Americans spend $40 billion annually on weight loss products.
According to the CDC 68% of Americans are overweight.
What’s wrong with this picture?
There is always another “breakthrough diet” on the market. When I go grocery shopping I am always seeing new “diet” foods on the shelves. Yet we keep getting bigger. You know why?
Dieting is the problem.
Look around you. The people on a diet are usually the heaviest and unhealthiest in the group. They are the one’s starving themselves with salads and protein shakes. They are the ones making “healthy” or “lean” frozen meals for lunch and washing it down with a diet soda. They are the ones rejoicing at the Taco Bell Fresh menu that means they can still indulge their fast food habits without guilt and stick to their diets at the same time.
Now look at your friends or colleagues who are fit and healthy. They don’t skip breakfast or any other meal for that matter. The usually brown bag it for lunch but with sandwiches, soups, fruit, veggies and nuts. They carry a water bottle. They take the stairs. They hit the gym not happy hour after work. Food is fuel not recreation. They never talk about being on a diet; they are simply living a life they enjoy.
This is why I say diets don’t work. Diets are about prepackaged, cardboard tasting, chemical filled foods accompanied by starvation, deprivation and guilt. They aren’t healthy and they aren’t built to last.
Being healthy and fit is about living life. It’s about fresh whole foods that don’t come in 100 calorie packs or that have ingredient lists longer than the opening line to A Tale of Two Cities. It’s about making a choice to let go of the habits that made us unhealthy, unhappy and unfit and doing the right things for our health and well being.
Dieting is the problem. Promise me you’ll never go on another diet again.
