episode 173: if your diet worked, why do you have to keep going back to it?
We often talk about things "working" for us, especially in the realm of diets. But if we have to go back to them over and over, did they really work?
This episode is a bit of a thought experiment on what it truly means for something to work, especially when it comes to dieting and weight loss. I ponder the concept of 'working' not as a short-term fix but as a long-term solution.
I ask some tough questions – like why we chase temporary fixes and ignore the deeper, more permanent solutions. It's about shifting our focus from the immediate gratification of quick results to the enduring satisfaction of real, lasting change. How often have we returned to a diet that "worked" before, only to find ourselves back at square one? Does it really work to lose weight without a diet?
This conversation is really about challenging our definitions of success and pushing ourselves to think beyond the next quick fix. It's about learning, growing, and maybe even accepting a bit of discomfort now for a lot more happiness later.
Episodes 167 and 168 are two great listens to learn more about how to lose weight without a diet.
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2024-03-25 13-49-48
[00:00:00] Hey friends, it's episode 173 of the Diet Diaries. I forgot to take my Invisalign out, so I apologize if you hear my little lisp. I think I'm a lot more sensitive to it than anyone else is. Which actually, because I'll say to people, Oh my god, I hear my Invisalign, I'm sorry, I'm lisping. And they're like, I don't even hear what you're talking about.
And this actually, as I'm saying this right now in real time, is making me think about like body image, right? How like we're so obsessed and laser focused on some aspect of our body and what it looks like and what other people are going to think. And literally like nobody's noticing or paying attention, right?
And this Invisalign thing is almost like, it's like a perfect example of that. Um, Anyway, so for whatever that's worth, I was just thinking about that and wanted to share it. And, uh, that's, you know, kind of the work I'm doing right alongside you guys in real time. So I'm recording this one again a bit in advance as of right now, it's Monday, March 25th.
Today's episode is airing on [00:01:00] Monday, April 8th. By the time you listen to this, we'll be back from our vacation. I'm doing this ahead of time. Because I very, very rarely take breaks with the podcast. Only when we went to Greece two summers ago, I took a break and then like one other time, um, So I just kind of plan ahead.
Um, and I'm going to keep this episode, you know, on the shorter side. Again, there's no announcements, so I can kind of get right into it. And what I wanted to talk about today is something I've probably talked about before. I don't think on the podcast, but in general, I've kind of talked about this concept.
And that is the idea of, what does it mean for something to work? Right. When we talk about dieting and losing weight, we say this all the time. Oh, Weight Watchers worked for me. Whole30 worked for me. Paleo worked for me. And then when we dig a little bit into that, it's almost always in the context of Did I lose weight?
Right? I did Weight Watchers and it worked for me. I lost 15 pounds. I did [00:02:00] Paleo, it worked for me. I lost whatever. But then what's interesting about this is we often say this in the context of doing something again. Well, that worked for me last time. I'm going to do that again. When I did Weight Watchers last time, it totally worked.
So I'm going to go back to that, right? When I did whole 33 years ago, I lost 25 pounds. That really worked. I'm going to go do that again. But here's the thing. If something worked, Just by definition of the word, like, work, like, how are we defining that? Would you have to go and do it again and, like, start over from scratch?
To me, the answer is no, right? And I think there's, like, some interesting analogies that we can make here. And one of them that I think about often, but I don't think I've ever really vocalized, Is like compare this to like going to see a doctor, right? Let's say there's something going on in your body and You find out that you need surgery to quote fix it.
Okay, so the doctor tells you this He's like you're gonna [00:03:00] have the surgery. It's gonna fix it. It's gonna work. You'll be good. Okay, so okay fine I'm going to go and do this surgery. Then six months later, the same problem that prompted the first surgery has come back. And the doctor's like, well, the surgery worked last time.
Let's do that again. And you're like, okay. So you go and have the surgery again. It fixes the problem and you're good. Then another six months later, the same problem that the surgery quote fixed comes back again. And the doctor says, well, it worked last time. Let's do it again. And you say, okay, let's do it again.
Like, no one would actually do this, right? It sounds ludicrous. Like, no one in their right mind would ever do that. You'd be like, this doctor's crazy, he's not fixing the problem, I need a second opinion, this isn't working, there must be another way to address this problem. But when it comes to our bodies and dieting, that is exactly what we do.
