WHY 'DIETS' FAIL: 3 Key reasons YOU MAY BE LOSING WEIGHT UNSUCCESSFULLY

15/12/2018

So many weight loss attempts are unsuccessful...but why? In today's post I explore 3 key reasons diets fail that I have personally seen among my weight loss clients. Read on to discover how you can avoid them YOURSELF!

When you look at the statistics of weight loss in society, it’s alarming. After a 3-year period, only roughly 5% of people can be deemed to have successfully lost weight and importantly, kept it off. In the midst of all the dieting culture going on around us, it’s safe to say this is worrying. In begs the questions, “Why are we trying so hard for something that just doesn’t seem to be working?” Heck you could even ask yourself, “Is it healthy to be pushing a weight loss norm amidst all these unsuccessful attempts to do so?”

It’s no secret there is an obesity issue in Western society and it’s also no secret many people try and fail to lose weight effectively. Think about the friends, family members, and colleagues who have talked about their health kick or tell you about the latest diet they are on – usually to no avail in the end. Many may lose weight but then only a year later they are doing the same process again – there lies the issue.

Simply put, we do not have a shortage of weight loss…well at least it’s not as black and white as it seems. Many are able to lose weight but they don’t keep up the ‘’shred gains’’. So yeah we don’t really have a lack of weight loss per say…

- We have a weight regain epidemic -

FREE TRAINING:
Want to learn about the strategy that has helped my athlete clients leverage nutrition to get REAL results without relying on rigid meal plans & restrictive diets?

I've filmed a training video to introduce you to my flexible approach to nutrition that I have used to help athletes reach their peak potential.

Click here to get instant access to this FREE training to learn about flexible nutrition & what you need to know to level up your nutrition!

So why do we struggle to get over the hurdle that is weight loss? What makes something so well understood and seemingly ‘simple’ such an unattainable feat for most? The enigma of weight loss I like to call it.

That is what I set out to explain in this blog post. I want to crack open the enigma that is this weight loss debacle and give you the lowdown on how you can start changing things for yourself. This weight loss paradox can be explained in so many ways but I’m going to focus on the key 3 issues I see my clients struggle with and these same issues are what has been found to be leading the way for the weight regain train.

So without further ado, here are 3 of many reasons YOU may be struggling with your shred goals of 2018, despite your desire to become a lean machine.

Adherence

Adherence really is king when it comes to weight loss and any health change really. Like with anything in life, if you don’t stick to it – you fail! No ifs, no buts, no coconuts (thank you, Sheldon Cooper for that bazinga!). In fact, success and failure is so closely influenced by adherence that I would say this is the number 1 reason weight loss eludes many of you dudes and dudettes.

Everyone starts with good intentions. We all have an idea of what we’ll achieve when we start a weight loss journey. We all tell ourselves “yes we can”. But…we don’t factor in that successful weight loss and health change takes time. More time than many folks are ready/willing/expecting to invest in to get to the end goal – whether it’s five kilos of weight loss or twenty. So many people I see have a history of jumping aboard the next fad diet that pops its head out of obscurity and the money-hungry, to claim superiority and that it is the secret variable in the weight loss equation.

Listen guys. There is no best diet per say, not in the way you may think anyways. However, no matter which dietary style you choose to pursue, one thing is certain and that is that adhering to your chosen diet is paramount if you want to be successful. I’m not even talking about doing the chosen diet forever – you need to at least adhere to the idea and possibility of doing it on an ongoing basis. It’s not guaranteed that the diet you choose will work or fit your lifestyle completely – but you need to have the intention of doing it long-term (i.e. you can’t start with the mindset of “I’ll do it for a bit”). If you start like that you’ve already failed on this fat loss journey you say you desire so deeply. I hear it all the time from new clients.

Client: “I wanna do Keto…I heard it’s so good at fat burn”.
Me: “Keto MAY work but it’s a hard diet to stick too long term. Can you imagine life with out virtually all carbs?”.
Client: “oh nah I just want to do this diet for a few weeks to get to a certain weight then Ill go back to a normal diet”.
Me: *hello darkness my old friend*

There has to be some sort of longer-term commitment from your part and that starts with being confident you can do this diet you choose. Otherwise you’ll be starting on the wrong foot and your journey will be tainted with the inevitable and dreaded ‘falling off the bandwagon’, as you say. So unless you love falling off and getting back on the bandwagon (you shouldn’t!), then it’s probably a good idea you give your nutrition and diet more thought. Please do. Yo-yo dieting is a critical cause of weight issues in later life – things do become harder if you perpetually do it.

So many of you are fucking choosing diets you don’t even believe you can stick to!

And that my friends is the basic catalyst for failure when it comes to weight loss. Choosing a diet you didn’t think out properly or simply had no intention of potentially sticking to, all for the purpose of hopefully getting a quick fix and saying you ‘did it’ – well that is the recipe for disaster.

All you did was set yourself up for failure and if history repeats itself (as it does for many in this weight loss game we play), you’ll find you get the sting of the weight regain train hitting you. That is why I’m passionate about my work. I love utilising the power of nutrition to help people lose weight the right way.

