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Diets Make You Lose Weight. And then…

  1. Laeli says:

    The last diet I ever went on was something I tricked myself into thinking was a lifestyle thing. I was gonna be a vegan. I was a raw vegan for six months. I was sure that this was it! I was finally going to be thin and healthy…in the end I gained two pounds. I was so mad! And sad. I think I even cried. Eventually I found out about HAES and that’s been my journey ever since.I laugh at that last diet experience now…. so funny!And I was so not healthy either! I really appreciate posts like this from professionals. Thank you for the work that you do!

    • GlenysO says:

      Oh wow, raw vegan is definitely a “lifestyle!” My litmus test for “is it a diet” is: would you eat this way even if your health and weight remained unchanged? Do you like this way of eating? My answer was always, no, of course I would not eat this way, I’m so hungry!!

  2. Jess Bailes says:

    Glenys, you are so right about the mechanism – here is an article that supports you 🙂 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23126426
    Great article, I’m constantly telling people “imagine you’re in a famine, that’s what your body thinks is going on!”

  3. billfabrey says:

    It isn’t just a food famine; it’s also a famine of spirit, of self- acceptance, that leads people down the garden path of dieting ONCE AGAIN, pinning all their hopes on achieving a more “acceptable” body this time, and promising themselves not to regain weight as they always did in the past. This is a great essay!

    • GlenysO says:

      You’re so right, Bill. The physiological harm dieting does is really only a tiny part of it. You nailed it with “famine of the spirit”! We end up living half-lived lives on diets.

  4. mmapes2 says:

    I’m glad you mention Mireille Guiliano. For me, that felt like the most seductive diet because it French and seemed so real because it’s from another culture. She must be telling the truth! Except, totally not. That was the last diet I went on before I began my HAES journey.

    • GlenysO says:

      Oh same here. I made the soup in that book and it was horrible. I eat more “French” now but I got fat. But I like the way I eat now, so there Mireille!

  5. Sabrina says:

    The last diet I went on was sort of a misapplication of the intuitive eating principles. I became excessively rigid about eating only when hungry and only what I felt like eating, and turned down many a cupcake because I “knew” I’d feel sick and head-achy after I ate it. Basically, I talked myself into believing that I was practicing IE, when really, I was restricting. I also began exercising regularly at this time, which initially started as a healthy habit change but eventually took on some of the same features of rigidity as my eating had. That, coupled with a period of out-of-control anxiety resulted in a 20 lb weight loss, about 10 lbs more than what I was aiming for, and which I maintained for a year, even after I began to become more flexibility in my food and exercise habits. Then I began to get the anxiety under control, and slowly, the weight crept back on. I don’t own a scale and I don’t make a regular habit of weighing myself anymore, but I was just at the doctor last week and was weighed there. Guess what– 5 years after my last diet, I am only one pound under my pre-diet weight. I’m basically a case study that follows the statistical data about weight loss to the letter! But while I am back at my starting weight, I am managing my feelings much better, am sleeping so much better (at the height of my anxiety– and at my lowest weight– I had terrible insomnia), am exercising and eating for pleasure and well-being. I will take my improved health over smaller pants any day!

    • GlenysO says:

      So great that you realized your IE practice had turned into a diet. I think it can happen so easily, especially with us former-dieters – we love to do everything perfect!! Glad you’re having a better time of it now!

  6. Ruth Flett says:

    This is so true. I lost a stone 5 years ago and have now put it all back on.

  7. Kate says:

    What does HAES mean?

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