Why do we crash diet and how to avoid it? The hunger strike is off

The expert of “Championship” wellness coach Andrei Semeshov – on how to cope with breakdowns on a diet.

It is easy to accumulate, but much harder to get rid of it

To lose weight, we need to spend more calories than we get from food. It’s simple. Everyone knows it. But if you look at the sad statistics on the growth of obesity (and even just at people on the street), it becomes obvious that with the realization in practice there are difficulties. Alas, our bodies are designed in such a way that they can easily and effortlessly build up fat mass at the “unlimited” rate, but when it comes to getting rid of these reserves, problems begin. Our body and our brain do not like to lose weight. And accordingly, they hinder this process in every possible way.

Yes, at first everything goes quite smoothly. Let’s say, you determine your daily limit of 1700 calories and confidently stick to this plan for a day, two, three, sometimes five or six. But then… And then you have a breakdown. If you are not a competitive athlete of the category “fitness” and in addition in weight loss is not very experienced, the question is not “what to do IF it happened?”, but “what to do WHEN it happened?”.

Why do I feel so hungry?

For starters – literally a few examples of what these breakdowns can be triggered by. Let’s say you lack motivation. This is common, when a person is generally satisfied with his appearance, but his other half has grated on him: “We need to urgently lose weight, let’s go on a diet”. Such weight loss for company will end very quickly, barely started.

Often an unauthorized trip to the food court of the nearest shopping center is provoked by the lack of visible results. You have been eating right for a whole week, trying not to miss meetings with a personal trainer in a fitness club, but the scales do not show the necessary dynamics. The thoughts creep into your head: “Since I am not losing weight, it means that it is not given to me. So why should I torture myself?”.

When faced with such stories, I like to quote Mike Tyson: “When I’m having a hard time, I always remind myself that if I give up, it won’t get any better. It’s the same with us. Think back to why and why you started this whole thing. Is that goal still important and meaningful to you? And if so, you simply have no choice – you have to go all the way to the outcome. Yes, sometimes weight or waistline or even both can go unchanged for a week or even two. And that doesn’t mean that something is going wrong. Everything is normal, it’s just that the body is also resisting. including metabolic adaptation. But if you act according to a clear and competent scheme, you have a 100% chance of winning. Fat deposits can win localized battles (do not shrink for a week), but they will not be able to win this war with you. Things are bound to work out.

If you go out to eat, you can eat anything. It’s rude to refuse

Another frequent variant of a breakdown from the diet – getting into provocative conditions. Going to a restaurant or visiting. Here we need to recognize that this is not an apology and an excuse. In such situations we get in 99% of cases planned, agree. And since this is the case, our task is simply to prepare for this event. For example, come to visit not hungry, so that you can indifferently look at all the treats and limit yourself to the minimum set on the plate, devoting the main time to the main thing – communication. In the restaurant, of course, to go with an overflowing belly sense is not very much, but you can also have a little snack. And it is extremely important to determine your menu in advance. Either look at the site of the institution, what dishes are offered, or just set that it will be, say, steamed fish and salad. Here the main thing is not to be in a situation where you need to make an urgent choice, when you have a waiter standing over your shoulder and waiting. In such a case, the risk that you will order something you don’t need is very high. Or you will make an order, focusing on the choice of other participants of the feast.

Do not punish yourself or, for example, try to “work off” extra calories in the gym.

A bun with cream or an appointment with a psychologist?

In general, there may be many reasons to break the diet. And often it is not because you starve yourself so much. In the vast majority of cases, it’s about emotional reactions. Stress, joy – we are formed from childhood templates that it is solved by food. “I did my homework, here’s some candy” is the easiest example. We need to slowly change our relationship to food. Food is our fuel. Sure, food is a source of pleasure. But food is not a solution to emotional problems. It’s just food. Delicious and healthy. But let’s move from philosophy to practice and understand the mechanism of breakdowns and what we should do to stay on track.

The mechanism of a breakdown is always about the same. In the evening there was a jam at work, then a birthday party, I didn’t go to the gym – there was no time, at home at the TV set I ate too many pies with cabbage above the calorie limit.

In the morning I went to the scales (although it should be done once a week and not more often) – and there was nothing encouraging. And my hand reaches for the refrigerator handle. So far, the thought is: “Well, since yesterday everything came out like that, I’ll organize a small holiday of disobedience today, and tomorrow – I’ll pull myself together. And therein lies the trap.

Case Western University has developed an excellent scale of disruptions, which clearly illustrates the mechanism.

• The first day is when there’s a jam at work, a coworker’s birthday party, and cabbage pies at night. This lapse – according to the Case University scale – translates into Russian as a gaffe, an oversight. Very consonant with our Russian word “lap”.
• Then our second day – when we think “since I snapped yesterday, today I will treat myself for a day”. This is already relapse. That’s relapse.

Look even phonetically and semantically how accurately it turns out. A slip is just an annoying little thing. But relapse is serious, it’s scary. And what happens after the relapse? Often events develop according to the following scheme. Tomorrow comes, we should go walking or, say, to training, or to count how many calories we have for breakfast – but again we are not in the mood. “Well, let it be another day” is relapse again. And then there are two, three such “relapses”, and there comes what scientists have called collapse – that is, everything, collapse. Very quickly you find yourself at the point “zero” from where you started this whole story of transformation. Only now you already have the feeling of a helpless loser, fear of starting again, because you have negative experience. Or become disbelieving in the scheme, start looking for magic pills and miracle diets.

Do not turn weakness into a habit

Therefore, the first and most important rule – under no conditions and circumstances do not allow yourself to turn a lapse into a relapse! Remember that a lapse is a lapse and is, a minor annoyance. And even purely mathematically. Let’s say you have eaten 1500 extra calories, even if you imagine that in some unknown physiology way each of these extra calories will go into fat, it will be less than 170 grams. And in reality this will not happen, of course. We’re talking about just a few grams of fat at most. But provided that it is a real one-time gaffe on a long and successful distance.

And in the morning the next day or, for example, if the breakdown happened in the afternoon, the same evening – immediately return to the usual routine! Do not punish yourself or, for example, try to “work off” the extra calories in the gym. No! All this will not bring results, but only reinforce the negative perception and dissatisfaction with yourself. You just need to literally calmly get out of the situation, exhale, forgive yourself, reach the norm of steps, and return to your normal caloric intake. No starving yourself or trying to subtract extra calories from the next few days.
Been there. Passed. Forgotten. Move on.

Just analyze what caused this “blunder” and develop an algorithm for how you will act in the future, if such a scenario repeats.

Another scenario is possible, though. Monday – lapse, Tuesday-Wednesday – mode, Thursday again lapse, then on the weekend another one. But the next day, back on track. This is also a very wrong strategy. There can’t be too many lapses. We are so organized that we learn from our mistakes and draw conclusions. If the number of mistakes tends to equal the number of days in a week, then it becomes obvious that the person is not really serious about the result. He is just playing “fashionable HWL”. Or an incorrect or inappropriate scheme is chosen from the beginning. Including the calculation of daily allowance. And then you just need to think about which approach would work better.