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Jan 22

Why Diets Stop Working Long-Term GMB Fitness

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If youre like most people, youve done a few diets in your lifetime. Many folks have done dozens.

In fact, many of these diets probably worked for you in the short term8 weeks, 12 weeks, sometimes maybe even six months. Then, at some point, it all came apart. You fell off the wagon, stopped following the diet, and gained back whatever weight you had lost. Often, people gain back more than they had initially lost.

Most people follow this cycle of diet failure for years, or even decades. Its demoralizing.

The diet world would tell you that, ultimately, you failed because of a lack of willpower. That you just didnt have the herculean determination that really fit people have. You know, the diet industry likes to say that kind of crap.

The reality is actually even simpler: If you failed at a diet, you failed because of either a lack of flexibility or a lack of skills. Both of those things can be fixed with practice.

Developing skills and flexibility, in contrast to a diet, can feel like more work in the short term. It takes time and practice to develop skillsif youve done Elements or Mobius, or have learned any movement skill, you know that it takes time.

Eating skills are like that toothey take time and work to develop. Unlike diets though, skills get easier over time. Anything youve ever practiced, youve gotten better at over time. Eating skills are the same. Your initial investment of effort and practice will serve you for a lifetime.

Weve just launched a new coaching experience around building Eating Skills. Registration is open through January 25!

GMB Eating Skills Details

To understand why you probably dont want to diet anymore, paradoxically, it can be useful to look at what worked about the diet initially.

Most diets work for a few simple reasons:

Thats literally it. Thats what they all have in common. And those things can work.

All of the other things youve ever read about one diet versus another diet is the stuff that makes no difference. It doesnt matter if you eat after 7pm; it doesnt matter if you avoided a magic food; you didnt need a magical ratio of macros. Almost all of the differences between diets are the things that you can actually completely disregard.

The things that all diets have in common are generally good ideas. It actually works really well to eat more vegetables. Vegetables are super healthy and theyre really filling. Adding more protein is great for strength and being leaner, and its really satisfying. Both vegetables and protein, besides being healthy, have a huge benefit of having you feel way more full.

Eating whole foods is generally more filling and satisfying than eating processed foods. But thats the only magic: Fullness.

No matter what youve been told about some foods being clean and other foods being dirty, the game really is just that whole foods are more satisfying.

And yes, you should eat some vegetables and fruit because theyre healthy. Thats it. Simple.

Paying attention to portion sizes, in some manner of speaking, makes a difference. Losing weight is the result of eating less food energy, gaining weight is the result of eating more food energy. Thats it.

It has nothing to do with carbs being evil, or time of day (you arent a gremlin), or gluten being terrible, or any of those things youve been sold. The research does not support that any of those things make any difference at all, when protein and calories are matched (see here).

Spare me that thing you heard about what keto did in rat studiesit makes no difference with humans. We have robust randomized controlled trials, conducted in locked metabolic wards, to know that. It may hurt to hear, but there are no magic macronutrients. They were wrong about fat in the 1990s and theyre wrong about carbohydrates now (see here, here, here, here, and here).

Portion sizes matter. The snacks between meals matter.

Limiting options and decision making works because we all want life to be simple. We actually dont want to spend a whole lot of time worrying about food. Unfortunately, if youve ever done a diet before, you know that what feels like it simplifies things in the beginning can become a real bear over time. Most people end up spending more time worrying about food.

It starts to become exhausting trying to fit the diet rules into the ever-changing demands of your life. It becomes impossible when you get into a social or schedule situation where you dont have any options that fit your diet rules.

Of the things weve listed so far that work about diets, this is for sure the one you want to ditch.

Diets dont work for a few simple reasons:

Lets take a look at each of these reasons.

Diets are easier in the beginning because they constrain your choices. It feels good to know exactly what to do, and having so many foods off-limits actually cuts out a lot of crap food that most people eat. Thats why it works so well in the short term.

Unfortunately, those same rigid constraints are why diets fail in the long termat some point youll have a social event, a vacation, a really stressful week, youll get sick, something will come up where you cant follow the rules.

And diets are always black and white, you either follow the rules or you fail. Thats why, with a diet, the longer youre on the diet the bigger your chances of failing are.

Its not a matter of if, but whenwhen you have a life event that doesnt fit in with your diet rules, the diet is going to fail you. There will be a time when your life is too busy to do the food prep and fill all of the Tupperware containers on Sunday. There will be a time when you want to go to a wine tasting. There will be a time when your in-laws come to visit and dont want to eat your diet food. There will be a time when your kids get sick.

