while you lose?

What stops most people from taking this route? The times when we are most ready to do something about our weight is often when we are feeling the worst about it. Emotions are strong. And convincing. We allow our deep desire to escape our present condition to drive us to rash decisions. We fall prey to promises of fast and easy. When it comes to losing weight, “fast and easy” is the lie of lies. Until you are ready to think smart and steady, you’ll be apt to keep going in circles.

Next Exit, Turn Right, Go Straight Ahead

So, when it comes to diets, just stop. You don’t even have to know immediately what’s next. A deep breath is a good start. Allow yourself to let go of the inner voice that tells you to go one more round on Keto, or Paleo, or Nutri-System, etc.

The diet circle is bad for your body, physically. The more often you lose and gain the weight, the worse it is for you, health wise. Not only that, it compromises your body’s ability to shed weight each successive time you attempt it.

The diet circle is also bad for your mind and emotions. It leaves you confused (what did I do wrong?), discouraged (why bother anymore?) and blaming yourself (I’m too weak). It makes your next attempt harder to take on, and to believe it can be done. That’s a high price to pay for no results and worse, setting yourself further back.

Bottom line, to lose weight and keep it off, you must stop dieting.

Losing weight permanently? It absolutely can be done, when we understand the way God designed our bodies and we align our efforts with His design.

What should you do? I’ll offer a good starting place in my next post!

For further reading check out my books, available on Amazon:

I Once Was Fat but Now I’m Found: Part 1 – First Steps to Food Freedom

I Once Was Fat, but Now I’m Found: Part 2 – Move Over Emotions, Make Room for Truth