Why Diets Don’t Work (And What Does) Part 1

by | Sep 3, 2017 | Blog

This series has one goal: to help you understand the dieting strategies that don’t work and the fat loss strategies that do.

Too many of us are investing our time, energy & hope into fat loss tactics that don’t work or aren’t sustainable. Nothing creates frustration faster.

Plus, the more failed strategies you pursue, the more you doubt yourself & damage your metabolism, making each subsequent effort more challenging.

It’s time to work with your body & not against it. It’s time to invest only in what works and let go of what doesn’t.

I know how frustrating it can be to feel like your body isn’t cooperating. Like you aren’t sure what to eat or not to eat, what’s fact & what’s fiction and to be constantly consumed with the pursuit of the right approach.

I know how exhausting it is to want change but fail to create it and have a huge, disappointing gap between your intentions and your actions.

This series will help you change that.

I’m speaking from decades of miserable experience.

I have tried every diet under the sun. I was addicted to finding a new program, plan, detox, strategy, hack, pill or potion.

In fact, I dieted my way to over 350 pounds. You can read my story here.

This 6-part series will set you free from dieting. You’ll understand how fat loss works and you’ll understand the most common dieting flaws that keep you trapped in the yo-yo cycle. You’ll differentiate between fads & facts and find how you can work with your body instead of against it.

In the following parts of this series, we’re going to dive deep into a variety of critical areas:

The Calorie Model Is Flawed

We’ve all been told that the key to weight loss is simply: eat less, move more. That’s not how fat loss happens. In part 2 of this series, we’re going to explore fat loss signaling in the body & what influences it. We’ll talk about the hormonal triggers required for fat burning & fat storage and show how certain foods influence these triggers. Sure, how much you eat matters, but looking at calories and macros as the answer to fat burning ignores how fat loss actually happens.

When you understand the cellular signals required for fat loss, you’ll be free from calorie & macro counting and you’ll get more results with less hunger and fewer cravings.

We’ll give specific examples that show how two different foods with the same number of calories and the same macronutrient breakdown create dramatically different fat loss responses in the body.

All or Nothing Is A Recipe For Failure

How many times have you been “on the wagon” or “off the wagon”? Guys, there is no wagon. Setting a standard of perfection or creating a definition of what “on” looks like means you’ll always have a reason to throw in the towel and start fresh the next day. That’s not going to work.

Your body doesn’t require perfection to generate progress. Plus, the pursuit of perfection is going to leave you frustrated and disappointed, even if you’re making progress.

In this part of the series we’re going to talk about seeking incremental progress so you can establish a strong foundation for sustainable change. We’ll establish how & why to let go of the notion of “on” plan and “off”.

Tools, Not Rules

We have a thing for rules. We love food lists, meal plans and structured diets. However, we usually don’t follow them. Okay, maybe we do for a handful of days or weeks (at best), but when we find a conflicting rule, we’re all confused and we stop trying.

These plans & rules feel good, they give us a sense of certainty, but that feeling isn’t linked to our ability to consistently execute.

Diets give you rules. They tell you what to think instead of teaching you how to think.

This leaves you totally dependent on the opinions of an expert and unable to identify what works and doesn’t work for your body.

Other people will always share their rules and opinions. But your body is unique. Your hormones, lifestyle, preferences, metabolism and everything in between is unique.

Instead of following rules and boxing yourself into someone else’s system, use what you learn as a tool to help you identify what works best for you & is sustainable over the long haul.

This part of the series will help you do just that & give you some tools to do the work.

Follow The Leader Will Leave You Stranded

Diets teach us to find a leader & do what they say. Whether the leader is a company, a book or a person, we heed to their authority and try to do what they say.

There is a much more reliable way to find answers that are true for you: listen to your body.

Most of us know more about reality TV stars and professional athletes than we do about our bodies because we’re so consumed with following someone else’s approach.

“Follow the leader” creates a handful of unfortunate problems.

The sheer number of potential “leaders” is distracting. Every time a new book, shake, program or opinion comes out, you’re hopping on the bandwagon of a new leader.

This alone prevents consistency, which is required for sustainable results.

We allow this to distract us. Instead of objectively facing our inconsistency & lack of follow through, we focus on the fact that we’ve changed our approach due a new plan (leader) when what really happened is that we didn’t follow through.

In this part of the series we’re going to address the leader-leader fat loss model & how you can adopt it in your own life.

Mindset Matters Most

There’s a huge gap between knowing what to do & actually doing it. Too often, our intentions far exceed our execution.

The reality is simple: we have more than enough information to reach our goals, but we’re not consistently acting on it.

Why? Mindset.

Our perspective and propensity to make excuses keeps us from taking action. We justify, defend and avoid more often than we dig in and do the work.

Sure, we’ll do it when we feel like it, but when we don’t feel like it, all bets are off.

You cannot create a different result with the same mindset.

Fat loss is less about your skillset and more about your mindset.

So where do we go from here?

Great question! In part 2 we’re going to completely break down calories, macros and how fat burning actually happens in the body. Most importantly, we’re going to talk about the strategies you can implement to consistently trigger fat burning and prevent fat storage in your own body.

In the meantime, check out the Fat Loss Basics series of the Primal Potential podcast, beginning with episode 121 and ending with episode 126.

The Primal Potential Podcast

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