Things come up, whether good or bad, that dont fit your diet rules. And then you fail.

And dont get me started on free-days. The cycle of rigid diet restriction and free days can start to look a whole lot like disordered eating, really fast.

The restrictive days keep getting more restrictive. The free days keep getting bigger and bigger. Pretty soon, you feel terrible under-eating all week, then you feel gross massively over-eating on your free day. It doesnt feel good either way. Its an unhealthy relationship to food, both ways. It can give the illusion of flexibility, but its really rigidly too little and rigidly too much, just at different times.

If you think theres something wrong with enjoying a delicious plate of french toast from time to time, thats a good sign diets have negatively impacted your relationship with food.

Diet rules are bad for your well being.

The more you moralize food as good or bad or clean or dirty, the less healthy your relationship to food is. Youre hurting your wellbeing by treating food as a pass/fail system of whether or not you are a good person. Food isnt moral (see here, here, and here).

The question always comes up then, about whether quality of food matters. It matters for your health and it matters for fullness, but the spectrum is much wider than youve been led to believe.

There arent any foods that are always horrifyingly bad or miraculously good. Instead, just know that getting some vegetables once in a while is good for you. Whole wheat bread has a little bit more fiber than white bread. Having a doughnut once in a while is probably fine, even though having a doughnut twice-a-day, every day, might not work for some of your goals.

If a person believes that the world comes crashing down with one meal that isnt the perfect balance of macronutrients, or doesnt include something on the magic good food list, that belief has nothing to do with health or fitness, thats just diet perfectionism. People who are diet perfectionists are people who quit a lot.

Quitting because it wasnt perfect is just an excuse to quit. The guilt that comes with quitting, followed by the rush that comes with starting again next week, is a really unbalanced way to live.

One of the coolest things that comes up in research on eating behavior is that people who do skill-based eating have a better relationship with their bodies than people who use rigid diet rules.

I was pretty surprised the first time I read about this, but it actually makes sense: If you are learning to listen to and trust your body about hunger and fullness, and you can distinguish between hunger and stress, of course youll have a better relationship with your body. Youre getting on the same team with your body. On the flip-side, if you are constantly forcing hard rules onto it, regardless of what it needs, of course you are going to have a permanently adversarial relationship with your body.

Dont get me wrongthis isnt the end-all-be-all of body image, its just a piece. But its an important piece: Diets put you at odds with your body. Skills put you on the same team as your body.

Weve just launched a new coaching experience around building Eating Skills. Registration is open through January 25!

GMB Eating Skills Details

If you do this for a living, thats a totally different ballgame. Most of us dont fall into that category.

The people who do well with diets are usually people who:

Those people TOTALLY exist. You might even know some. Its really cool for them! But if thats not you, then you need to stop trying to do the diets that they do.

The other types of people who do really well at diets are people for whom their professional career depends on it. These people are:

They often have an entire staff and support structure that you probably dont have.

Its important to acknowledge that those people exist. You have to realize, first, that they are out there, and second, that you (if you are reading this) probably arent one of them. They might have won some sort of lottery in terms of how their parents raised them around food, or they picked up eating skills watching someone else. For them its all normal and easy. Thats cool.

We need to stop trying to do what those people do. We arent them. We need something smarter and more advanced than diets.

Alright, now were into the fun part: How to actually do well with your eating, and continue to do well for the long term!

If you have only done diets in the past, you may be wondering what it looks like to not follow rigid rules. Like, what do skills and flexibility look like?

Some skills you could work on would be:

Noticing when full is a lifelong practice, with multiple sub-skills that you could work on, progressively, over weeks and months (like well teach in our upcoming in the Eating Skills program).

Weve just launched a new coaching experience around building Eating Skills. Registration is open through January 25!

GMB Eating Skills Details

The basic idea though is very simple: Pay attention.

At a couple different points within the meal, check in with your stomach. Look at your plate and your food and notice how much you have. Be mindful of all of the flavors you are eating and be present with your food. Try to guess if this will be the right amount of food for you to feel satisfied for the next few hours. If it seems like too little, get more. If it seems like too much, stop eating. Self-check later and hone in your skill.

Distinguishing between stress and hunger is also a dedicated practice, and takes time and lots of repetition.

