This is drawn from Weighty Matters.
A man in Canada is trying a month-long experiment of following Canada's Food Guide. He is writing a blog about his experiences aiming at reaching a specified goal weight (the weight needed to give him a body mass index of 25).
The writer of Weighty Matters is an obesity doctor. He is not a fan of using numbers as weight management goals. So he doesn't care for BMI or numbers of pounds lost, or target weight, "because frankly they overlook the bigger picture - reality. Fact is, the best goal is whatever weight you reach when you're living the healthiest life you can enjoy. But put that aside for now. The important question to ask regardless is, "So is he enjoying his life?"
Not according to his newspaper articles and blog entries he isn't.
According to them he's been saving up his calories for supper and in so doing often finding himself starving and battling hunger demons (like the ones that live in Pizza shops). He reports being "desperate" for steak because his Food Guide approach doesn't allow him to eat large ones. He reports being tired and finding it difficult to find 60 minutes a day of exercise. He reports that he fell off his new wagon within one month of embarking on it. He notes that on at least one occasion when he ate more than he planned in the daytime he compensated and went to bed following a dinner consisting solely of a plate of green beans with two slices of toast. He reports that the "red numbers" on the scale motivate him and help him with what he feels his efforts require - "focus, attention and willpower".
In short, he's on a diet."
The doctor writing Weighty Matters says that there's no way that this man doing the Food Guide eating plan has adopted a long term approach. "He's dieting and both anecdotally and in the medical literature, diets fail in the long term over 95% of the time."
So what type of diet behaviours does the Food Guide man admit to? By using the scale as a source of support, he's chosen the dark side of weight loss, letting the seduction of the numbers inspire him to greater acts of willpower - a problem when the scale stops whispering sweet nothings into his ear. By saving calories until the end of the day and cultivating blindly restrictive food limits, he's cultivating hunger which will lead him to battle hunger - a battle that if fought frequently, eventually just gets too irritating and bitter to fight. By trying to cram 60 minutes of exercise a day into likely a very busy and youthfully all over the place lifestyle, he's liable to get frustrated with the exercise and simply let the whole thing go. He appears to be trying to live the healthiest life he can tolerate - and for me, that's the definition of a diet.
Dieting involves blind restrictions in calories or foods or simply the purposeful acceptance of hunger as a necessity in life.
Living, healthy living, may involve a change in structure and organizing (such as eating more frequently with the inclusion of protein) but by definition must exclude suffering, blind restrictions, forbidding foods and hunger."
And diets don't work. We can't sustain them because they are unpleasant. But we can change our eating behaviour in sustainable ways, and hypnosis will help you to lose weight.
A man in Canada is trying a month-long experiment of following Canada's Food Guide. He is writing a blog about his experiences aiming at reaching a specified goal weight (the weight needed to give him a body mass index of 25).
The writer of Weighty Matters is an obesity doctor. He is not a fan of using numbers as weight management goals. So he doesn't care for BMI or numbers of pounds lost, or target weight, "because frankly they overlook the bigger picture - reality. Fact is, the best goal is whatever weight you reach when you're living the healthiest life you can enjoy. But put that aside for now. The important question to ask regardless is, "So is he enjoying his life?"
Not according to his newspaper articles and blog entries he isn't.
According to them he's been saving up his calories for supper and in so doing often finding himself starving and battling hunger demons (like the ones that live in Pizza shops). He reports being "desperate" for steak because his Food Guide approach doesn't allow him to eat large ones. He reports being tired and finding it difficult to find 60 minutes a day of exercise. He reports that he fell off his new wagon within one month of embarking on it. He notes that on at least one occasion when he ate more than he planned in the daytime he compensated and went to bed following a dinner consisting solely of a plate of green beans with two slices of toast. He reports that the "red numbers" on the scale motivate him and help him with what he feels his efforts require - "focus, attention and willpower".
In short, he's on a diet."
The doctor writing Weighty Matters says that there's no way that this man doing the Food Guide eating plan has adopted a long term approach. "He's dieting and both anecdotally and in the medical literature, diets fail in the long term over 95% of the time."
So what type of diet behaviours does the Food Guide man admit to? By using the scale as a source of support, he's chosen the dark side of weight loss, letting the seduction of the numbers inspire him to greater acts of willpower - a problem when the scale stops whispering sweet nothings into his ear. By saving calories until the end of the day and cultivating blindly restrictive food limits, he's cultivating hunger which will lead him to battle hunger - a battle that if fought frequently, eventually just gets too irritating and bitter to fight. By trying to cram 60 minutes of exercise a day into likely a very busy and youthfully all over the place lifestyle, he's liable to get frustrated with the exercise and simply let the whole thing go. He appears to be trying to live the healthiest life he can tolerate - and for me, that's the definition of a diet.
Dieting involves blind restrictions in calories or foods or simply the purposeful acceptance of hunger as a necessity in life.
Living, healthy living, may involve a change in structure and organizing (such as eating more frequently with the inclusion of protein) but by definition must exclude suffering, blind restrictions, forbidding foods and hunger."
And diets don't work. We can't sustain them because they are unpleasant. But we can change our eating behaviour in sustainable ways, and hypnosis will help you to lose weight.
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