Why Diets Don’t Work

Whether you’re working on renaming the word because of past experiences, or you’re trying one for the first time, there’s a lot of baggage that can come with such a simple word.

Unfortunately, society has capitalized on something that is so basic.

Diet is really just what your food intake looks like. People have started naming different ways of eating, usually restricting something one way or another, and calling it a diet.

And if you’ve done any of them, all of them, or just seen all the different ways, I understand why there may be some apprehension around the word.

But my goal today is to explain why, no matter what diet you’re following or looking at, how the restrictive part of it is why it’s not working for you.

Diet is just the food you’re eating. And I want to help you see a different way of approaching it, so you can FINALLY see the results you work so hard for.

We’ll cover:

• How I went from fearing to not questioning food

• Restrictive eating and cutting foods out

• Overtraining on a low calorie diet

• Stress and sleep

• Short term goal

• How to change it

Disclosure: This post contains Affiliate Links. Meaning I may receive a commission if you purchase through my link, but at no extra cost to you. Please read my Terms of Use for more details.

How I Went From Fearing to Not Questioning Food

I’m probably a lot like you if you’re reading this. I would scroll and search for hours to try and figure out why I wasn’t losing weight with my extreme diets. I was counting my calories, working out, doing my fasted cardio and anything else people would recommend. And still nothing.

How frustrating!

But it wasn’t until I stopped doing that and started listening to my body more that I started seeing the results.

I’m sure that’s also annoying though. Because what does that even mean?

Listen to your body when it’s telling you all it wants is junk food? All it wants is to sleep forever and do nothing when that’s not an option either. I have an eBook that walks you through Cutting Cravings in 3 days, but let me explain a bit more here!

Restrictive Eating and Cutting Foods Out

When you want to lose weight, yes, calories in equals calories out. So reducing the amount of food you’re eating will help you.

But, cutting foods out entirely or going too far below recommended calories is where the negative effects can happen. And I used to do that. Thinking if I went under the calories I was given, then I’d lose the weight faster. But that didn’t happen.

Not sure if you know this, but if you go too far under your calories, your body goes into starvation mode. It holds on to anything it can in order to survive, because survival is the main goal of the body. Not weight loss.

And the same goes for cutting foods out entirely. There is something to be said about moderation, even on the “bad” foods. Fats help the body’s hormones and basic functions, protein helps with muscle building and recovery, carbs help give you energy, vitamins and minerals help with everything else.

In the most simple form, you need a bit of everything to help your body survive. And also for your mentality. The “bad” foods are good for your soul.

Overtraining on a Low Calorie Diet

Training and working out is important to any healthy life. But just like a restrictive diet, overtraining can be a problem. With proper nutrition, sleep and overall balanced life, you can push a bit more in your training without a lot of struggle.

However, you clicked on this blog post and got to this point. So you’re not seeing results with your current program. You’re most likely under-eating with your training.

And because of that lack of nutrition, your body isn’t able to heal properly.

So the fasted cardio, two-a-days (if you got into that training style), or whatever training program you’re following is not allowing you to recover as much as you’d hope. So you may even be burning through the muscle you’re working so hard to create.

If you start increasing your calories, even a little, and pay attention to how you’re feeling with that increase, you’ll be able to tell if that’s a big indicator for your limited results.

Stress and Sleep

This is a BIG one that we all tend to just accept as a fact of life. We don’t get enough sleep and what is there NOT to be stressed about. But this can and does have a big effect on how much or little results you achieve.

Studies will say 6-8 hours of sleep are needed, but new ones coming out specifically about women say that 10 hours each night may be more accurate. If you’re able to jump to that, amazing! But even trying to get better quality sleep can make a huge difference. I can tell when I scroll before bed versus reading. Or even if I had a more productive day with less stress, I tend to sleep better and have deeper REM sleep, which I lack a lot and am working on too.