And my key ‘secret’? Adherence is the bread and butter. It’s at the forefront. It’s the spaghetti and meatball.

Long term mentality prevails in the end and the long-term mentality is the foundation of adherence and therefore success on your weight loss journey. Keep that in mind as we now go onto the next key reason people are falling short in the weight loss game (or should I say more specifically, fat loss game) – having a short-term mindset and mentality about change and the process.

Mindset - having the right mental game

Adherence is essentially doing something long-term (or at least with the intention of doing so potentially) and not stalling in your mission. It’s knowing what you want and what and it takes, and still sticking to it because you believe in yourself and the process.
So therefore, it isn’t hard to see that your mindset is crucial for not only adherence to a plan of action but also ultimately your outcome – the difference between success or failure.

Many people who I work with who also struggle (or have struggled) with losing weight tend to employ the short-term mindset when it comes to health change. They want results and they want them FAST!

Don’t get me wrong…I get it! But I also know this is a recipe for disaster for many because good change takes time. Sustainable results are achieved this way and therefore you need to have the long-term mentality brewing inside you. You need to understand the process is long and requires a long-term commitment.

Quick fixes should be the last thing on your mind, BUT this simply isn’t the case with many individuals. And that can be the underdoing of all the weight loss progress, or potential progress that could be made if only there was more trust and interest in the process and less on instant gratification. What manifests is either you don’t achieve the result you wanted or worse – you don’t achieve the result you wanted PLUS you get discouraged and throw your goals to the wind.

The sheer abundance of short-term thinking is what’s undoing so many of you in your bid to become leaner. Maybe you heard about Karen’s 5 kg weight loss in one week on the keto diet. Maybe you read a magazine article about how to shred 10 kilos in 10 days. Heck, maybe you are simply fed up with trying unsuccessfully and you just want it all NOW and QUICKLY – regardless if it’s healthy and/or realistic. But this exact kind thinking is one of the key reasons weight loss is unsuccessful among so many of us in today’s weight focussed society.

You didn’t factor in that Karen lost 5kg of water weight because that’s what happens on keto in the first week (Fun fact: each gram of carb in the body holds 4g of water – you deplete your bodies carb storage in the initial stage of keto so you do the math).
You didn’t consider that the magazines want to sell magazines – no matter if their advice is safe, realistic, or sustainable. The magazines want a sexy solution, not the right one. You also didn’t consider everyone is different and what works for one-person wont work for you – aka the one-size fits all mentality which is a fallacy. Diet and nutrition (and by extension, weight loss) is not a beanie – you can’t just ‘gift’ it to anyone and expect good shit to happen.

Listen to me here and reap these words. If you implement a long-term mentality in your weight loss journey, you will win. In some shape or form you will succeed. That’s just the way it is with health – it’s a marathon and not a fucking sprint. As cliché as that may sound (sorry not sorry), it’s proven time and time again to be true.

Think about anything good in life. It’s achieved through perseverance, effort, and over time (except for the few rare cases – BUT don’t try be an anomaly). Especially with weight loss, a slower more long-term approach that promotes steady change across time has been shown to be more affective at eliciting sustainable results. Your body is clever and it hates change which means it will try to counteract your efforts; especially if you go hard out. Take things slow, ease your body into the process, don’t give up, trust in the process, DON’T GIVE UP, and stop bloody fixating on what you don’t have now and think about the ‘prize’ you can get in the long run – a fruit with nectar so sweet you’ll wish you always took the steady approach.

Awareness

So far we have covered adherence and the mindset as two key reasons diets fail for a large proportion of hopeful weight loss go-getters. Now we will delve into the third reason many of the clients I see are not progressing with their fat loss journeys as much as they hoped to.

A simple lack of awareness…leading to either an over or underestimation of caloric consumption.

If I had a dollar every time I assessed a client’s diet and found discrepancies between what was recorded versus what was recalled, I’d have a solid amount of loose change and the drinks would be on me. It is so common that it deserves a spot in any list about weight loss success (or in this case, lack thereof).

This isn’t just my clients though, even I would struggle to accurately recall and assess my food portions without tracking my nutrition using tools. It’s normal because we don’t naturally think of food as “amounts” and “portions” and “macros”. We think of food as food. But this doesn’t change the fact tracking can be the key to unlocking your weight loss potential – because at the end of the day it’s about the metaphorical see-saw – aka calorie balance.

If you have never tracked your intake before, I highly recommend you give it a good ol go…you might be surprised with what you find. In fact we tend to underestimate our portions – ask yourself to portion out one cup of rice and you’ll lay out three. This is where the issue lies. Since you don’t know your exact portions, you don’t know your calorie intake.

Without knowing your calorie intake you won’t have an accurate foundation to base your nutritional adjustments on. This will mean you will struggle to establish an effective energy deficit which will lead to poor weight loss efforts. However, you don’t need to track forever, no. I’m simply saying you need to do something to establish awareness around your diet and then when it becomes second nature you’re set like a handprint in newly paved cement.

