Dieting is like learning to drive a car. You step on the gas one moment and hit the brakes the next — start, stop, start, stop. Even though you’re moving forward — and sometimes that’s questionable — the ride is jerky. The same is often true of diets.
Does this sound familiar? You announce you’re going on a diet. For the next few days, you starve yourself and complain bitterly that you’re reaching your wits’ end. A few days go by…you’re so proud of what you’ve accomplished that you reward yourself by cheating “one time.” Of course, one time leads to another and before you can say, “weak moment,” you’re back to your old ways. This principle often applies to modifying other habits* as well: enthusiasm one day — abandonment the next.
The point is that quick fixes aren’t as effective as lifestyle changes.
Why Do Diets Fail?
If your diet didn’t work last time, what makes you think it’ll work now? Before you step on the gas again, what did you learn from your last attempt? Here are six reasons why diets (and efforts to break other bad habits) fail:
Wishes are just words. Hope without effort is destined to fail. Spend less time thinking and talking and more time doing.
Don’t believe in fairytale solutions. Don’t search for quick-fix answers. A band-aid approach is often a short-lived solution.
Personal responsibility can’t be delegated. It can’t be done for you. It must be done by you. There’s no substitute for desire, hard work, and commitment.
Punishment is not a motivator. If you find yourself thinking, “I can’t wait till this is over,” you‘re heading down the wrong path. Don’t worry if you go off the bandwagon once in a while. One dessert won’t change mankind. But if you make the process fun (or at least bearable), you’ll return to your effort.
An immediate result isn’t a realistic aspiration. Be realistic in setting goals and committing to make change a reality. Be patient. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. View your effort as a lifestyle change rather than a temporary fix. If you enthusiastically push forward, it’ll become habit over time. The truth is, incremental progress leads to long-lasting results.
You can’t live an unhealthy lifestyle and expect a healthy outcome. Some people expect results without sacrifice. Wrong! If you don’t embrace change, don’t expect a different outcome.
Success Requires Commitment
There are three lessons that can be learned from diets that fail:
- When you make promises to yourself, keep them. If the effort is important to you, see it through to fruition. Or don’t do it at all.
- Determination is habit-forming; so is quitting. When you surrender to weaknesses, you’re letting yourself down. Every time you quit, you make it easier to tell yourself that quitting is acceptable. That’s detrimental to all your future efforts. Conversely, every time you show determination, you build inner strength to overcome other challenges that you’ll face in the future.
- Willpower is nothing more than desire. You have the power to achieve anything you want as long as you work hard and have the determination to succeed. Believe in yourself. Don’t outsource your responsibility or expect others to do the heavy lifting. You have to make it happen. Enjoy the process. Don’t view the effort as a chore. The truth is, although incremental progress won’t produce instant results, little steps cover a lot of ground over time. Give it a try. It takes many years to become an overnight success.
*Some issues may require professional counsel. It’s important to recognize those situations and seek professional support in those cases.
Are Diets for You?
Please leave a comment and tell us what you think or share it with someone who can benefit from the information.
Additional Reading:
New Year’s Resolutions (Another Year of Broken promises)
Don’t Quit. Show Some Grit.
The Top Reason People Fall Short of Their Goals
Don’t Quit: Make Winning a Habit
If You’re Not Proud, You’re Not Done
Get It Done!
If you like this article, subscribe to our blog so that you don’t miss a single post. Get future posts by RSS feed, email or Facebook. It’s FREE.
Thanks for the great article “Do diets really work”.
Too many weight management professionals still address the quick fix & not the behavioral aspect.
Hi Marcie
There’s no silver bullet in dieting or anything else in life. Success takes hard work, commitment and determination. As I said, “determination is habit-forming; so is quitting.”
It takes many years to become an overnight success 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to write!
Best,
Frank
I don’t know how I didn’t hear about you Mr Sonnenberg. I only find out about you because of the Pinterest infographic “Where did time go?” Either I’m not that far into the self-improvement journey, or your marketing team is doing a lousy job. Ha! Just kidding. Must be me. You are certainly a brilliant writer. Everything you said about dieting is spot on. I’ve been dieting for over two years now. I lost half of my weight. From over 140 to 71 kilo and going down.
Now allow me to give your follow readers this affirming analogy to hammer your point home. Say you will spend some nights in a shack in the middle of the woods. Your standards on how comfortable the shack should be depends inalienably on why you are spending time there in the first place and for how long. You are a fugitive, you just want some place to hide till the search party give up on the woods. You really don’t need any comfort standards for this. What if you have a job to do? Say you are making a documentary about some birds species. There has to be some standards, you can’t be creative and productive if you are uncomfortable. What if you are there to study at the hands of a Ninjutsu master? It will take a couple of years before you graduate. What are the standards now? Now lets get to the scary scenario. Ready? What are your standards for the shack if you plan to spend the rest of your life in it?
So when you start your diet, you are gonna hate it. You are abandoning all your toxic friends you call cravings. You are surely to miss them at first. But your new friends (AKA healthy food) doesn’t seem that fun at all. Well, your mindset is very decisive here. Have you set your mind to stick with your new friends no matter what or are you half-half about the whole thing? If you want to stick around, then your next task is to make them fun or to find the fun in them. A simple example, I have 3 poached eggs, a fruit of choice, and a bowl of oatmeal with milk for breakfast everyday. Now, I got to realize every morning that oatmeal isn’t that fun a friend at all. He have no sense of humor whatsoever to my taste buds’ ears. But I’ve already set my mind to befriend the guy, because despite the stoic personality, he’s quite the gentlemen as far as my health is concerned. I must find a way then. So I add dates and a spoon of honey to it. Now guess what, we’re best friends. I can’t wait for the next morning to meet the guy.
What I want to say is pretty much what Mr Sonnenberg was saying. Get comfortable. It is gonna take a while Period. Find the diet that you will enjoy. Make changes till you get it right. Until you manage this, you are not dieting, you are punishing yourself. And dieting is a reward, and never meant to be a punishment.
Now I’m so hooked on this new lifestyle people around me who used to tell me to start dieting are begging me to stop. “That’s enough, you are skinny now for God’s sake,” they say. I tell them I want my six-packs next. Then once I get those, I will decide what’s next. Should there ever be a final destination when you are enjoying the journey?
Thanks for the honest and brilliant article Mr. Sonnenberg.
Hi Ammar
I’m not surprised, at all, that your diet is a success.
You’re passionate, determined, and committed. Plus, you were determined to conquer the challenge head on. And, you did! The bottom line, is that the strategy that you employed can be applied to other areas of your life as well 🙂
Thanks for your thoughts.
Best,
Frank