Why diets fail

According to Dr. Michael Dansinger of the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, a typical diet helps people lose an average of 6 percent of their weight, typically 10 to 15 pounds (5 to 7 kg), and most people put it all back on after five years. Weight loss drugs are similarly ineffective in the long run.

The approach most people use, i.e., managing the macronutrient percentage and/or caloric level, is an incomplete and unsustainable strategy for the most part. Tweaking carbs vs fat vs protein percentages is not addressing the core problem.

People need to create a lifestyle that sustains eating behavior from a “micronutrient” (or a “nutritional density”) perspective. When this is accomplished (more effectively, through a combination of self-monitoring, social support, and continued study and application of palatable recipes that are nutrient rich), the appropriate macronutrient and caloric levels follow.

What is particularly troublesome is that of course most “diets” will fail. How can they not? Most of them do not utilize correct scientific nutritional findings, much less manage the eating behavior in the context of sound cognitive-behavioral principles. Most people are not aware of the stages of change model (Prochaska), and its applicability to changing nutritional habits. Neither are they familiar with the very practical work done by Daniel Kirschenbaum regarding the ‘key truths” about lifelong weight management. Lastly, they have been mostly misled by the plethora of scientifically misleading approaches that in time has already acquired the patina of truth, but are blatantly wrong…