Diets Don't Work, The Fact Is They Turn You Fat

Diets don't work

I know, I know, I am not the first person to say this. but...

I heard the term, for the first time, about 15 years ago. There's a non-fiction written by a man who owned a fitness center, I believe in the south, and the book starts off with one of the greatest lines in history, he wrote "I had to call in fat one morning..."


Dr. Bob owned a gym. He worked there every day. And he needed to call in fat, because none of his clothes fit him. Now, that forces you to ponder a little bit, I hope..

Dr. Bob has his Ph.D. in psychology, so he loves to take notice, especially to resemblances. And one typical thing he found: those who came in to drop some weight got fatter. And the men that came in to build muscle and put on a few pounds, remained lanky.

He even did an experiment: there were a few skin and bone thin fellas that wanted to put on weight, so he did something totally counter intuitive, and put them on a weight loss program. They did lose a couple ofpounds, but when they started to eat like before the diet, they packed much moreon than what they lost on the starvation diet. This is how he came to the conclusion that ultimately what makes people fat is dieting.

The book is quite bare-bones, though very well crafted. It says the one thing, something that we've been advised for some time, but not a lot of us have the ability to (blank) hear: eat when you're hungry, and quit eating when you are no longer hungry. Although this is correct and tested out (I think, because could never comply!) the difficulty with his approach is that it is still a diet. A restriction. Something that needs you to pay attention to your conduct, have self-control, and therefore it does not really work. Bear in mind? diets don't work.

Why would he write yet another diet book, you ask? hah! To begin with, diet books are popular. Fly off the shelves. Second, inside the restricted perception of the human mind, that is where the answer lies...and as a human being, he reacts to what he sees, recognizes, perceives, like every other human being.

From the limited perspective of the human mind

The 2nd mistake human beings commit is they are looking where everyone is searching, like the drunk in the joke.

The police officer is observing a guy seemingly browsing for something, at night, under the street light. "What seems to be the problem?" he asks when he finally decides to approach the guy. The man, obviously drunk, says, "Officer, I am looking for my keys. Can you help me find them?" So now both of them are looking, to no avail. The policemen finally asks: "Did you lose your keys right here?" "Oh no," answers the drunk, "I lost them over there." "Over there?" exclaims the cop. "Then why are you looking for them here?" "Simple, officer" answers the drunk. "It's dark there, and I can't see a thing. Here, under the streetlight I can see."

Why is that joke so funny? I suggest that the laughter is the laughter of recognition, in one way or another, we are all like that drunk. It is a human being bahavior, not reserved for drunks, not reserved for "other people", we are all like that. We are looking where we have always looked. We keep repeating the same thing, expecting a different result. Just watch your behavior when you can't find your car keys. If you behave like I do, you go back to the same spot 10 times, and say: It must be here, l.o.l.

This quite depressing, wouldn't you say? There is no answer to this weighty problem? Well, not where we have been looking, not there. But given that I am an innovator, I have found a place where we haven't been looking....

The Science of Losing Weight or Diets Don't Work, The Reality Is They Make You Fat