Thursday, May 24, 2012

Transform This

Americans sure love to diet. At least you might think that watching ads for diets on television. The granddaddy of them all is Weight Watchers, but popular programs like Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig and eDiets aren’t far behind. It’s not just the tube; at this time of year, magazine covers shout the seductive promise of easy eating to lose ten pounds by swimsuit season. Don’t forget all the convenience foods marketed to those who would weigh less. Lean Cuisine. Healthy Choice. Smart Ones. Plus the weight loss fads that move through the culture every few years (you can buy the book on Amazon!). Low fat. Low carb. The grapefruit diet. The cabbage soup diet. How does the average person looking to eject a few fat cells choose?

The research seems to say that it doesn’t really matter what kind of diet you go on to lose weight. Just about any eating plan that lowers calories will work for weight loss. But here’s the rub. Once you’ve lost the weight, how do you keep it off? That’s a bit trickier. Only about 3% of people who lose a large amount of weight maintain that loss for longer than a year. For all the glut of advertising trumpeting weight loss programs and products, replete with sexy shots of newly svelte – and jubilant – celebrities, there is a corresponding dearth of information about weight maintenance. Why is that?

What a minute! How could I forget? Whenever a person loses a lot of weight, what happens to them? Yes, you’ve got it! They’re transformed! They’re a new and improved version of their old, fat self and will magically stay slender for the rest of their lives, just by practicing a little “moderation”!

Sigh.

I hate to be a big soggy blanket, but there is no such thing as transformation when it comes to maintaining a large weight loss. In my experience, a diet is only the first step. If you want to maintain your new physique, a diet must be followed by a permanent and drastic change in how you eat and exercise. Not as exciting as watching Jennifer Hudson strut her new shape, is it? It’s grueling work. It can lead to frustration and angst and discomfort as you seek out new ways to live the very smallest details of your life. It can also be a lonely search for those few fellow losers who’ve been there and can relate to your struggle. The improvement in health and well-being makes the difficulty more than worthwhile, but don’t ever think it’s easy or automatic.

It’s understandable that those wrestling with weight would believe in a crazy idea like transformation, for it is a light at the end of the diet tunnel, the hope for the Promised Land. I can only speculate on why sellers of weight loss programs and products would encourage their customers to believe, but consider that when an overweight person has spent countless dollars on the latest wonder diet only to regain the weight all over again, what will they do? Why, spend countless more dollars on the next wonder diet.

The big fat truth is that a diet, no matter how celebrated, is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Unless you’re trying to slim down your wallet, that is.

2 comments:

  1. If that human transformation thing really worked, I can think of several useful places for it besides dieting.

    Ben

    ReplyDelete