Want
the short answer? Yes.
Now, you may be thinking, "If I don't stay on some kind of diet, I'll
just blow up like a balloon. I need to be on a program just to keep
control of myself." But consider that any kind of dieting involves a
diet mentality, which ensures failure, encourages you to ignore hunger
and satiety signals, and promotes a negative relationship with food,
because you have to give up "forbidden" foods and, often, eat foods you
don't really like. This inevitably results in giving in, which often
means bingeing and feeling terrible about yourself. So, though this idea
may sound radical, we firmly believe there is
no good diet.
By "diet," we mean the conscious
restriction of the amounts or kind of foods you're allowed to eat for
the express purpose of losing weight. A diet is something that you go on
when you want to change your body, and go off once you've reached a
certain goal. Though we certainly do endorse consuming a wide variety of
healthful foods, paying attention to portion sizes, and thinking twice
before eating a lot of foods that are high in calories but low in
nutrition, we don't recommend following any kind of plan that tells you
what, how much, and how often you should eat, without regard for your
body's hunger and satiety signals. And we definitely don't recommend any
eating plan that you go on and then go off.
Although it may sound surprising, the
negative effects of dieting also hold true even if you aren't following
a formal diet but still think like a dieter. If you count grams of fat,
opt for high-protein foods while shunning carbs, rely on "safe" foods,
beat yourself up for eating "bad" foods, consciously or unconsciously
undereat (which can trigger overeating later), use diet soft drinks or
coffee to quell your hunger, or decide what you can eat based on what
you've already eaten today, you're dieting.
The Physical and Psychological Effects
of Dieting
Have you ever noticed that as soon as you go on a diet, all you want to
do is eat? Even if you weren't particularly concerned about food prior
to dieting, all of a sudden you become obsessed with it. You find
yourself preoccupied with what you'll have for your next meal, whether
you can have a snack, what others are eating, or even what you'll allow
yourself to eat tomorrow. What's going on?
The mind and the body are inextricably
linked, and never is this more apparent than when you go on a diet.
Geared to survive during feast or famine, both body and mind switch into
survival mode when the food supply is radically diminished. While the
body turns down the metabolism and becomes a "slow burner" in an attempt
to hang on to every single calorie, the mind gears itself to one
overriding purpose: getting food. The result? Suddenly, you may find
yourself clipping recipes, planning menus, cooking elaborate meals or
dishes for others (neither of which you'll eat yourself), or even
dreaming about food at night. The message is clear: Your body wants
food, and your mind does, too.
After a few days of extremely
restricting your food, you'll probably become more depressed and
anxious. Although this may be due to changes in neurotransmitters like
serotonin, it may also occur because you are depriving yourself of
things that are very pleasurable that aren't replaced by anything else
-- leaving a pleasure void. You may suddenly prefer to spend more time
alone -- it takes too much energy to deal with others -- and your
self-esteem may start to drop. Unfortunately, the more depressed,
anxious, and isolated you become, the more you'll obsess about food.
Some people can hold out longer than
others, but the result is eventually the same: a binge. You eat
something you "shouldn't," which makes you feel as if you've blown it.
So you let go and eat. During the binge you feel relief -- at last you
can relax and do what you've wanted to do all along. But you may also
feel as if you're in a trance and can't stop yourself. It's almost as if
your body has developed a will of its own; it's going to feed itself
whether you like it or not. As a result, you can end up eating more food
in one sitting than you ever did when you weren't dieting.
Are you crazy? Absolutely not. This is
a normal, even healthy reaction to a period of semi-starvation, a
reaction that made good sense during primitive times. After a period of
famine, it was natural and necessary for our ancient ancestors to
overeat. They needed to be able to take advantage of a feast when they
had the chance, because the food supply was uncertain. To make this
possible, their appetites increased after a period of famine. So the
same amount of food that would have satisfied them during times of
plenty left them feeling hungry after a period of semi-starvation. The
same thing happens to you when you restrict food. Suddenly, you develop
the urge and the capacity to binge, and you no longer feel satisfied
after eating what you used to consider a normal meal. In short,
restrictive dieting can
trigger binges and leave you hungry
even after you've eaten normal amounts of food. This is true
for most Runaway Eaters, and even for those dieters who do not develop
Runaway Eating problems.
The psychological consequences of
dieting were clearly illustrated in a classic study of the effects of
semi-starvation done in 1950 by Ancel Keys, Ph.D., and his colleagues at
the University of Minnesota. In the study, 36 healthy, young,
psychologically sound males were observed over a period of 1 year.
During the first 3 months, the men ate normal amounts of food; during
the next 6 months, they were given half as much food; and during the
last 3 months, their food allotment was gradually increased. During the
semi-starvation period, the men became preoccupied with food and
constantly talked about it, read cookbooks, clipped recipes, and
daydreamed about eating. When a meal was served, many took an
inordinately long time to eat it, trying to make it last. Over time, the
men became extremely depressed, anxious, and irritable.
Once they made it through the period of
semi-starvation, the men ate nearly continuously, with some indulging in
8,000- to 10,000-calorie binges. The men reported that their hunger
actually increased right
after meals, and some of them continued to eat to the point of being
sick without feeling satisfied. Although most of the men finally
reverted to normal eating patterns within 5 months of the study's end,
some continued with their new patterns of "extreme overconsumption."
We see these same patterns in dieters:
the preoccupation with food; the anxiety, depression, and irritability;
the tendency to go off the diet and eat more than one would have in the
pre-diet days; and a propensity toward bingeing even after the diet has
ended.
Reprinted from:
Runaway Eating: The 8-Point Plan to Conquer
Adult Food and Weight Obsessions by Cynthia M.
Bulik, Ph.D., and Nadine Taylor, M.S., R.D. © 2005 Cynthia M. Bulik,
Ph.D., and Nadine Taylor, M.S., R.D. (January 2005;
$14.95US/$20.95CAN; 1-59486-038-6) Permission granted by Rodale, Inc.,
Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the
publisher by calling (800) 848-4735 or visit their website at
www.rodalestore.com
Authors:
Cynthia Bulik, Ph.D., is
the William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan Distinguished Professor of Eating
Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is
also a professor of nutrition in the School of Public Health and the
director of the UNC Eating Disorders Program.
Nadine Taylor is a
registered dietitian and chair of the Women's Health Council of the
American Nutraceutical Association. She is the author of numerous health
books and articles.
