The Diet Game

The Diet debacle...a good name for the multibillion industry that now leads so much of what health and wellness is associated with. I have often been asked why I am so "anti-diet". The best answer I can give is two fold. First, diets limit the accountability of the user. What do I mean? Well, it enables the user to no longer make choices related to their foods, but gives control and accountability to someone else. It is the exact opposite of mindful eating.
Second, in order to succeed in health and wellness, you have to be willing to learn and change habits, notions, ideas and sometimes beliefs. When on a "diet", there is no learning. In general there is only allowing some else to provide you their answers. And oh...how the business industry has capitalized on taking up the responsibility by offering to "fix" all our dietary issues for the sum of...
While I am not a proponet of any "diet" per se, I am a proponet of anything you learn from. So with that being said, programs like Weight Watchers, that helps their clients understand the food portions, food content and still allow the clients to be accountable by choosing their foods even though under Weight Watchers watchful eyes, I can appreciate.
Changing your lifestyle is difficult. I would never say anything to the effect that it is not. What I am saying is choose things that allow you learn, to grow and to understand. Without that, once the diet is over, the weight will come back because you have not learned how to do anything differently than before. It was a temporary fix at best. And the "diet" industry is very well aware of our shortcomings.
Putting our faiths in all these "diets" is not the answer. If it were, obesity most certainly would not be the epidemic it is.