Katy Weber was 14 when she tried dieting for the first time, swilling a SlimFast to combat her new curves.
My body was changing, and I was uncomfortable, says Weber, now 42 and a professional health coach. After that, she says, I spent most of my adult life yo-yo dieting.
None of the dozen or so diets she tried were successful until she began Weight Watchers after her youngest child was born in 2012.
She dropped 50 pounds within 10 months.
I felt like I had totally figured it out, she says. Weber went so far as to work as a Weight Watchers leader in her town of Rosendale, NY. But as time wore on, maintaining her new weight became an unhealthy burden. I was so anxious I felt like I couldnt enjoy myself around food anymore it became my full-time identity.
All that pressure led to a nasty binge-eating habit, and by the summer of 2016, after shed put roughly 30 pounds back on, Weber realized something had to change.
I originally set out to discover why I was binge-eating, because I thought if I could just quit it, Id be the perfect dieter, she says. But in research, I realized [the problem isnt] the bingeing its the dieting. She no longer diets, and says she actively avoids weighing herself but is happy with her body at long last. That number on the scale is so irrelevant to who I am as a person, she says. Im free of the self-loathing and judgment that had plagued me since adolescence.
That number on the scale is so irrelevant to who I am as a person. Im free of the self-loathing and judgment that had plagued me since adolescence.
People are increasingly realizing that dieting can be unhealthier than carrying around those extra 10 or 20 pounds. Last March, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the percentage of overweight Americans who are trying to lose weight decreased by 7 percent from 1988 to 2014. The diet-food market has been in decline since 2011, market research firm company Mintel reported in September of 2016. Consumers are shifting toward eating fresher foods rather than those marketed as fat-free or low-calorie. And diet sodas, once a mainstay for those hoping to shed pounds, saw sales fall at a much faster rate than regular sodas in 2016. Even Weight Watchers, which tapped Oprah Winfrey as its spokeswoman in 2015, has had its struggles.
Dieting is on the decline, says neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt, author of Why Diets Make Us Fat: The Unintended Consequences of Our Obsession With Weight Loss. Most peoples experience with it is that they work very hard, and then a year later, theyre heavier.
And, some research has found that dieting can have adverse effects. According to a study by the University of Pennsylvania, published in the journal Obesity in January, feeling bad about your weight can lead to higher stress levels and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
We identified a significant relationship between the internalization of weight bias and having a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome, which is a marker of poor health, writes study author Rebecca Pearl.
But whether ditching a diet is a healthy choice depends on what a person does instead, Aamodt says.
If in fact people are just getting frustrated and saying, Theres no point to worrying about my health, nothing matters, and eating a bunch of Big Macs by the pool, then it wouldnt be a good thing from a public-health standpoint, says Aamodt. On the other hand, if people stop [dieting] because theyre realizing there are other ways to be healthy that dont involve using weight control as a measure of success, that would make a difference.
She says that focusing on the numbers on the scale can actually prevent people from living a healthy lifestyle.
Exercising regularly is a very effective way to improve health, whether or not you end up losing weight doing it, which most people dont, she says. But when people dont lose weight, they give up. Thats a place where the focus on dieting does people a disservice its discouraging. The same goes for habits such as eating wholesome foods and getting more sleep.
2011 (left): Katy Weber had tried dozens of diets and weighed roughly 210 pounds. 2013 (middle): Weber lost 60 pounds on Weight Watchers but was obsessed with staying thin. Today (right): She doesnt weigh herself and feels happier than [shes] ever been.Tamara BeckwithMost successful diet-quitters practice mindful, or intuitive, eating. It all essentially comes down to learning to pay attention to when youre hungry or not hungry, Aamodt says.
Focusing too much on weight loss led Isabel Foxen Duke, 30, to develop an eating disorder. She went on her first diet at age 3 on the orders of her pediatrician. By the fifth grade, she was forcing herself to throw up, and her weight fluctuated by up to 60 pounds, as she binged, purged and counted calories.
I didnt realize that dieting was the problem, because I assumed, like most people, that [dieting works and] there was something wrong with me, says Duke, who now works as a health coach and recently moved from New York to San Francisco. I felt like a failure all the time.
By age 20, she was fed up. I kind of had a crash-and-burn moment, where I was like, I cant do this anymore. she says. I thought, this fight is so bad, Id rather just put on weight. So she, like Weber, quit dieting and started eating intuitively, following her bodys hunger cues and cravings, and hasnt looked back. Shes now settled at what she calls her bodys natural weight, and says her self-esteem is no longer tied to what she does or doesnt eat.
If youre going to control your food, theres a really high probability that youre going to lose control at some point, says Duke, who says that her body is now at the weight its supposed to be, naturally. Its not really sustainable, and its not really functional. If youre not eating when youre hungry, youre going to binge.
If people stop [dieting] because theyre realizing there are other ways to be healthy that dont involve using weight control as a measure of success, that would make a difference.
But, some experts say that many Americans should still try to lose weight.
It costs over $6,000 more per year to be obese as a female. Youre spending more money on insurance, says Rochester, NY-based eating psychology expert Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D., author of Bright Line Eating. Waistlines are continuing to expand, and the reality is that we cant sustain that.
She pins the blame on the unhealthy foods that make up most modern diets, and helps her patients to cut out food groups such as white flours, to stop fighting against their metabolisms, and to create healthy habits such as eating meals on a regular schedule.
But others say creating strict rules about what goes into your mouth rarely works.
That was the case for Weber. She says that letting her body decide when and what she eats has left her healthier and happier than her dieting days. Ive stopped fighting with [myself], she says. Im trusting my own hunger and fullness cues.
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It might be a bad idea to go on a diet - New York Post
