Most people won’t lose weight by dieting
Have We All Been Lied to About Dieting and Weight Loss?
The world of dieting and weight loss is riddled with myths, misconceptions, and outright lies—many perpetuated by the multibillion-dollar diet industry and toxic diet culture. From unrealistic ideals to blaming individuals for their struggles, these narratives not only fail to support long-term health but also harm our mental and physical well-being. It's time to separate fact from fiction and explore the truths that can lead to a healthier, more sustainable relationship with food, weight, and our bodies.
Common Myths and Lies About Dieting and Weight Loss
1. "Anyone Can Achieve the Ideal Body Standard"
The pervasive imagery of lean, toned bodies in media and advertisements fuels the belief that everyone can and should achieve a specific body type. This myth ignores the reality that body shapes and sizes are largely influenced by genetics, biology, and other uncontrollable factors.
The Truth: There is no universal “ideal” body. Health and well-being look different for everyone, and striving for an unrealistic standard can lead to frustration, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction.
2. "Weight Loss is All About Willpower"
The diet industry often claims that successful weight loss is a simple matter of discipline and effort. This belief stigmatizes individuals who struggle to lose weight, framing their experiences as personal failings.
The Truth: Weight loss is influenced by a complex interplay of factors, including genetics, hormones, metabolism, mental health, and socioeconomic conditions. It's not just about trying harder; it's about understanding your body and circumstances.
3. "You Just Need to Eat Less and Move More"
This oversimplification implies that calorie restriction and exercise are the only paths to weight loss. While these elements play a role, they ignore the body's physiological responses to dieting.
The Truth: Drastic calorie restriction can backfire by slowing down your metabolism, increasing hunger hormones, and triggering binge-eating tendencies. Sustainable weight management requires more nuanced approaches.
4. "Dieting is a Quick Fix"
Many diets promise rapid weight loss through extreme measures, such as cutting out entire food groups or relying on meal replacements.
The Truth: Most quick-fix diets result in temporary weight loss that is difficult to maintain. When normal eating habits resume, the weight often returns—sometimes even more than before.
What Toxic Diet Culture Gets Wrong
Toxic diet culture thrives on promoting harmful beliefs and stoking insecurities. Some of its most damaging attitudes include:
Stigmatizing larger bodies: Suggesting that thinness equals health and moral virtue.
Promoting "good" and "bad" foods: Creating guilt and shame around eating certain foods.
Equating weight with self-worth: Suggesting that a person's value depends on their size.
Promoting myths: e.g., that significant sustained weight loss is possible for all with enough willpower and determination
These messages perpetuate feelings of inadequacy and fuel cycles of yo-yo dieting, often doing more harm than good.
The Science of the Body’s Set Point: Why Weight Loss Isn’t Just About Effort
One of the most misunderstood concepts in dieting is the body's set point—a natural weight range that your body strives to maintain through biological mechanisms.
What is the Set Point?
The body's set point is a natural weight range regulated by complex biological mechanisms, including hormones and metabolism. It functions like a thermostat, maintaining stability around a certain weight. However, the set point has an upward bias, meaning it can increase more readily than it decreases. This is largely a survival mechanism developed through evolution.
When weight gain is sustained over time, the body adjusts to the higher weight and defends it as the new set point.
When you attempt to lose weight, your body fights back by:
Slowing down metabolism: Your body burns fewer calories to conserve energy.
Increasing hunger hormones: Hormones like ghrelin rise, making you feel hungrier.
Decreasing satiety hormones: Hormones like leptin, which signal fullness, decrease.
Why Does This Matter?
Drastic attempts to lose weight below your set point can feel like an uphill battle. Your body interprets sustained calorie restriction as starvation, triggering mechanisms to regain weight. This is why the majority of dieters don’t keep weight off long-term. It’s not willpower, it’s biology!
Breaking Free from Diet Culture: A New Approach to Health and Wellness
Instead of focusing solely on weight loss, consider these healthier, more sustainable approaches:
1. Prioritize Health Over Weight
Shift the focus from the number on the scale to overall health and well-being. This includes improving energy levels, sleep quality, and mental health rather than obsessing over a specific weight.
2. Adopt Intuitive Eating
Intuitive eating encourages listening to your body's hunger and fullness cues, eating foods that make you feel good, and rejecting diet culture's rules. It's about building a positive relationship with food.
3. Embrace Body Diversity
Celebrate that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and recognize that health is not one-size-fits-all. Thinness does not equate to health, and larger bodies can be strong, healthy, and vibrant.
4. Seek Professional Guidance
It is possible to lose weight sustainably without dieting, however this requires expert-supported and highly personalised care to support you to re-optimise your body composition. There are other effective treatments for people living with ob*sity such as metabolic surgery and GLP1-RA medications (e.g,. Wegovy, Mounjaro, Saxenda) which seem to be able to lower the body’s set point. Only work with registered and regulated healthcare providers, dietitians, and therapists who are trained in, and understand the complexities of weight management - they will prioritise your holistic well-being.
The Bottom Line: Dieting Isn’t the Answer
The diet industry has long profited from our insecurities, promoting quick fixes that rarely deliver long-term results. Instead of falling prey to toxic diet culture, focus on building sustainable habits that prioritise your mental and physical health. By understanding your body's unique needs—including its set point—you can develop a healthier, more compassionate relationship with food and weight.
FAQs
What is toxic diet culture?
Toxic diet culture promotes harmful beliefs that equate thinness with health, demonize certain foods, and stigmatize larger bodies.What is the body’s set point?
The body’s set point is its natural weight range, determined by genetics and regulated by biological mechanisms. It has an upward bias but can be lowered with metabolic surgery and medications for weight loss such as Saxenda, Wegovy, and Mounjaro.Why do most diets fail?
Diets often fail because they ignore the body’s physiological responses, such as slowing metabolism and increasing hunger, which can lead to weight regain. (There are many other reasons too, but we’ll save them for another blog post!)Is weight loss always necessary for health?
No, health can be achieved at a wide range of sizes. Focusing on behaviours like balanced nutrition, regular eating, and regular activity is more effective than weight-centric goals.What is intuitive eating?
Intuitive eating is an approach that rejects diet culture and emphasizes eating according to your body’s natural hunger and fullness signals.
If you're ready to take a compassionate, science-backed approach to achieving your health goals, the team at RESET Weight Management is here to help. Whether you're exploring options like metabolic surgery, weight loss medications, lifestyle support, or body composition re-optimisation, our experts are committed to guiding you every step of the way.
Contact RESET Weight Management today for personalized consultations and advice tailored to your unique needs. Together, we can help you achieve lasting health and wellness—because you deserve a solution that truly works for you.