And same with stress. I sleep less the more stressed I am, and also am on high alert all day. Increasing my heart rate, creating more cortisol in my bloodstream (the stress hormone that limits weight loss), and just wearing on my body more and more each day.

So the more you can control and reduce your stress, the better it is for your long term and short term health.

That can be reducing your scroll time, learning to say no, being aware of how much caffeine you have in a day, to even more extreme measures like job change if needed or reducing certain kinds of people in your life.

All this depends on where you’re at personally, but also affects how your body responds to weight loss and the foods it’s eating.

Short Term Goal

The other main thing is that you’re seeing your diet as a short term goal, not a long term change. And that’s where real progress happens.

You see, the short term goal can work, but if you’re wanting lasting change, then it’s pointless.

Short term is usually restrictive, not sustainable and wanting a quick fix. You may lose the weight, but once you go back to “normal” life, everything comes back. That’s where yo-yo dieting happens, where you’re constantly starting and stopping restrictive diets for a quick change when certain life events happen.

But when you approach it as a lifestyle change, then it becomes a way you live and are. It’s focused on sustainability and something you can keep, change with time and make your own.

It won’t be as fast, but it will last, unlike everything you’ve done so far.

So just like with everything, it’s a mindset change.

How to Change It

So you know how I said the main goal of the body is to keep it alive? Well, when you start feeding it enough food, and the food it wants, get more quality sleep, reduce your stress, change your training style if needed and work on doing the things you want to in life, your body is no longer in survival mode.

It’s no longer in feast and famine mode. Which really is just how our bodies are hard-wired. It doesn’t see food as readily available, especially when on a restrictive diet. It thinks we’re going through a hard time and isn’t sure when we’ll be able to eat again. So it holds onto any excess weight it can in order to get to feast and abundance again.

This is what we need to work towards. Getting our body to trust us and feel safe to let go of the excess weight it’s carrying. Once it trusts that we don’t have to worry about a famine anymore, it will let go of the weight it doesn’t need.

This will take longer, especially if you have some other underlying healing to work through. Anything that causes the body to stress and fear, will limit the weight loss.

That’s why it’s important to take a holistic approach. And that just means checking in with every part of your life, and working to make it as balanced as you can.

And yes, life never goes as planned, but if you have a solid base, a simple schedule you can rely on, that does wonders! This can be really consistent sleep, setting boundaries, getting whole foods as much as you can, spending time with people you love and enjoy, moving your body in ways you look forward too, and trying to find the good in life, as much as you can.

Now, all of this is well and good, but how are you supposed to start taking these steps to change? I’d love to offer a simple starting point. It’s my Food Experiment journal.

I actually created this years ago, and will one day get it updated because I self-published it mostly from a word doc, and it deserves to be a little prettier!

BUT! It’s still the base that I used with all my clients. When you’re working on tracking food and being aware, I couldn’t find a journal that didn’t include calories. And I had specific things I wanted my clients to check and be aware of. So I made it!

I’ve used it myself multiple times when going through a chapter change in life, and it’s been so helpful! Even now, when I’m pretty solid with my food and checking in with myself, there are little things I can still miss or just forget with time.

And whenever I use the journal, even if it’s a little sporadic because no one’s perfect all the time, I come out with a lot more understanding and confidence to keep going with my food and make the adjustments I need.

So if you’re tired of calorie counting and need a break, but still want something to help you understand why your diet isn’t working, I’d highly recommend the Food Experiment journal. I’m hoping to offer my course I created around both my Food and Movement Experiment journals one day (check out The Best Workout For You for a breakdown more on that journal), but until then, I’m still so proud of how this has helped people get back to basics and keep things simple with their diet.

Wanting more personalized support where you can chat and make changes on the daily, have success in health and career, all without breaking the bank? Contact me for openings in my RCK SLD Method coaching.

Change and balance is possible. And a world where numbers don’t rule your life, is truly when the fun starts happening!