Nowadays, in this part of the world, there is no food shortage. On the contrary, food seems to be everywhere around us, in increasing number of forms, tastes and packages. At the same time we spend more of our time driving, sitting in our offices or in front of the television sets and computers, and less moving or working physically. Especially when our lifestyle changes (a new job, marriage…). And even the smallest changes can lead to weight sneaking up on us: it takes only a year for a can of Coke extra a day to turn into 14 pounds of excess weight!
 
It‘s a miracle that we aren’t all overweight!
 
However, although the number of overweight people is on the rise, a lot of people around us still manage to keep their weight within a healthy range.
Why is it so difficult for the rest of us?

Let’s see how this normally goes. 

 

Step 1. Dissatisfaction: at a certain moment either we or the people around us notice our weight gain. Or maybe we live with it for a long time (in my case it’s almost twenty years now). And then, either because or the looks, health, social pressure or other reasons, we start feeling dissatisfied with our new weight.  
 
Step 2. Action: depending on our personality, experience and other parameters, our dissatisfaction sooner or later causes us to start doing something about it, pushes us into the action. We usually start some sort of a diet: we skip meals, give up candy, beer, count calories, fat grams, follow ‘cabbage-only’ diet or the latest celebrity diet described in our favorite magazine, whatever. We’re all different and we do different things, but I guess most people will recognize this behavior pattern.
 
Step 3. Deprivation: a problem with most diets is that they require you to give up stuff that you like and want, or stuff that you’re used to. The stricter the diet, the more you are giving up. In For most of us, this creates a growing feeling of deprivation. And it’s not always just the psychological feeling of depriving our selves of the things we want and like, your body might be also deprived of the stuff it needs.
 
Step 4. Quitting: for a while we may succeed in fighting the distressful feeling of deprivation: either by willpower, or we manage to counter it with the satisfaction coming from our weight loss. And sometimes, that built-up deprivation is just enough to “break us down” and make us quit our diet. Not always, but if you count all the unfulfilled promises we made to ourselves after overeating during holidays/weekends, then it seems more often than not.
 
Actually, the harder we fight it, the stronger the deprivation becomes. Imagine a large elastic band attached with one side to a column. Now, imagine taking the elastic band by its free side and pulling away from the column. The harder you pull and further stretch the band, the more difficult it becomes, because the band pulls you back with a greater force. In addition, the longer you are pulling, the more tired you get from it. A similar thing happens with the deprivation in dieting – the harder you persist, the more deprived you feel, the more tired you get and more likely you are to give up. And if you do, there is a big chance you’re going to overindulge, at least for a while.
 
Step 5. Going back to our usual behavior: what happens when you quit the diet? Most of the diets are designed and started as a temporary change in our behavior. And the more we go against our habits and character (and in the case of the strict diets, even against human nature), the more temporary the changes are. And if not in an explosive rebellious binge pig-out way, then slowly but surely, we go back to our old behavior.
 
Step 6. Closing the vicious circle:  And when you do the same, surely, you get the same results. Our old behavior resulted in weight gain in the first place. Nothing changes after we quit the diet and go back to our old behavior: inevitably our weight creeps back on.  And you wouldn’t be the first to end up with even more weight than you started from.