Making Better Food Choices Isn't Always About Food

By Stewart Lonky, MD

As I’ve written many times before, dozens of variables affect our weight.

So I laugh when I hear another ‘expert’ claim that a particular diet or eating plan is best for weight loss.?Sure, better food choices could help control compulsive eating behaviors and weight gain.

However, at least 24 independent factors affect our food decision-making. To my knowledge, no single diet or eating plan accounts for all of these influences in the same way no diet or eating plan accounts for all the variables that impact our weight.

Making healthier and more mindful food choices is a worthwhile goal, but how can we do that without considering all the variables at play in food decision-making?

In my view, without changing the current paradigm, people will fail again and again, no matter what program they follow.

Most popular diets suggest a beginning, middle, and end to weight loss. While there might be a beginning, middle, and end to weight loss, there’s no end to weight management. People who lose weight and keep it off don’t simply change their clothing size or waistline. Instead, they tangibly change their thinking and behavior.

The word ‘diet’ comes from the Greek ‘dietos,’ which means “way of living.”

There will never be lasting success at weight control—the actual end product of dieting—until we consider all the variables that make up our eating behavior.

As a colleague, Dr. Stephen Gullo, once said, “Behavior predicts the scale.”

If you want to weigh less and make better and healthier food choices, don’t just check your weight on the bathroom scale. Scales don’t keep people thin. Every heavy person in the world owns a scale.

Instead of constantly checking your weight, how about weighing the behaviors, habits, and other influences that lead to most weight gain?