Awaken Lifestyles with Olamide Balogun: Diets Don’t Work

Many people when they see articles on wellness have a quick look through to see whether or not there are any prescriptive diets included. If none they lose interest basically because they want a quick fix. However remember the adage ‘easy come , easy go’.

If you have read my initial articles I hope by now you drink only water as your beverage. Besides the fact that anything else does not quench thirst, many drinks are loaded with sugar and the saddest thing is that we don’t even know exactly how much sugar is in them.

Also, I am hoping you have stopped eating things made from white flour like meat -pies, cupcakes, biscuits and the list goes on. If you have done these two things , you must have started seeing a difference in your complexion and the tightness of your clothes.

Today, I am going to try to prove to you that diets hardly ever work. (I was going to say they never work but…. there is usually the exception that proves the rule).

In many instances, we are taught to equate food with reward. When it’s your birthday, there is food, when you win at sports there is a celebration and in the center of it is food. During graduation from anything there is a celebration and again food is at the center.

Even though food is primarily for sustenance, in many instances it is not viewed as such, but for celebrations. This makes sense because when we eat especially some foods we produce a ‘feel good’ hormone called dopamine. It is the same ‘feel good’ hormone produced in the brains of drug addicts and porn addicts.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure centers of the brain. It is responsible for feelings related to love, joy, pleasure, reward and motivation.

Many people are therefore addicted to some foods and as such a diet is extremely difficult to sustain. Also if we could control our weight with just calorie counting, obesity of being over weight would be a thing of the past.

For instance when you put yourself on a strict diet, you don’t produce serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that helps to regulate mood, irritability, impulse, obsession and memory. So diets don’t work for your body or your brain.

A staggering 95% of dieters, gain back the weight they lose and some more. I watched a documentary on people who had gastric by-pass surgery (that is weight loss surgery) and ten years after they had gained back a large amount of the weight they had initially lost and they were going on a diet again.

With reduced food comes reduced metabolism, forcing the dieter to permanently reduce their portions sizes in order to maintain their size. The internal furnace is prepared to receive less energy and so it holds on to fat instead of releasing it. The brain is over 50% fat and needs fat to function.

Will power is scientifically limited so a dieter goes into a binge diet cycle. Many people diet for a few days and the devour a lot of food three evenings into the diet.

There are people who because they once lost weight on a diet now put themselves forward as experts on weight loss. I think their followers should wait for them to have kept the weight loss off for three years in order to say for sure that they are qualified to give weight loss advise.

My advise it that you change your lifestyle. The less sweet things that you eat, the less sweet things you will crave. The less flour you eat, leads to less craving for things that control flour.

Reduce your portions if you eat huge portions. For example if you eat a bowl of rice, half it and replace with vegetables. Increase your vegetable intake, You are more likely to lose weight permanently if you take it slowly and you take on a good habit one at a time.

This way your metabolism will stay at a steady pace.

Experiment with different eating styles, high protein, low protein, low carbohydrates, salads. Take note of how you feel with each food and stick with those that make you feel good discarding those that make you feel bad. Keep a food diary so you can track how you feel. Be honest with yourself.

Develop a physical movement routine. It could be walking, biking, running, swimming, dancing, aerobic classes.

Embrace the relationships that nurture and encourage you, dropping toxic ones. Look at how you are spend your time. What career do you have and are you loving it or hating it?

You need to be a grateful person. Acts of gratitude to the Almighty God helps to a large extent to being stable and balanced.

I promised I would debunk some myths. This post’s myth is that weight gain is the result of too many calories in. Weight gain is the result of fat being stored, not too many calories in. Equally, weight loss is about fat lost, not about putting fewer calories in. keep reading my posts and you will understand the difference and know how to ensure fat loss.
Try some of my advice for the next month and please let me know how you get on.

I am starting a 30 day challenge of sensible lifestyle changing habits that will ensure sustained weight loss on the 15th of November. This will trim you down in readiness for the Christmas, party season and also ensure during the season you don’t go crazy with food. If you are interested contact me at [email protected] for more details.