Ever started a diet on Monday only to end up at the pub on Friday night eating burgers and drinking beers with mates, feeling terribly guilty on Saturday, blame your self control for ‘falling off the band wagon’ on Sunday and then start the same cycle all over again on Monday?
Well, the good news is, it’s actually not you that’s a problem, it’s the diet!
Dieting for the sole purpose of losing weight generally means following a strict meal plan and cutting out certain foods. When we cut out certain foods or go into a state of calorie deficit, our bodies have this innate physiological response to fixate on food. We can thank our hunter-gatherer ancestors for this. Food was scarce; they were constantly starving and constantly searching for it, as they never knew when their next meal was coming!
So, when we cut food and energy out of our diets, our bodies essentially think we’re starving and prompt you to search for food! It’s NATURAL! If we do end up ‘caving’ to this food fixation we tend to feel guilty or ‘out of control’ afterwards, hello diet culture. When really, it’s just our natural body reaction! By treating foods this way, we’re literally working against ourselves!
