[Article] Have Our Attempts to Curb Obesity Done More Harm than Good?

I came across this article, and thought I’d share it here. It’s preliminary research into the question “why don’t diets work?”

The TL;DR is that, among other factors, “diets” don’t work (in terms of weight re-gain) because periods of heavy restriction (ignoring hunger cues) cause the same effect in reverse: when given the chance to eat more food than normal, people ignored their hunger cues (in the other direction) and ate too much.

The article introduces a term that I really liked: “Competent Eating” (eating attitudes, contextual skills, food acceptance, and internal regulation). My experience of Iosing 110+ pounds over 2 years (and the two years of subsequent maintenance within +/- 10 pounds) backs this model up.

After about 8 months of very strict calorie adherence my goals switched to being more about building a healthy relationship with food. My focus shifted from “what amount of calories per day will result in me hitting my goal weight faster” to “what is the right amount my body needs today”? Or, in other words, I started to look at whether my eating behavior was “competent” (across the 4 domains) rather than whether it was “good,” “bad,” “on-track,” or “off-track.”

I still log/monitor my daily calorie intake, butI do it mostly as a source of information. For example, I have found that on a day where I don’t do much, 1800 is enough. On days where I do a lot of activity, 23-2500 is necessary. “A lot of activity” (for me) is a run longer than 7km (4.5ish miles) or a long walk (above 15km/9 miles). Logging through maintenance has given me insight into the way my body works the same way logging my calories at the beginning of my weight loss helped me learn about my eating patterns (and what was going wrong).

Building a healthy relationship with food and sustainable habits is how lasting weight loss happens. I hope this article gives you some food for thought (that fits into your goals ;)!

submitted by /u/koopzegels
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