The Real Reason Diets Don’t Work

0:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, a brand new show with me, Richard Coles. And me, Emily Andrews. Every week we'll be going beyond the headlines, lifting the lid on what life is really like behind the palace walls. Hello sir, good morning. I'm the Sun's new royal correspondent. Oh, he said, look at me up and down. Things are looking up. We'll be diving into the moments everyone's talking about. What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown? Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their stuff. We'll reveal the secrets of an organisation usually shrouded in mystery and explore defining moments of royal history to see how the past still shapes the monarchy today.

0:38Now, you actually knew Princess Diana. I think one of the ways she acquired power was through that relationship with the present. But before that interview, no-one had really spoken and been so open. Was that a game-changer? So, join us every week wherever you get your podcasts, on YouTube and on Saturdays on 5, as we catch up with the Royals. Hi, this is Monica Reinagle of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms.

1:19It's chicken that's just chicken, and their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy, and soy. Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices.

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2:09Every year, millions of people in the UK start diets hoping to lose weight. Yet despite their best intentions, most diets fail. Studies show that up to 80 % of people who lose weight through dieting, regain it within a year or two. This isn't just down to a lack of willpower. The failures of diets are driven by deep biological and physiological mechanisms that I'm going to break down for you today and give you an alternative way to approach the subject of losing weight that might just prove better for you and your goals. So number one, from a physical point of view. When you eat fewer calories, your body actually responds by becoming more efficient and burning fewer calories to do the same jobs.

2:59It's part of a natural survival mechanism called adaptive thermogenesis. This is your body's perspective that weight loss looks like starvation so it tries to conserve energy. And that has been proven time and time again and shows why sometimes when you diet and your body struggles to lose weight because it's holding on to those calories and that fat it needs them for fuel and it doesn't want to let go so it's fighting against you in that regard another way is that weight loss can actually lower your calorie needs overall How, you might ask? Well, many weight loss diets involve large calorie cuts without focusing on protein or strength training, which can lead to a loss of muscle mass.

3:52And that's a problem because muscle is metabolically active and it burns way more calories than fat in your basal metabolic rate. So you need that muscle. So if you're looking to lose weight, don't just focus on calories, focus on protein and strength training to make sure you maintain or ideally increase your muscle mass because the more muscle mass you lose, overall the calorie burn from your body decreases, which further can slow weight loss and make it easier to regain weight if you return to previous eating habits. So strength and protein training are super, super important. another factor is hunger hormones increase if a slower metabolism wasn't enough your body also increases hunger hormones when you start losing weight your body produces more ghrelin which signals to your brain that you need to eat and at the same time the levels of leptin the hormone the hormone that helps you feel full also tends to decrease this is a real problem because essentially it's making it harder for you to not eat that extra food because your body's telling you it's hungry, it's hungry, I need more food.

5:11So these signals are really, really hard to overcome. So if we get into the psychological reasons why diets fail, we start to see how complex this subject is and how difficult it can be. And diets often make things worse by triggering anxiety, guilt and stress. The challenge is how do we manage those emotions and how do we work with them best? So let's look at willpower because willpower first is the thing that everyone tells you. You just need good willpower and you'll stick to this diet and you'll be absolutely fine. But willpower isn't infinite. It's like a muscle. It gets tired, especially when you're juggling work stress, parenting, social life, and you're on a diet on top of things.

5:54So for example, if you've had a shitty day at work and your boss has been super annoying, by the end of the day, your willpower is spent. You've been biting your tongue for the entire day, not talking back to your boss and you're done. So that what that means is by the time you get home, that dessert or that chocolate bar is almost impossible to resist and you're going to give in. Your willpower isn't infinite and it has a limit and a diet can be a huge strain on your willpower. And so that is why willpower often can be really hard to deal with and be the sole reason for you staying on a diet.

6:38So let's look at stress. Diets often promote an all or nothing mentality. You're either perfectly following the plan or you've completely failed. This is a proper psychological trap. One study in 2010 by Tommy Yama found that women on restrictive diets had higher cortisol levels compared to those who weren't dieting. High cortisol can increase cravings. So dieting can paradoxically increase the urge to eat the very foods you're trying to avoid. It creates a vicious cycle. Dieting causes stress. Stress increases hunger. Eating causes guilt. Guilt leads to more stress and you go back around again.

