Ditch the diet for a healthier new
you
Author: Andrea Wren
'Yo-yo dieting' describes the pattern of losing weight
quickly and continually, then piling it back soon
after the loss. This is the kind of thing that happens
on a fad or crash diet, and what we didn't know, until
very recently, is that yo-yo dieting actually weakens
the immune system. It is bad for your health.
A US study of 114 postmenopausal women, led by Professor
Cornelia Ulrich, found that those with a history of
yo-yo dieting had much lower white blood cell levels
than those whose weight had stayed steady. The white
blood cells are the body's defence against bugs, and
the more you yo-yo, the more prone to infection and
illness you'll be. It's not that dieting per se is
reducing immunity, but the failure to maintain a steady
weight over time is causing us to be less resistant
to disease.
And frequent dieting means weight becomes harder
to lose, and is easier to put on. The British Dietetic
Association supports this notion in their survey of
4,000 Brits - it found that one third of crash dieters
put on more than 14 pounds following their diet and
ended up heavier than when they began.
Diets get boring, or are too restrictive, and become
difficult to maintain but easy to break. It's not
uncommon for women to binge and starve in desperation.
Food becomes a 'luxury' and is then consumed in large
amounts, only to be quickly followed by guilt and
panic and further restriction.
The dieting cycle is not easy to sever, the feeling
of losing control when the pounds creep back on is
the feeling that urges dieters to get back on the
dieting treadmill. We have the Atkins Plan, The Zone,
The GI, the South Beach Diet, The Hay Diet, and the
Cabbage Soup diet to name but a few.
Frantic in our attempts to shed pounds, we buy the
book, try it for a week (or two?), have limited success
and go back to square one - with some extra pounds
on top. Why persist on endless diets that always fail?
These books all claim to be the way forward, and yet
obesity is on the increase.
The relationship many women have with food is a complex
one, and needs to be individually resolved to adopt
a healthier attitude to eating. Is it just that you're
choosing the wrong foods, or do you have a love-hate
relationship with food? Do you overeat when you're
bored/lonely/depressed, or when you're happy and celebrating
life?
It really is time to ditch the diet. How many plans
have you tried and failed? Each occasion you promise
yourself it will be different. Knowing the harm that
the repetitive cycle of yo-yoing is doing - making
you fatter and reducing immunity in the process -
means it's time to get off the treadmill.
Women need to look long and hard at their relationship
with food, and consider how they can start being in
control, rather than allowing food and their relationship
with it to be in control of them. Intuitive eating
is a way to do this. With this way of eating, you
can learn to trust your body to know what it needs,
eat according to hunger signals and not emotional
ones, eat whatever you want, and stop eating when
you're satisfied - in order to lose weight and regain
your sanity.
No dieting involved. Just relying on yourself.
More can be found out about intuitive eating (or
'normal eating') and how to free yourself from the
diet trap at: http://www.chocolateandbeyond.co.uk
© Andrea Wren, January 2008
About the author:
Andrea Wren is a freelance journalist based in the UK, writing
for publications such as The Guardian, The Times and women's
press such as Glamour, iVillage.co.uk and others. One of
Andrea's specialist areas is health, diet and nutrition, and she
vowed to 'ditch the diet' more than a year ago and has never
looked back. She writes a blog on the subject: Chocolate and
Beyond |
