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Paradigms in Dieting

August 8th, 2006

Diets are like religion.

[pause]

How did I mean that statement? Well, it is probably true in many respects — Insert your truism here — but I mean it in this way: people tend to belong to sects and cleave to them very tightly with a real zealot’s passion. Sometimes, too, people will bash other diets with a fundamentalist’s fervor.

Weight Watcher’s people (to pick an arbitrary example) may go around saying the most intolerant and rude things about Atkins Dieters. Atkins people (and I have been one) often denigrate and demean the low-fat lifestyle.

I firmly believe, as I have said before, that the diet that works is the one you stick to. Now, there are snake oil salesmen in the world, but their diets don’t work. You can probably guess in advance if a plan is something you believe in and feel you can stick to. If a diet isn’t working for you, you shouldn’t be sticking to it. Give it a chance, then move on.

Low carb really works. Low fat really works. Loads of people lose brilliantly on diets as diverse as the Beverly Hills diet (ugh - I could not stick to that one!) and the Shangri-La diet. Ultimately it comes down to commitment. But commitment alone won’t work if you choose a plan that is simply beyond your ability to follow.

If a diet story makes the front page of Digg or Slashdot, invariably, one of the very first comments is something along the lines of “Just eat less and exercise more, pigs!”.

Well, those people are coming from their paradigm, where exercise is already a part of their lives and they already have good eating habits - and fat people are bad, lazy, deluded people.

Those folks can really get dieters or people considering dieting steamed up. Particularly if we are thin-skinned. Ultimately, we know we need to ignore that unhelpful “insight” (for now, until we have the tools to enable us to eat less and exercise more). However, are you really any better at dealing with people who live outside of your weight-loss paradigm?

If your friend on plan x says they’ve reached a plateau in their weight loss, are you encouraging them to “stick with it”, or are you undermining their success by trying to convince them to “switch planes mid-flight”?

I think we might all benefit from taking a more detached, less passionate attitude about other people’s diet choices. That said, just like in religion, if you find a specific thing that works for you, there is a strong impulse to go evangelize. Tread lightly, friend.

What do you say? Am I off base? Let me know!

This post was inspired by:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (I just began reading it)
and
Overjustification Effect Explains Away Religious Morality - Your motivation to exercise evaporates for the same reason many believe morality has a religious basis. (I take no stance on the issue, but it is an interesting read)

Technorati Tags: weight-loss, diet, morality, 7 habits

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Entry Filed under: Diet, General Health, Popular