“The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.” – Earl Nightingale

I’m guessing that by now you’ve heard of the movie “The Secret”. Millions of people (including me) had watched it before Larry King and Oprah got a hold of it, but since it has been discussed on those shows, it seems everyone has seen, or at least heard of it. Could be coincidence or it could be the Oprah factor, but I’ve had several people (including the guy who cuts my hair) bring it up in the past few weeks asking if I’d seen it and what my opinion was about it.

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6. Diets make you feel like a failure
Eventually, everyone will ‘cheat’ on their diet, or more likely, go off of it all together. When that happens, the inevitable wave of guilt is sure to follow as you tell yourself that you blew it. The diet industry has to be the only industry in this country where nobody gets what they pay for, and then they blame themselves for it. Of course, people will often punish themselves for blowing it by going on a binge, which just makes the guilt worse and compounds the problem. Convinced that this failure was their own fault, the person then often goes off in search of another diet.

7. Fad diets are unhealthy
Any diet that eliminates entire food categories such as carbohydrates or fats robs your body of important nutrients. As discussed in Part 1, carbohydrates provide your body with its main source of fuel. And, while trans fats and saturated fats should be avoided, did you realize that your body needs a certain level of fat in the diet in order to function properly? Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are healthy fats and a critical part of your daily nutrition. Also, diets that force you to eat ridiculous foods, such as nothing but cabbage soup, rely on semi-starvation for their temporary weight loss effects, causing many unpleasant side effects in your body.

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1. Diets will destroy your metabolism
Calories are not evil. They are not something to be avoided at all costs. Calories are a unit of ENERGY. Your body needs energy every day, and it does its best to stay in a state of balance (calories in = calories out, energy consumed = energy burned). Thus, if you suddenly cut calories in an effort to lose weight, your body will react accordingly. Your body doesn’t know why it is suddenly receiving less energy, but in order to maintain balance, it will immediately begin to slow down your metabolism in order to match your energy burned with your energy consumed. That is why you will eventually see weight loss slow, then stop. This is also the main reason why dieters will gain their weight back, and then some. By dieting, you have programmed your body to burn significantly fewer calories throughout the day, so as soon as the diet ends and calorie intake increases, that extra energy will now be stored as fat.

2. Diets will make you fatter
Muscle is metabolically active tissue, meaning it is burning calories throughout the day, while body fat is basically stored energy. Think of muscle as your metabolism’s engine. The bigger the engine (more muscle mass) you have, the faster your metabolism can run. Unfortunately, one of the ways that your body slows down its metabolism in reaction to a diet is by cannibalizing muscle mass, and using it for energy. So, while the scale will be telling you that you are losing weight, your metabolism will be cratering because much of the weight you are losing will be muscle mass. Then, after you quit the diet and go back to your normal way of eating, when you gain the weight back, it doesn’t come back as the muscle you lost, but as fat. So, not long after you quit the diet, not only will you weigh the same, or more, than you did when you started, but you will have more fat, less muscle, and a slower metabolism.

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