Why Diets Don't Help with Permanent Weight Loss -- And What To Change to Lose It Forever

Most traditional diet programs are geared to do one thing: help you lose weight. That’s a good thing, right? Initially, yes. The problem is that most diets don’t address the reasons you gained weight in the first place, so the moment you stop dieting, you gain the weight right back.

For truly permanent weight loss, it’s important to figure out why you became overweight, and make permanent changes to your lifestyle so you don’t gain the weight back again. A diet is a good temporary measure, like if you need to lose weight for a wedding, reunion, or other event. But for maintaining a healthy weight long-term, you’ll need to do a bit more than simply cut calories.

Here are a few important things to consider for permanent weight loss:

When it comes to eating and exercising, what are your habits like? Do you tend to avoid exercise because it’s uncomfortable? Do you have a strong habit of eating while watching television? Is a weekly (or even daily) fast-food binge normal for you?

Your habits say a lot about your lifestyle choices, and if your habits are detrimental to your health and wellness, you’ll need to work on changing them permanently to lose weight and keep it off.

See: 5 Common Reasons Your Diet May Fail

What about your emotional connection to food? Do you frequently eat to comfort yourself, even when you aren’t hungry? Do you sometimes feel panicky if you can’t eat? Do you keep gravitating toward fattening comfort foods even though you vow not to eat them anymore?

See: 5 Clues That a Binge is Imminent

Comfort eating is just another habit like all bad habits, but there is usually a strong emotional element that makes changing this habit quite difficult. The best way to change it is to start finding other ways to soothe yourself besides eating. Once you have gotten used to comforting yourself in other ways, you suddenly find that you no longer need to eat to feel at ease.

See: Eating When Upset: Can It Stall Weight Loss?

Finally, take a look at your overall lifestyle habits. Do you smoke? Do you tend to be “lazy” much of the time, avoiding physical activity when possible? Do you turn away from healthy food in disgust? Do you drink too much coffee, work too hard, and get little sleep?

All of these things can have a powerful impact on your weight and general health. Dieting will NOT resolve these issues – they’ll still be there waiting for you when you stop dieting, and the weight will steadily creep right back on if you don’t address them.

So, if you are constantly dieting to lose weight, and you keep losing and gaining the same 20, 40, 60 pounds or more, it may be time to take a deeper look at what’s going on, and take steps to correct it once and for all.

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