Diets don't work!

Many of us have been on diets which start well but then fail. Guess what?

It's not our fault! How many diets can you count you've done - lots? Perhaps you run out of fingers and need to take your socks off to count on your toes - boy I know I do!

They all fail in one way or another, don't they? They fail us, not the other way around. Here are some reasons why diets don't work

1. Diets don't teach us how to understand or manage our personal eating habits. They don't help us to deal with the emotional times, when food seems to be our only comfort.

2. Dieting upsets our hormonal balance and metabolism, causing our bodies to hang on to our fat reserves and use less energy.

3. Diets focus on weight targets, points and the scales. This means that a bunch of numbers control how we feel; we become dependent and fixated on these and start to doubt that we can ever manage our weight without tracking out food. We start to fear the scales.

4. 'Failure' to reach any targets can cause low self-esteem which prompts the negative emotions which drive overeating. It's a vicious circle.

5. Restrictive eating makes us focus on what we can and can't eat, labelling food as good or bad. This moralises food, which isn't how non-dieters think about their eating.

6. Dieting causes bingeing - it's a fact!

7. Diets dictate what and how much we can eat, but without tapping into the natural needs of our body, such as nutrition and hunger. Many weight-loss regimes are nutritionally unsound.

8. Many diet plans don't allow us to make our own food choices around our lifestyles and our taste-buds. This makes them unworkable long-term, so we fail and look for another quick solution.

It's time to try a new way to eat, and your manage weight -

Mindful Eating