The Harsh Weight Loss Secret Everyone Should Know!
posted on: October 06, 2016. posted in: Weight loss
Picture the scene.
Imagine you're overweight or obese.
What do you do?
How do you solve it?
How do you reverse your obesity?
The standard advice is to "Eat Less and Exercise More". So you join a slimming club to help you with the "Eat Less" part, and you start jogging with your friend to ensure you "Exercise More".
Day 1 is easy and actually quiet exciting.
Day 2 things start getting a little bit tougher.
And by Days 3 and 4 things start taking a turn for the worse.
Your APPETITE and CRAVINGS are going through the roof, while your ENERGY levels and mood are dropping through the floor.
You want to "Eat Less and Exercise More", but every part of your body and brain is screaming at you to "Eat More and Exercise Less".
Biscuits get scoffed.
Runs with Jenny get cancelled.
Fresh new diet and exercise plan gets ditched.
And the usual thought process that follows is...
"F**k it. I've ruined it now. So I might as well do nothing for the rest of this week and just spend it binging. I'll start fresh next Monday, but between now and then I'll eat as much as I can, while I still can."
Now all of this may sound frustratingly familiar.
Because this is the thinking and behaviour of millions of dieters in this country, who are great at starting new diet and exercise plans... great at the initial bit of the "Eat Less and Exercise More" game... but they never see it through. They never last.
Usually for them Day 3 or Day 4 marks the end, with a sudden spike in appetite and cravings, mixed with a sudden drop in energy.
For those who like to start their diets on Monday, you'll be familiar with the pattern of hitting the biscuit tin by Wednesday or Thursday, then feeling guilty and wondering why.
This annoying phenomenon...
That sends you diving into the biscuit tin...
Is known as THE DIP.
It is the physiological and psychological effect of dropping your calorie intake (eating less), and increasing your calorie ouput (exercising more). Your body and brain is very deliberately raising your appetite and cravings, whilst decreasing your energy, to prevent you from starving. It's effectively a "starvation defence mechanism".
And it feels like sh*t.
It is a very uncomfortable sensation.
It is your body making you feel uncomfortable...
To force you to EAT and SURVIVE.
The more you resist The Dip? The more painful it becomes. Your body and brain wants you to eat, and it's prepared to make you suffer until you do!
This, of course, plays havoc with diets.
Some people call it being "hangry", as they experience mood swings along with the increased appetite and cravings. Others call it "carb flu" because they literally feel ill as result of reducing their calorie and carbohydrate intake.
Whatever you choose to call it...
This uncomfortable, painful phenomenon... this dip...
Is the barrier between OBESITY and LEANNESS.
To put it another way, the difference between obese people and lean people is that lean people push through and survive The Dip. Obese people don't.
If you are obese right now, it is because you've never got through The Dip.
It really is that simple.
So take a look at this picture...
The obese person lives on the left of The Dip. They never enter The Dip because it feels too uncomfortable. Every time The Dip comes on they eat, and overeat, to ensure they never dip. This is why they are obese. They binge constantly, to keep themselves out of The Dip, avoiding the discomfort.
The dieter lives in the middle of The Dip. They spend their lives constantly hungry, constantly craving, constantly with low energy, but resisting the urge to overeat. Instead they use and abuse lower calorie junk food and diet food thinking it will stop them dipping, but only making it deeper and worse.
The lean person lives on the right of The Dip. They are through it and living on the other side, controlling their appetite, cravings and energy levels with nutritious food. They don't need to use junk food or diet food, because they're not spending their lives dipping. Day to day they feel normal, without the need or urge to scoff junk.
If you want to put what you've learned into the real world...
Think about the Slimming World dieter, dipping in the evening, feeling their appetite and cravings creep up and their energy levels drop. Instead of pushing through the discomfort, they scoff a selection of "syns" to keep The Dip at bay momentarily. But the result is to actually increase The Dip, and prolong The Dip, and make them dependent on junk foods, using them like drugs to soothe the discomfort of The Dip.
"I'm so hangry! I need my syns now!!!"
They spend their lives in The Dip. Constantly thinking about the next meal. Constantly craving. Constantly creating random combinations of sugary, sweet, carby treats that have been deemed "low-syn" or "syn-free", that they use to mange their ongoing, life long and painful DIP.
It's a horrible, painful, nasty existence. Constantly battling with their appetite and cravings, and then feeling guilty when they inevitably binge and lose the fight. Not realising that the reason they're so hungry and craving all the time... dipping all the time... is because their body is demanding NUTRITION not SYNS.
Compare this to the lean person or athlete...
They know and understand that junk foods and processed foods are addictive and devoid of nutrition, and therefore only serve to increase The Dip and make it more painful. So they don't eat them daily. They certainly don't use them as drugs, because they don't need to use them as drugs. They're not dipping all the time like the dieters, because they manage their appetite, cravings and energy with nutritious foods, NOT SYNS.
And so...
The harsh weight loss secret everyone should know?
"If you want to lose weight and get leaner, you have to push through the pain and discomfort of The Dip!!! Using and abusing diet foods only prolongs it!!!"
If you keep snacking on junk. If you keep buying processed diet bars. If you keep giving in to your cravings and making up "treat plates" at bloody Slimming World... you'll ALWAYS be living in The Dip.
Even if you do hit target weight...
You're going to feel MISERABLE.
And most dieters feel so miserable living in The Dip, they can't sustain it anyway. So they quit. They binge. They regain all the weight. And they rejoin all the obese people over on the left again. Comfortable and relieved to not be dipping anymore. But now they're obese and heavier than when they started.
To get through The Dip, you need to start fuelling your body with REAL FOOD and stop using and abusing PROCESSED JUNK and DIET FOOD that keeps you in The Dip. Junk like sugary sweet Slimming World hifi bars. Junk like sugary sweet Weight Watchers biscuits.
But hey.
A slimming club would never sell you an addictive food that keeps in The Dip, so that you never lose weight long term...
Would they?
Food for thought :)
Liam
[This post is not aimed at any individual members of slimming clubs. Instead it is designed to highlight the dangers of slimming companies and how they drive food addiction and obesity. If you'd like to learn more about how we can help, please feel free to email us for a non-judgemental conversation about your nutrition.]
