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Jul 30

‘There’s nothing more annoying than a friend on a diet’ – 9Honey

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Is there anyone more annoying than a friend who has just lost weight and feels amazing?

Rhetorical question.

Because while some of us are still safely ensconced in layers of clothing, snug and warm in the comfort of denial about the inevitability of summer while eating carbs with sweet abandon, OTHERS are making their summer bodies, right as we speak, IN WINTER.

I found myself dying midway conversation with a friend who was on week three of the new version of the HCG Diet [an extreme diet involving injections of HCG, the hormone women make when pregnant].

She had just lost five kilos and was now perched high on a soapbox and offering unsolicited diet advice.

Not wanting to rain on her parade at all, because as if I would want to do that, I carefully enquired: hadnt she been on the old HCG roundabout before? And hadnt she, after she returned to eating like a normal person, regained all the hard earned lost kilos with maybe a couple of extras for good measure?

Oh, pardon me, sorry, this is the HCG you get from the doctor. Right. Is it still 500 calories a day? Hello obviously thats why it works. My mistake. And how fabulous that were giving it another go the third time is always the charm.

Look, I dont mean to be negative-Nancy but I was born a Size 14 and I certainly know my way around a calorie-restricted, protein-laden diet and exercise program like the very best of them.

Which is why I was a little surprised when Missy continued in her sermon. Do you know why French women dont get fat?

Um, because they are on drugs and they smoke?

No. Because theyve identified their food culprits. What are your top five food culprits Aleesa? Oooh. The big questions. Champagnefood, which has cheese on it and is like not a protein?

Well that answer opened a can of worms: Champagne sure have that glass but then get on the treadmill for half an hour to burn it off. Because thats how much it takes to work off the calories of just one glass of Champagne.

Firstly, what idiot is going to sit on one glass of Champagne and then excuse herself as she darts upstairs to the home gym filled with washing to do a quick sesh on the treadmill, WITHOUT having another glass of said Champagne on her return as a reward? Spare. Me.

I then get a follow up text message with the suggestion to "Find a PT and do weight resistance training at the gym because it will burn fat and tone". Knock me down with a feather weight training burns fat and tones! I had no idea. And Im kind of pissed that not one of my six trainers over five gyms during this last 15 years told me this. Seriously. And I paid these guys good money.

See, people like myself and my dear friend who have always had that extra 10kg plus to lose, have done it all the fasting, the meal replacements, the tablets instead of food (hello Herbal Life cant believe that wasnt sustainable), the shakes, the drops, the potions and lets not forget exercise (I mean were not idiots).

Weve bounced up and down through the step classes of our youth, done the grapevine right up to Body Pump, intermittent training, Spin and Barre I mean I have had a Fitness First membership for a generation. Indeed we seasoned dieters have been around that block many, many times. Which begs the question: Why, after having made a career of dieting and exercise, are we are still not our taut and trim best?

So, I did my Googles, found an article that really spoke to me, and guess what? I discovered that diets dont work (I bet you didnt know that either. GIVE ME BACK MY LIFE)!

Well, of course the basic science of eating less than your body burns, works you will lose weight.

But keeping the weight off for the rest of your life? I think we all know the answer to that one. However, there are some people who have been very successful long term.

A few of my friends have lost weight and kept it off for many years (I dont speak to those people anymore) but the data reveals that this is the exception, not the rule. Is it lack of motivation, will power, discipline? Why do our bodies kind of spring back to their natural size 16 states in no time at all?

Scientists have found that a weight-reduced body behaves very differently to a similar-size body that has not dieted it is metabolically different (like not good different).

Dieting puts a person who has gone down this slippery road into a state of always wanting to eat while their metabolism is slower than someone at the same weight who has never dieted. I kid you not. Its pure biological sabotage from the get-go.

After youve lost weight, your brain has a greater emotional response to food, Rosenbaum says. You want it more, but the areas of the brain involved in restraint are less active. Combine that with a body that is now burning fewer calories than expected, he says, and youve created the perfect storm for weight regain.

How long this state lasts isnt known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected.

The problem could persist indefinitely. This doesnt mean its impossible to lose weight and keep it off; it just means its really, really difficult.

Arent we up against it, friends? Our very own bodies literally setting us up to fail. So, do we just abandon that second round of Michelle Bridges? Cease the Ketosis?

Stop donating money to various fitness establishments? Or do we just press on with that dream, and keep chipping away at our lifes work of actually losing weight and keeping it off? Its very tempting to throw in the towel. But Im no quitter. It does make me wonder thoughmaybe ignorance really is bliss after all.

Excerpt from:
'There's nothing more annoying than a friend on a diet' - 9Honey

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