7:22You shouldn't make dieting a stressful thing. it should be an enjoyable part of you wanting to better yourself rather than a really difficult thing where you feel super guilty if you fall off the wagon. The key is sustainable long-term changes to your diet that you can integrate for the rest of your life, not just for the next three months. Hi, this is Monica Reinagle of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised farms, grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms.

8:06It's chicken that's just chicken, and their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy, and soy. Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices. Hey, it's your ceiling vent, so I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed, or does he just stone a ladder? Listen to your home. Go with Thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note, and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job.

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8:52Let's move on to deprivation. This is real basic psychology. When something is forbidden, it becomes more desirable. If your diet plan bans all the good stuff like chocolate, wine, crisps, then the reality is they're going to be more desirable than ever. Studies have shown that the act of trying to suppress thoughts of food, like don't think about this biscuit, actually increases your desire for it. Eventually, most people give in, and when they do, they often eat more than they would have if the food had been allowed in moderation. So that's another reason why diets often fail, and why I always say, eat healthy 80 to 90 % of the time, and allow yourself treats 10 to 20 % of the time, and you're probably on the right path, because one ice cream during the summer, it's not going to destroy you.

9:48But every day for the entire summer, different story. So lastly, let's look at the social aspect of food because food is a huge part of culture. From Sunday roasts to a pint with your friends, food and drink are interwined with our social life. And whilst we may want to diet, we certainly don't want to give up seeing our friends and family. Imagine being on a keto diet and invited to a pub lunch or doing intermittent fasting or you and your mates want to go for a weekend brunch. These things themselves are very difficult to navigate because you really, really want to spend time with your friends.

10:26Spending time with your friends is super important for your psychological, mental and physical health. Yet the food or the cultural norms that come with it are difficult. So what eventually happens is social pressure kind of leans in and then at that point you have a desire to feel normal. So you end up going, what's the point? I may as well enjoy my life and you'd be right. You should, you should 100 % enjoy your life. But you need to work with these things and integrate them into your life in a way that actually works. So all these biological and psychological forces are working against dieting.

11:09Your body isn't broken, your mind isn't weak. The problem lies in the diet's approach that ignores the science of human behavior and physiology. The truth is the diet failed you, not the other way around. Dieting doesn't have to be a lifelong battle. With the right tools and mindset, lasting change is not just possible, it's entirely achievable. And that's what I try and teach you with my content. This isn't about a diet plan. This isn't about having to calorie count. This isn't about writing out meal plans and shopping lists and fundamentally having to stick to something really complex to make a change because frankly, we're all too busy.

11:52We're all too tired. We're all too stressed to follow that. So this is where the simple swaps methodology comes in. This is why I always say swap this for this because that will do X, Y, and Z. It might reduce your sugar, take you from an ultra-processed food to a non-ultra-processed food. Because what these swaps are allowing you to do is to continue to live your life. Eat how you want to eat. If you want to eat a wrap, eat a wrap. But let's just eat a better wrap, right? This is the fundamental thing. Integration into your life, which are long-term, sustainable changes that you can make today that might not make a big impact today.

12:35might not make a big impact in the next three months. But if you do lots of these things and you stick to them over the next decade, they will make a huge impact on your health, your life and your weight. So this is why I do the content that I do. And this is why it's so important that from whatever health goal you have, whether it's weight loss or something else to just feel better, have better energy or better mood, what you need to do is be kind to your psychology, be kind to your physiology, and make small, simple, sustainable swaps over the long term. Hope you have a great day.

13:31especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms. It's chicken that's just chicken, and their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy, and soy. Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices. Thumbtack presents Uncertainty Strikes. I was surrounded. The aisle and the options were closing in. there were paint rollers satin and matte finish angle brushes and natural bristles there were too many choices what if i never got my living room painted what if i couldn't figure out what type of paint to use what if i just used thumbtack i can hire a top-rated pro that knows everything about interior paint easily compare prices and read reviews thumbtack knows homes download the app today