It's not hard to see how awareness can be the key stepping stone towards more effective nutrition plans and more successful weight loss attempts. It’s simply science, no two ways about it. If you know what you are working with, you’ll be able to more effectively modify it to your advantage. Awareness precedes change and it’s clearly the case here. The change you make needs to be informed by accurate data (aka your diet and calories) to ensure it’s done properly, realistically, and sustainability. Otherwise you’ll be continuing to play a game of cat and mouse with your results and possibly get discouraged and at worst – give up!

The solution…

So where to from here, you may be asking? Well don’t worry friend, I wouldn’t leave you with the ‘Why’ and not give you some solutions to these setbacks you may be experiencing in your weight loss journey.

Here are some of my key tips to successfully navigate the above 3 barriers to choose the right path towards optimal shredding:

List your fave foods then look at the list of diets you have brainstormed. Any diet which excludes your fave foods are immediate goners (#sayonara). Trust me – don’t second guess this. You need to enjoy life for fucks sake.
Ask yourself, “can I do this for 1 whole year?” Yes? Then ask yourself, “what about 10?” No? Well then bye bye *insert name of diet*. I mean there is always room for change down the track, but the commitment and right mindset needs to be there, and if you can’t see a more long-term commitment then it’s best to keep brainstorming.
Is the diet safe and nutritionally sound? Pretty self-explanatory here on what path you choose based on the answer. I always emphasis with my clients that weight loss means nothing if health and safety isn’t factored in to the equation. Health is wealth after all – as cliché again as that sounds.
Does the diet make extravagant claims that seem too good to be true? If the answer is yes then you my friend have likely encountered a fad diet or simply a straight up BS diet. So stay away and do not pay!
Is it realistic for you and your lifestyle? Think about this one real hard and be self-aware because this will directly influence your adherence. Don’t just say yes because your mate said it’s the bees knees. Be your own fucking person and assess and decide. That’s it. The end.
Does the diet completely exclude one or more core food groups? Yes? Well then you may want to be wary of this diet or seek the guidance of a nutrition expert – aka a dietitian (if you want to chat about your goals then consider booking into a FREE nutrition strategy session with myself).
Don’t compare yourself to others AND/OR their progress and journeys. Everyone is different. Each path is unique. If you don’t realise this, your nutrition approach and game is fricking weak. Work on this and you’ll find happiness in yourself and do better. Things will get real good at the personal level. Each diet plan needs to be tailored to you so why would you try do what others do just for the sake of it. Choose the diet and path that you can see yourself sticking to for weeks/months/years. A dietitian can help here – we can help decipher the information and provide you with the right advice and recommended nutrition pathway.
Awareness preceeds change as I highlighted earlier, so always ensure you aren’t only aware of YOURSELF but also aware of your calories and food. Use something like My Fitness Pal and track 1 week of food and drink intake accurately and assess your intake. From this you can get an accurate picture of your nutrition and more effectively modify it as needed for whatever goal/s you may have.
In the end…give it a go! Once you have narrowed down your options to a couple possible dietary styles then try one out for 2-4 weeks. Do you even like it? Does it suit you? Is it getting results? All of these are important questions I highly recommend you ask of yourself. Sometimes trial and error is what it takes to narrow down your strategy and starting seeing some good ol fat loss.

The weight loss sphere is rife with stories and experiences of unsuccessful endeavors. The fat loss industry is built upon this – they thrive on your lack of success. I mean 5% people! That’s unacceptable when you consider the benefits weight loss may promote and the amount of money people invest into their efforts to get shredded and what not. That is why I truly hope this piece is the first piece in the puzzle that is the eventual solution to this issue we have – weight regain on the grand scale.

Adherence. Awareness. Mindset. Start mastering these in your life in your own unique way and you may just find your health will slowly improve and you may start getting the results you have desired for however long you have had these goals in your mind.

Remember my friends, you are in control of how you ultimately tackle this weight loss game. You have it in yourself to establish the right plan but that takes effort, planning, and a skeptical mind to be able to navigate the murky waters that make things ever more so difficult for you in this day and age. And don’t feel you are alone in all this. Support can be the cherry on top that helps you overcome your barriers. Seek the help of family/friend/dietitian/colleague/gym partner.

You need to be both self-aware of what you can and can’t do. Self-aware on what you are willing to do. You need to be confident you can maintain constancy and adherence to your mission. And your mindset needs to be strong enough to not only focus on the long-term vs. instant gratification, but also need to be able to question and critique diets and ideas to be able to determine the best strategy for YOU, the individual who, is ultimately, the decider of success and failure. Now go out and REACH YOUR PEAK!

Sincerely,

The Climbing Dietitian

Check out the FREE training yet?

Want to learn about the strategy that has helped my athlete clients leverage nutrition to get REAL results without relying on rigid meal plans & restrictive diets?
Want more food freedom while still transforming your performance/physique?

I've filmed a training video to introduce you to my flexible approach to nutrition that I have used to help athletes reach their peak potential.

Click here to get instant access to this FREE training to learn about flexible nutrition & what you need to know to level up your nutrition!

1 Comment

NUTRITION BLOG