Diets — We’ve been asking the WRONG Questions.

WEIGHT LOSS PROFESSIONALS...When you keep asking the same questions, you keep getting the answers you are expecting. Thus, you end up drawing the wrong conclusions.

When you — when all of us weight loss professionals — repeatedly get the wrong results long-term, (weight re-gained), year after year, isn’t it time to ask whether “What is the best diet” the right question?

When you measure weight loss effectiveness at the end of a diet, you find they work (some better than others). Diet A is superior to Diet B, which is better than Diet C. 

When you look at the differences between them, statistically, the results vary by a small percent in initial pounds lost. But...

…One-two-three years later, most all ex-dieters will re-diet again. 

The key question you should be asking, then, is…”What is creating that re-gain result? Why is that happening?”

Nearly every study of “Post-Diet Re-Gain” shows the majority of dieters (over 90%) add more pounds than they lost. Of course they are driven to re-diet.

So, would you not gain more insight by studying the causes of re-gain? If we were all able to stop re-gain, wouldn’t the obesity problem disappear, because we would have re-configured our diets to solve the re-gain problem — one and done?

We all know the science: 

• Low-calorie diets suppress metabolic rates (RMR). The lower the calorie count, the more suppression is possible. 
• The longer a person cuts calories, the more likely their metabolic rate is slowed long term.
• There is NO well-studied way to re-raise that RMR.

Low-calorie diets are also known to disrupt the endocrine system, change types of gut-bacteria, etc., alter leptin/ghrelin levels, etc., all of which can lead to more likely weight re-gain. Right? 

So, why are we measuring “dieting-pounds lost” as the key outcome of our dietary interventions? 

Aside from the bragging rights of “My people lose more weight than your people,” isn’t it likely that the more they lose (at the point in time we choose to measure “success”) — (given they were on a low-calorie diet) — the more they’ll re-gain later (at the point in time they feel they have “failed” and are considering re-dieting)? 

If the context of your bragging rights is “diet-pounds lost,” 

isn’t it possible that it sets up the reverse, when “pounds re-gained” are measured at the point someone decides to re-diet?

Thus, isn’t your choice of which point in time is the best time to measure “success,” not only arbitrary, but, as seen from your client’s point of view, more likely capricious and cynical? 

None of that reality is going to change unless weight loss professionals re-think WHEN they measure “success” for their clients. 

If weight loss bragging rights were measured two or three years AFTER your client’s diet,

wouldn’t you approach the entire client intervention in a very different way?

As weight loss professionals, we need to start asking the right questions. We shouldn't validate our sense of contributing to a client’s success by arbitrarily measuring it at the point most favorable to us, and least favorable to our clients. 

? 2019 Boyd Jentzsch. All Rights Reserved. #weightloss #diet #undiet