Why We Fall off the Weight Loss Wagon
 

Excerpted from an article by Jonny Bowden, Weight Loss Coach. You can read it in full at iVillage.com

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There are powerful forces that can often seem to be conspiring to work against you when you try to change your eating behavior patterns.

Fortunately, understanding these forces can help lessen their power over you. Here are the top five reasons we stray from our diets and some thoughts on each of them:


1. Habits and Conditioning

Eating behavior becomes conditioned from the moment we're out of the womb. Food is strongly associated with all kinds of social situations, rituals, places, people and emotions -- not the least of which is comfort. Those responses don't just ''go away'' in a few weeks or even months. You might as well expect that there are going to be times when a particular constellation of those factors -- people, places, things and emotions -- will simply overwhelm even the best intentions.


2. Food Allergies or Hypersensitivities

This is what's behind the ''betcha-can't-eat-just-one'' syndrome. The very foods that we are sensitive to produce a response in the body that is followed by the release of endorphins, the body's own natural painkillers. Those endorphins make you feel good, and it's easy to become addicted to foods that do that. They're like cigarettes to a smoker. Cigarettes aren't good for the body, and the first time you smoke one you choke. But once you adapt to the ''damage,'' you're hooked. And if you quit smoking and start again, what happens? You crave them all the time. And the foods that cause the most problems are usually the same foods that are most tempting during outings, vacations and other events.


3. Brain Chemistry

Our desires for food are strongly influenced by neurotransmitters such as serotonin. When serotonin levels are depressed or depleted for various biological reasons, we're subject to cravings (the candy craving many women experience during PMS is a prime example). Stress plays a part too, as high levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) can cause us to crave carbohydrates.


4. Genetic Factors

Although we're far from having a complete understanding of this one, there is virtually no one on the planet who doesn't believe that lurking in the genome are at least some genes that influence appetite and weight gain. There is undoubtedly a genetic component that makes it easier for certain people to put weight on and harder for those same people to lose it. There may be a genetically determined weight range that your body ''prefers.'' And although some people can indeed get out of that range, don't expect to do it without a bit of resistance from the universe.


5. A completely out-of-control toxic food supply

On a yearly basis, you are exposed to somewhere in the neighborhood of 90,000 advertisements for food, most of it horrible for your diet. And that doesn't count the daily unrelenting exposure to restaurants, malls, food courts, snack machines, buffets, office luncheons, Pizza Huts, Chinese takeout, overflowing supermarket aisles, Starbucks and doughnut shops. The food industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars attempting to make the culinary equivalent of a toxic waste dump seem appealing, refreshing, healthy, fresh and delicious to you, so much that it has actually convinced you that to not eat this junk is ''deprivation.''


So, are there reasons why people fall off the wagon? You bet there are. But rather than beat yourself up for occasionally giving in to temptation, or for losing ''only a couple'' of pounds, I would prefer to see you congratulate yourself for what you have done, and are doing.

In this environment, the fact that you are able to resist junk at all, lose any weight and regain any measure of health is a tribute to your strength and your ability to be empowered!

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Nice "Food for Thought," Doreen. :thup:

>>"5. A completely out-of-control toxic food supply (...) it has actually convinced you that to not eat this junk is ''deprivation' "

Amen. We have to teach ourselves to ingore the din, and it's like trying to ignore a jackhammer.

I find that I fall off the diet when I am too busy to prepare a proper meal and eat what is readily available. Like today when I had so much to do that I pigged out on the Halloween candy (before trick or treat). The bag was just sitting there and I didn't have to pick up a pan, get a dish and fork out, or open a refridgerator door. Of course, now I feel terrible and I had just lost 6 lbs when I weighed in on Tuesday night.

Carol

I should know all about this subject, I fell off big time!! I was so positive that I was going to be so good the last time I clambered aboard.
My problem is sheer laziness, high carb food is so easy to find. I just looked at myself in the mirror, and just know that I need to do something. So what did I do, come here straight away? No, I went searching on the net for a quick fix, found a lose 10 pounds in 3 days diet, looked easy enough. 3 days on, 4 days off, then read some "testimonials" most put weight back on in the 4 days. As I was reading I thought I know how to lose wieght steadily, so here I am back to what I know works for me. I have to make sure I put the effort in this time.
So starting tomorrow, low carb all the way. Wish me luck.

Cheryl

Boy this was what I was searching for almost all day. I'm so upset with myself. I've been LCing since Sept 01 and of course at first lost fast(My total was 80 lbs) . Thru the summer I maintained my loss within a 2 lb range. So I think I was getting cocky about how in control I was. Then several things happened at the beginning of this month, -good news the Dr took me off one of my diabetes pills, and one of my blood pressure pills. But the blood pressure was a dieuretic (sp?) and my weight bounced up 5 lbs. Then I took a trip home, and I guess it stirs up the old emotions or something. I ate on plan while there. And since I've been home I've been out of control. It's hard this is the first time in a year that my weight has gone up and I've got to get on track. The holidays are coming and I can't go berserk. Thanks for lettling me get this off my chest, maybe now I can focus again.
By the way my blood sugars are still doing pretty good, so I think its not bad carbs I'm eating, but too many nuts, creams etc. Any support would be appreciated. Ellen BTW I still have a LONG way to go. :(

Thanksgiving comes every year in either October or November (depending on your country.)
Christmas comes every year.
Your birthday comes every year.
Easter comes every spring.

But THIS is the year you are staying on your eating plan and losing the fat to get to a healthy weight.

Next year, have cake, potatoes, stuffing, pie. But THIS year, stay on plan and you will be happier than if you ate all the carbs in sight.

:wave:

Here is my reason....
 

A bit of discouragement.... I've been on this low carb WOE since May14, 2002. In almost 6 months I have lost 10 lbs...and that was during the first 2 weeks. I have been pretty faithful to this, too. This past week has been the worst....I ate cake, cupcakes, Butterfinger BB's...heck, any thing that was sweet. I just hope I can remember how crappy I felt. It was like some weeklong hangover. Monday WILL be different!