But it still comes down to checking in with yourself and seeing if you want this food because you are stressed out or if you want it because you are actually hungry. You can pause for a minute and notice whats going on for you: Are you stressed out? Tired? Procrastinating? Sad? Frustrated? Bored? Any of those things might be showing up as wanting food, but distinguishing those feelings from true hunger puts you in the drivers seat.

Some flexible guidelines you could work on could be:

The coolest thing about guidelines is that they are inherently flexible. If youre plating some version of a balanced meal, then thats all you doyou try to get some amount of vegetables, protein, carbohydrates, and fat on your plate, most of the time.

Lets get realif most people just added a little bit of vegetables it would be a huge step up. So get some vegetables when you can, but dont stress too much if you cant. Try to get enough protein to support strength and fitness, but if one meal is a little low, no worries, make it up over other meals throughout the day or week. Get fairly whole food carbohydrates and healthy fats in there.

And if a given meal isnt perfect, thats okay, youre just trying to get as close as possible. Thats actually enough.

Really, just having a good amount of vegetables is more important than 99% of the details youve been sold by the diet industry. Just getting enough protein over the course of the week is enough. Where the Eating Skills program does have (slightly) more directive guidelines, theyre still just guidelines.

Weve just launched a new coaching experience around building Eating Skills. Registration is open through January 25!

GMB Eating Skills Details

Plate more or less whole food. This is one that people get really hung up on, as if every fitness goal they have ever had will explode if they have a serving of pasta instead of a serving of quinoa. Really, get some vegetables in there, and either one is fine. Whole food is, at best, a continuum. At worst, its a made up distinction.

Look, if you eat carbohydrates that are obviously healthy, like whole wheat bread, brown rice, quinoa, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and so on, youre fine. That gives you lots of options. But you wont die if you have white bread or pasta, just put that white bread or pasta in a balanced meal with some protein and vegetables. Similarly, its great if you get a lot of your fat from fish or olive oil or almonds or avocado, but the world wont end if you have some bacon sometimes.

Having enough food at meals, and not snacking between meals, can be game-changing for people.

Most of the most processed and unbalanced food people get are snacks. Most of the extra calories they consume when they arent hungry at all are snacks. Research shows that snacking has no impact on how much food people eat at mealsits just extra. So, for many people, the biggest issues arent what they eat at meals, but all of the snacks they eat between meals.

Again, these snacks usually have little to do with hunger, and mostly have to do with being stressed out or bored or tired.

Of course, the exception is if people chronically under-eat at meals. Like, they eat a salad for lunch that has nothing to it, then of course they are hungry in the afternoon, and thats when cant stop themselves from having the candy. Of course they cantthey didnt have anywhere near enough food for lunch. So, it starts with eating enough at meals, and then you have a guideline that you mostly dont snack.

As always, a guideline is not a rule; rather, its a framework to make your skills easier for you. So, if you pause for a moment, check in with yourself, and find that you are truly hungry, you eat a snack. Because its not a rule, its a guideline.

As you can see, its the rigidity of diets that causes people to fail. Diets are too rigid to fit into a real life, so you need a plan that has flexibility built in. Again, its not a free for all with no structureyou still need a plan. You still need skills and guidelines. And you still need to plan and track your skill and guideline practice.

The skills and guidelines above can ebb and flow with your actual life. When you are out at a restaurant, you can order something close to a balanced meal, and you can notice and stop when you are full. When you get busy at work, even if you have to go out to get fast casual food for lunch, you can still work on not snacking between meals. You can use one or more of the skills and guidelines in nearly any situation you are in. You always have some tools to be in the drivers seat with your eating, and thats what autonomy looks like.

You have choices, you are the one making the choices, and you can make smart choices in any situation.

You have multiple things that matter to you in life. Your health as it relates to food and fitness is one of those things, but it isnt the only thing. With all of the different commitments in your life, you need to have some structure (like guidelines and skills), but you need to be able to have that flow with whats actually going on.

The kind of self-directedness you are looking for with your food is about doing what matters to you, inside of the context of all of the things that matter to you. Its about having the right amount of structure.

Having the skills and guidelines you need will put you in the drivers seat with food in your life. The only way to be successful, long term, is to have the skills to manage multiple different kinds of situations, and adapt to the ever changing demands of your life. Diets will never be able to do that. Skills and guidelines are the answer.

Eating Skills is a coaching experience that will help you build sustainable skills around how you eat, giving you a healthy, non-dogmatic approach to food.

GMB Eating Skills Details

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Why Diets Stop Working Long-Term GMB Fitness

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