For years, and often decades. How many times have you done Weight Watchers? How many times have you [00:04:00] done a Whole30? How many times have you done Paleo? How many times have you done Isagenix or Octavia? Multiple times. Because when we think of something as working, we're thinking a very short term fix. It works, I lose weight in a month, in two months, I keep it off for a little while, and then over time it comes back six months later or a year later.
Maybe I haven't gained all of it back, but I've gained a portion of it back. And not only have I gained the weight back, I'm just feeling like shit around food. Like I'm really just kind of like hanging on by a thread and like feel terrible around food. So nothing has worked. And I think we have to get really objective about these things and radically honest and know that When something works, it works.
That's not to say that there isn't ongoing maintenance or ongoing effort that has to happen. You don't get to just check a box and be done [00:05:00] with it. But being able to put in consistent effort and use skills over time is very different than like every six months or every year going back and restarting something that only has a very temporary result or a very temporary benefit.
And that kind of like really the crux of this. Do you want temporary or do you want permanent? Because temporary results come from instant gratification and come quickly. Permanent results come from delayed gratification, come from sitting in discomfort and take a lot longer time, a lot, a lot more time to get.
And so this is getting, this conversation is really about getting into the practice of thinking beyond the next, like, Week or month, when it's like, I have a wedding, I have a bar mitzvah, I have to wear a bathing suit, I have this, I have that, I need to lose weight for this thing. I'm thinking big picture.
Where am I gonna be six months from now? Where am I gonna be a year from now? How do I want to be feeling? Right? These are the shifts we have to make. These are the things we have to [00:06:00] be thinking about when it comes to does it work. When you think, where am I going to be a year from now, is this thing going to have worked, right?
When I look back on things that I think have quote worked, did they work a year after, two years after? Or no, was I going back to do them over and over and over again? Because there are very few parts of our life, right, the doctor surgery analogy I think is really dead on. where we would accept this and continue to do this kind of behavior.
But for some reason, when it comes to dieting and weight loss, we do. And again, I think it's because we want instant gratification, because we don't know any other way, because we've grown up with this and have been told this is how you lose weight our whole lives. We've never been told that there's another way.
That you can lose weight without a diet. That there are skills to learn around eating and how to talk to yourself and how to take care of yourself. And when you learn those [00:07:00] skills, it literally changes your fucking life. Like, but nobody talks about it. Because it's not like a big, sexy, fancy, moneymaker.
It's not a cool six week before and after photo, right? It's work and it's effort and it's time and it's discomfort and it's perseverance and it's showing up for yourself and it's doing hard, uncomfortable shit. But that is what works, right? Like there are very few, I think, paths in life where we can like shortcut it, right?
The long way is the short way. Because think about how many quick fix diets you've done and how much time that has taken up over the course of your life. Where the time is going to pass anyway, if you had put that time and effort into something that had more longevity to it, that was not temporary, you would have gotten permanent results ultimately in less time than you spent going through that same cycle over and over and over and over again.
So again, this, today's episode, and I feel like the [00:08:00] past few episodes, have really been about, like, getting you to think about these things. about your behaviors, about the language you use, and about why you're doing what you're doing. And is it time to do something differently? Right? And if you find yourself going back to Weight Watchers, Paleo, Whole30, MacroTracking, whatever the thing is, What made it work?
How long did it work for? And how many times have you gone back to it? And why do you keep going back to it? And are you looking for results that are temporary? Or are you looking for results that are permanent? And getting honest with yourself about the choices you have to make and the work you have to do in either one of those situations, right?
Which gets into this conversation of like front loading or back loading discomfort, right? Meaning like, am I going to go for the instant gratification and, and be uncomfortable later on? Or am I going to front load the discomfort and delay the gratification and get longer term results? Right? That's what a lot [00:09:00] of this is about.
And I've done some podcasts about that and I will try to link them in the show notes in case you want to listen because they fit really well with this. So just think about this. I would always love to hear your thoughts. I hope that this gives you some perspective and some context and you know, just lets you know that there are other options out there.
There are other ways of approaching things. And just because it's the way you've always done it doesn't mean it's the only way that exists. Um, it's kind of like if you want a different outcome, you've got to take a different action. You can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.
Like nothing's going to change. So thanks for listening. Uh, next week's episode is going to be with a guest. I'm super excited about this episode. Um, You guys are gonna love it. So tune in for that next Monday, April 15th, and I'll be back the following week with more good stuff for you. Thanks for being here.