3 Ways Diets Make You Fat and Cause Hormone Imbalance
With 69% of Americans overweight and 30% obese (1), everyone seems to be on a diet these days. Most people have tried not one but multiple different diets. Dieting has become so mainstream, that many go from one diet to another without even taking a break in-between. But do diets work? Do they really help you achieve sustained weight loss? Or are they just a band-aid that we slap on to help us drop a few pounds, without even noticing that we create even bigger issues in the process? As a Nutritionist, I have seen many women struggle with extra weight. I can honestly tell you, diets do not end the struggle. In fact, a history of dieting often leads to a host of health problems, including hormone imbalances, that we rarely associate with diets themselves.
One of my clients, Mary has struggled with her weight all her life. The memories of countless failed attempts to achieve her ideal weight have been haunting her for several decades. She tried many different diet programs with no real results. No matter how hard she tried, extra pounds kept creeping up on her and stuck to her waistline. After all the failures, Mary started to lose hope. Over time she became convinced that her weight issue was beyond her control and that there was nothing more that she could do to fit into her skinny jeans again.
Mary was a hard-working, ambitious executive in a high stress marketing job, with frequent tight deadlines and under constant pressure. She had very little flexibility in her schedule and was stuck behind a desk a large part of the day. As a result, Mary often found herself putting in long hours. It wasn’t uncommon to find her behind her desk at 7 PM even on a Friday night. This type of environment and work schedule did not leave her with a lot of opportunities to change her lifestyle and exercise routine. Fast food, snacks and caffeine-loaded sodas became her crutch to get through the day.
We are told we need to move more and eat less to lose weight. It’s that simple. That’s the premise of many of the popular fad diets that severely restrict calories and recommend frequent, intense workouts. But while these programs may deliver results on the short run, on the long run, they are sure to take a toll on your overall health, burn out your adrenals and lead to various other hormone imbalances.
Take Dr Siegal’s famous Cookie Diet from 1975 for example. On the surface, a diet plan that allows six cookies a day may sound like a tasty way to drop some extra pounds. the cookie diet is not a healthful way to reach your dream weight. Putting people on a 1,000 calorie per day diet plan – with or without cookies – is not a sustainable, may lead to rapid weight loss at a pace that is way too fast. The diet promises 15 pounds of weight loss per month, which is unhealthy. Aiming to lose 2-3 pounds a week should is a safe pace for most people.
– Rate of weight loss promised (up to 15 pounds in a month) may be unhealthy. (Safe weight loss should be one to two pounds per week at most.)
– This diet restricts too many calories.
– Eating the same food throughout the day can get boring really fast!
– No scientific evidence that the diet is effective.
But deep down, Mary never gave up on her skinny jeans. Her coworker, Jenni knew that and got her all pumped up about a 6-week Biggest Loser contest. Even though Mary was quite skeptical, she decided to participate.
Fast forward a few weeks, and by the end of the contest, Mary lost several pounds. Due to her competitive nature, she put herself on a strict diet to finish among the top losers. And while she felt pretty good about her accomplishment, she knew that her restrictive diet was by no means sustainable.
Her happiness was short-lived, as in a few short weeks, she was back at her pre-contest weight. Reality hit her hard a couple more weeks down the road when she realized that her weight soared to record highs.
Mary story isn’t unusual. Besides the disappointment that contestants of weight loss challenges frequently experience, there are several additional downsides to these types of programs.
1. Tensions can rise high
While Biggest Loser-style weight loss contests often create a sense of comradery, this positive feeling can quickly dissipate when team members aren’t progressing at the same pace. Criticisms of each others diet and “lack of effort” can induce serious tensions, which in turn can negatively impact the working environment.
2. Contests favor men over women
According to research, men tend to lose weight at a faster pace, which puts women at a disadvantage in contests where weight loss has to be achieved in a few weeks. The reason for this difference between men and women lies in the difference in the ratio of lean muscle. Men tend to have more lean muscle tissue, which burns more calories than body fat. So theoretically, women must cut more calories to achieve the same degree of weight loss. So men have a leg up on women when it comes to losing weight, at least in the short term.
3. Contests can encourage unhealthy crash dieting
The pressure to perform and the incentive to win a prize can push people to take dieting to the extreme. Some might jump on board with dangerous diet programs, or give in to peer pressure even if there were possible health risks involved. Furthermore, just like most diet programs, while participants may see incremental weight loss on the short term, they tend to gain it back shortly after the incentives are no longer there to keep them on track. Employees regularly entering these contests may get discouraged from the experience of losing and regaining weight.
The question that employers should ask themselves when considering the sponsorship of such weight loss contest is: What are you trying to accomplish by doing so? If short-term benefits are what you are after, then weight loss contests may suit your needs. On the other hand, if your objective is more along the lines of improving employee health, creating meaningful, sustainable, positive transformations, then you are better off looking into some of these ideas below:
1. Stress Management Training
Obesity is often the consequence of one or more of the following, such as overeating, lack of physical activity or eating the wrong kind of foods. Stress plays a huge factor in all these as it not only reduces our ability to burn fat but also makes us hungry and crave sugar. Furthermore, according to the “Stress In America” survey, conducted by the American Psychological Association, a large percentage of the population admitted to be overeating or reaching for unhealthy foods in response to stress, as a way to calm down. Stress also causes sleep-related issues, which in turn can disrupt appetite controlling chemicals in the body. Stress management workshops, on-site yoga, and meditation classes are all great ways to give employees the tools to cope with stress more effectively.
2. Mindful Eating Programs
Mindful Eating programs are designed to address some of the core issues leading to poor food choices, binge eating, emotional eating, etc. Mindful eating incorporates the fundamentals of meditation, learning to slow down and to be in the present moment. It teaches participants to tune into their sensory experience of the food as well as into their subjective feelings of fullness and hunger. Growing evidence suggests that a more thoughtful way of eating could have a positive impact on weight problems.
3. Make Exercise Accessible
The positive effect of increased physical exercise on weight is evident, yet, finding the time to get into a routine is far less so. Many companies have found that forming walking clubs or having walking meetings to encourage people to get up and move around works well. Offering yoga and other fitness classes can also give employees a nice boost during their workday.
4. Self-Awareness Training
Whether we struggle with obesity, procrastination, lack of discipline, unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits, or a combination of these, without understanding the WHY behind our actions, thoughts, and emotions, the real solution cannot be found. While we all have the inherent ability to be self-aware, most of us never slow down enough to be in the moment and feel the emotions, understand the nature of our thoughts. As it relates to weight loss, often in spite of our best intentions, our own self-limiting beliefs, destructive mental habits may unknowingly sabotage our progress. Self-awareness teaches us to become more aware of what we feed our mind with. Too often emotional eating leads to overeating and to eating the wrong kinds of foods. People often reach for food to comfort themselves for whatever uncomfortable emotions they may be feeling. Self-awareness through meditation can help.
It is time for companies to realize, that there are no quick, easy fixes. There are however real solutions available to those that recognize that weight loss should never be the focus of wellness efforts. Weight loss should be an effortless “side effect” of a culture of health. Commit to your employees, lead by example, provide education and resources instead of prizes for lost pounds. After all, creating a healthier workforce is the only way to increase productivity, job satisfaction, and lower health care costs.