In Odds with the World II. - Why diets don't work
Sometimes, living in our society, we can get the feeling that there is a war going on. against our own bodies. A war in many ways: war against body fat, war against body weight. Currently, there seem to be a obsession with ideal body weight and with beauty based on size. At the same time, while it seems increasingly desired, it also seems increasingly difficult to achieve that ideal. We are put into a situation, where we await a miracle from every new scientific data coming out of the nutritionist’s lab, only to find out later that new science has overruled the previous theory. We are hoping solutions from artificial products that replace sugar and fat, only to find that they make us crave more. We measure our body weights and frequently become terrorised by a number on a scale. In short, our bodies become a source of frustration for us.
In this social climate our very own bodies become for us a source of frustration, rather than to be what it is designed for: Part of our mind/body system which allows us to enjoy the unique experience of what it means to be a human being.
Most diets try to work within a type of »punishment-reward« system: If you are a »good girl« or »good boy« starving yourself, denying yourself food, or doing exercise you otherwise hate, you can count with the reward of becoming slim. The same way, if you eat the stuff you are not supposed to eat, and much of it, you can count on the punishment of getting bigger. Most dieting systems only strengthen this aspect by adding another, more artificial reward system to it. However, while systematically starving yourself can keep the pounds off in the short term, nearly everybody who is trying to diet puts them back again, sometimes even more.
Diets are problematic for a number of reasons:
First, they give the signal to the body that it is starving. The natural physiological reaction to starvation is that the body will slow the metabolism down, and will be more reluctant to use up fat reserves. In other words, the exact opposite happens of what we want. Did you know, for example, that in ‘starvation mode’ the first thing the body uses up as fuel is your own muscle mass? Even though, if you want to keep slim, you want to have muscles, because muscles burn more fat than other tissues.
Second, there is a wrong psychology behind diets. They give us the feeling that the price for what we want to attain is too high, while at the same time the risk of failure is very high, too! Most diet programs prescribe in one variation or an other not to do something, mostly not eating certain things or not eating a certain quantity. While the advice behind such imperatives is beyond doubt well-meant – if you eat less or less of the fattening things, you do lose weight – they nevertheless do not seem to work. They well might give us a bad consciousness, but they fail to achieve their goal, namely to motivate us towards what we want. Why is that?
Well, have you ever tried not to imagine a pink elephant?
Because if you try, something curious will happen: you will, before you somehow try to cross or wipe out that pink elephant, actually imagine the pink elephant first.
That is because
the human mind is unable to visualise the negative.
In similar ways, every time we hear or think »Do not eat chocolates!« our mind conjures up the image of chocolate. And the more we think of chocolate in any way, the more the idea of chocolate and the desire for chocolate will become part of our lives…
Read more...
In this social climate our very own bodies become for us a source of frustration, rather than to be what it is designed for: Part of our mind/body system which allows us to enjoy the unique experience of what it means to be a human being.
Most diets try to work within a type of »punishment-reward« system: If you are a »good girl« or »good boy« starving yourself, denying yourself food, or doing exercise you otherwise hate, you can count with the reward of becoming slim. The same way, if you eat the stuff you are not supposed to eat, and much of it, you can count on the punishment of getting bigger. Most dieting systems only strengthen this aspect by adding another, more artificial reward system to it. However, while systematically starving yourself can keep the pounds off in the short term, nearly everybody who is trying to diet puts them back again, sometimes even more.
Diets are problematic for a number of reasons:
First, they give the signal to the body that it is starving. The natural physiological reaction to starvation is that the body will slow the metabolism down, and will be more reluctant to use up fat reserves. In other words, the exact opposite happens of what we want. Did you know, for example, that in ‘starvation mode’ the first thing the body uses up as fuel is your own muscle mass? Even though, if you want to keep slim, you want to have muscles, because muscles burn more fat than other tissues.
Second, there is a wrong psychology behind diets. They give us the feeling that the price for what we want to attain is too high, while at the same time the risk of failure is very high, too! Most diet programs prescribe in one variation or an other not to do something, mostly not eating certain things or not eating a certain quantity. While the advice behind such imperatives is beyond doubt well-meant – if you eat less or less of the fattening things, you do lose weight – they nevertheless do not seem to work. They well might give us a bad consciousness, but they fail to achieve their goal, namely to motivate us towards what we want. Why is that?
Well, have you ever tried not to imagine a pink elephant?
Because if you try, something curious will happen: you will, before you somehow try to cross or wipe out that pink elephant, actually imagine the pink elephant first.
That is because
the human mind is unable to visualise the negative.
In similar ways, every time we hear or think »Do not eat chocolates!« our mind conjures up the image of chocolate. And the more we think of chocolate in any way, the more the idea of chocolate and the desire for chocolate will become part of our lives…
Read more...