As a personal trainer and aerobics instructor I often hear, “I know I can be healthy and happy if I just lose a few pounds.” It seems we women, in particular, are always in search of that elusive perfect weight, the one at which we can accept ourselves and our bodies. Of course if we are feeling unhappy in our bodies the solution is to go on a diet, right? After all, any doctor will tell you that thin equals healthy and fat equals unhealthy. We certainly get this same message from going to movies and watching television. The closer we can come to being thin, we believe, the healthier we will become.
 
 Wrong! Based on anecdotal evidence alone we can see that dieting is no solution. How many times have you or someone you know lost weight only to gain it back? How many times have you or someone you know lost weight and gained back more than you lost to begin with? Dr. Glenn Gaesser, author of Big Fat Lies, reports that at any given time nearly half of Americans are dieting to either lose or maintain their weight. According to National Institute of Health, a full 90% plus of dieters fall into the first category, and more than 80% of people fall into the second. Now, is this because we’re a nation of gluttonous, weak and lazy people who can’t control what we eat, or is there something else going on here that remains unexamined?
 

Our bodies really have a single goal, and that is to keep us alive. When we begin a diet our bodies immediately register that the nourishment we need to live is in scarce supply, and we prepare for the “famine” biologically by lowering metabolism and storing fat. Little do our bodies know, the “famine” is not due to an actual shortage of food, it is self-imposed.
Despite the body’s tendency to adjust to a dieting state, many of us do lose weight. For as long as we are dieting, though, we can expect to go through a recovery period where we feel hungry for no reason and generally out of control around food. This recovery period is our body’s way of recovering from the “famine” and making sure we do not ever go without again. It is during this time that we tend to regain weight and eat more than our body needs, not out of weakness or gluttony, but because our body is designed to help us survive. And surviving is a good thing, right?
Dieting leads to feelings of anxiety and powerlessness. After all, we think, what can we control if we cannot control our weight? Dieting also teaches us to distrust ourselves and our internal needs. If I were to eat every time I wanted food, the dieter thinks, I’d be as big as a house. I know this because I used to believe it myself, until I stopped dieting.
So if dieting isn’t the answer, then what is? The amazing truth is, our bodies have a built-in system designed to regulate our weight and our appetite which dieters generally try their best to ignore. Once restrictions around food are removed and our bodies are left to regulate themselves, our weights will stabilize and we will find peace with food. Once we are working with our bodies instead of against them, taking care of ourselves completely, we can know a more balanced, healthful existence, where energies are devoted to the truly important things in life, and not to food obsession and body hatred.

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 © 2003 Jennifer Portnick

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