12. This diet works
If the purpose of dieting is to lose weight, virtually any diet you try will work. The bad news is if the purpose of dieting is to keep however much weight you lose OFF, virtually all diets fail. It doesn't matter whether you choose a low carb diet, or eat only fruit, or eat only ice cream for two months; you will lose weight on all of those programs (even the ice-cream "diet" because after the first week or so you get sick of eating it).
The problem can be illustrated by a simple thought experiment: Imagine there was a pill that you could take that would magically let you wake up at your ideal weight tomorrow. You would look great for a while, but within a year (much sooner, actually), you will have gained all your unwanted weight back. Unless the pill also magically gives you entirely new eating habits for the rest of your life, your old eating habits and preferences will have you right back where you started.
The only way to lose weight and keep it off is to change your eating for a lifetime. My advice has always been to simply accept being overweight and enjoy the pleasure that you get from eating unless you are willing to do this. Actually, I have more respect for people who just don't care what they look like and are secure enough to enjoy their food than I do for people who are so preoccupied with their looks that their entire lives center around their physiques (please see my Gym essay). On the other hand, being overweight compromises your health significantly, and regardless of how dynamic an individual you may be on the inside, it usually has a very negative effect on your social life (especially if you happen to be single).
The point is it's a choice, and either choice (to change you life-long eating habits OR to accept your body as it is) is preferable to the third alternative, namely, to refuse to accept your body as it is AND spend your life trying every new "diet" craze promoted by the media, year after year after year. Over the long term, fluctuating in weight repeatedly will make you fatter than simply accepting your body as it is. This is because when you lose weight, you do not only lose fat, you always lose some muscle, as well. Unfortunately, when you stop dieting and put weight back on, what you gain back is virtually all fat. The ultimate result is you might return to the same body weight as before, but each time you lose weight and gain it back you increase your body-fat percentage. This is why I used to tell my clients never to use the word "diet" as a verb (as in "I am dieting"), but to think of "diet" only as a noun (as in "this is what my diet is"). Unless you stay on your grapefruit diet or your no carb diet for LIFE, you will eventually return to whatever eating habits accounted for your being overweight in the first place, increasing your body-fat percentage every time you fluctuate significantly in weight.
The only weight loss program that works over the long term is learning the general principles of nutrition. If you care enough about what you look like to do so, you must accept that there are some foods that you just cannot eat (unless it is once or twice a year or so). The only way to keep weight off is to reduce your fat intake to about 40 grams per day and eat no more calories than your body burns. I am lucky in that I was never particularly "food oriented", food is simply "fuel" for my body, rather than a source of pleasure. Yet even I would have a difficult time eating healthily if my cupboards had peanut butter and oreo cookies inside. Of course, if you have children it is much harder to do this, but I used to advise my clients who were single to do their only "dieting" in the supermarket. Some people may be able to eat two oreos at a time and put the box back, but I am not one of them; if I get the munchies with oreos in the house, I eat the box. So my rule is very simple: I don't buy anything that I would feel guilty for eating all at once.
When I started eating healthily there were no labels on foods to break down their fat content, there was no Equal, no non-fat mayonnaise, and none of the other non-fat or low sugar foods that I rely on to maintain my physique. Nowadays, it is incredibly easy (comparatively) to eat well over the long term. In my opinion, it is simply a matter of making a decision in terms of whether what you look like is important enough to you to change your eating habits for LIFE. If the answer is no, then in my opinion you should just accept your body and relish the enjoyment you get from food. There is no effective "in-between" position, and fluctuating in weight over and over again by "dieting" will only make you heavier in the long term AND destroy the pleasure you might otherwise derive from food.
