"you'll gain all the weight back"
 

Does anyone get slightly annoyed when people say this?

Idk but don't you gain all the weight back because you go BACK to eating unhealthy, not because the diet didn't work.

People act like its an automatic thing. You gain weight back because the diet doesn't work for you, not because the diet doesn't work.

It's annoying because they act like it's something you can't control. saying, "you probably will gain all the weight back because.." would make more sense but everyone acts like this force out of nowhere forces you to gain all the weight back and you have no control over it.


If you do an extreme diet, it will work. thus the diet is working. And you can keep it off if you make a commitment to eating healthy after your finished. Right? I mean if I do some crazy diet for results but then go back to eating healthy vegetables, fruits, etc. then I would not gain the weight back.

Not saying I'm talking about myself. I'm just saying that people say you will gain the weigh back like its inevitable when your the one making the choice to go back to eating junk food. The key (in my opinion) is to make a plan of eating healthy for sustainable weight loss, and if you want to, doing a quick diet to shed off the first 20 pounds.


thoughts?

This seems similar in nature to the discussion about people wanting you to fail. It's like they see you succeed and they just want to believe you will gain it back so they can justify why they aren't doing what you are doing and because realistically people have a difficult time when others around them begin to change.

I will say, though, that "extreme" dieting -is- actually counterproductive to sustainable weight loss, for biological reasons. Losing weight eating at a very low calorie level makes your metabolism run slower (so, for example, your body might normally burn 1400 calories a day to keep itself breathing and alive, and after an extreme diet for a month or so, it might have adjusted to only burn 1000 calories a day). That means that if you go back to eating a healthy diet, even if it is fairly low calorie, you'll have trouble maintaining your loss...it's just biological fact.

If you are undertaking a healthy, well-balanced, adequate calorie diet, people are just being judgemental and catty. But if you aren't, this isn't judgement...it's statement of a biological fact.

Maybe a nutritionist or dietitian would be able to help anyone come up with a plan that'd be healthy, balanced, and preserve metabolism, while helping them to reach their goals. A doctor would be a good place to start for a recommendation.

I would like a "preserved" metabolism too, please!!! ;)

I guess it all depends on how you define "work". Does the diet "work" if you lose weight but cannot sustain the lifestyle the diet requires (e.g. - eating nothing but grapefruit or cabbage soup or never touching another carb again ever)?

Or does the diet "work" if it allows you to control your eating and your weight for a lifetime?

IMO, the first diet doesn't "work". Not "it doesn't work for me" ... it plain doesn't work. Even though it might provide the immediate weight loss, it's not sustainable and therefore that diet was ultimately a failure.

In other words, if you go BACK to eating unhealthy, then the diet you were on didn't work - it didn't provide a reasonable, sustainable method of losing and then maintaining.

I guess it just depends on how you want to look at it. I am determined to never weigh what I used to ... ever again in my life. So for me a diet that doesn't make real changes in my life (vs. a diet that promises a quick fix) ... doesn't work. :)

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^yeah I guess you have a point

Well, there is also the comment of "you will gain it all back" when someone sees you making a choice of junk food.
I have pizza sometimes, and fries at times. Having that doesn't mean I am going to pile the weight on.
There is a choice to be made, and if a person chooses a not so healthy food on occasion it really isn't anyone's business.

Extreme diets are a different animal. Consistently eating only one type of food (say cabbage soup :eek: ), or leeches, or whatever is going to get you more comments about its sustainability.