Here is why we really go on a diets

We don’t start diets because we want to lose weight - we start diets because the decision to start a diet is a dopamine hit.

Women are thought from a very young age to not like their body. The body becomes a problem and as we live in our body we can’t escape from the problem or ignore it, we get really mean to ourselves about it. All that negativity accumulates until we can’t take it any more and we decide that tomorrow we are starting a diet - an immediate infusion of relief and hope that things will be different.

Tomorrow comes, we start and then it is just a matter of time before we give up. We started a diet as a way to feel better but we didn’t want to go on a diet. Diets don’t feel good - being hungry and restricting, especially if we are not seeing fast results to give us some dopamine, can lead to us steeping in negativity once again. So we either dramatically give up a diet or we phase it out, and then for a minute we are in between everything, until those negative thoughts about our body start brewing again and the cycle starts all over.

Over and over, I’ve done this for 20 years and as a result I ended up gaining weight.

So, if you are in that cycle - stop.

What are you doing? It is obviously not working, so let’s change the strategy.

What if you start listening to your body - little by little you practice being hungry and you notice when you are full. What do you think would happen if you could eventually listen to your body and only eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full?