Answering a stranger: why can’t I keep my weight off?
Answering these questions truthfully might help:
Do you consider weight loss?
a) a short term project with many sacrifices to be endured until it is ‘over’ and a weight goal has been met?
b) a long term commitment to a different, but equally or more joyful, lifestyle?Do you consider yourself:
a) an overweight person who has the normal habits and cravings of an overweight person?
b) a person who is committed to becoming healthy with the habits of a healthy person who happens to be encumbered by a temporary excess of body weight that will disappear over time? [3]Is losing weight quickly more important to you than losing it permanently (if slowly)?
Do you understand that high insulin levels inhibit fat oxidation and without fat oxidation you cannot lose weight?
Do you understand that the primary driver of high insulin levels is a high percentage of carbohydrates in the diet?
Do you accept that effective weight loss means doing whatever you can to minimise sugar (and other carbs) entering your body and maximising the time your insulin levels stay low each day?
Have you considered using intermittent fasting as a tool to help manage insulin levels and also to assist with hunger management? [2]
Do you realise that exercise is also a good tool for reducing insulin levels in the body?
Do you realise that crash dieting can slow your metabolism thereby erasing much of the benefit of the calorie deficit that you initially gain from the crash diet and thereby makes bounce back much more likely than not?
Modern diets containing lots of processed foods contain lots of invisible, added sugar. Food corporations actively add sugar to food because it adds taste and tasty food sells better than bland food. Food corporations are legally bound to act in the financial best interests of their shareholders and, without legislation to the contrary, when there is a choice between shareholder interests and consumer interests, shareholder interests tend to triumph. What this means is that you have to actively seek out quality sources of unadulterated natural food and not simply assume that products on the shelf are good for you - for example, many so-called low-fat yoghurts actually contain a large amount of sugar, which is not actually useful to you if you are trying to lose weight. [1]
In summary, if you have an overly simplistic model about how weight loss works or think that it is a short term project (or many short term projects) rather than a complete lifestyle change, it might be difficult to make sustained progress. If you can take on board a more realistic mental model about how weight loss works, you will be better equipped to work with the process rather than against it.
Weight loss should never be a short term project about making temporary sacrifices to achieve some number on a scale. It should be about a lifelong journey to find a robust lifestyle where you can enjoy food (within moderation, of course) but mainly be satisfied about doing the very best you can for your own health.
Some reading and watching might help you develop a more positive mindset
[1] The Case Against Sugar: Taubes, Gary: 9780307701640: Amazon.com: Books
This is a very comprehensive, somewhat polemical, history of sugar and processed foods which strongly argues the case against sugar. As a motivation for taking strong ownership of the choices of food that you put in your own mouth, it is hard to beat.
[2] Dr. Jason Fung - 'Therapeutic Fasting - Solving the Two-Compartment Problem'
Jason Fung is a fasting advocate who does a very good job of explaining why simplistic “calories-in/calories-out” models are not, themselves, sufficient to explain the difficulties people have in losing weight. You need to consider how hormones affect energy flows in the body. Insulin is the primary hormone of interest in this story although there are others like glucagon, ghrelin and leptin. His books, The Obesity Code and The Diabetes Code are also a good read.
[3] James Clear’s Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
James Clear has made a name for himself as the habits guy. This book is worth a read if you are trying to make new good habits and break bad ones. One piece of advice of his I really like is this: if you want to change yourself, ask not WHAT or HOW, but WHO - WHO do you want to be? Then start behaving like that person, by adopting that person’s habits, today.
The future is yours, seize it!
A slightly edited version of an answer to a Quora question.
