62/100 - the right diet...?

So, I watched the BBC horizon special, "find the right diet for you", or something along those lines. 3 hours of televisual scientific study into how people should lose weight. And... well... I have opinions.

First and foremost, if you're gojng to continually refer to this programme as being "all about identifying the right diet for the individual, avoiding the fad diets", you maybe shouldn't have split the population of the western world into 3 groups, that's not terribly individual!! Also, your conclusion was that one of those three groups, i.e. a third of the population, should following intermittent fasting, the so-called 5-2 fad that was big last year or so. And another third were told they should eat to low carb/high protein/low GI. I'm sorry, but that's a fad too. To my mind, anything that cuts out whole groups of food ("No potatoes at all!" the scientist gleefully ordered) is a fad. It's not a lifestyle that dieters can maintain. Teach them moderation, teach them how to combine protein and carbs efficiently, teach them how to lose weight in such a way that once they reach their target they won't start eating "normally" again and pile it all back on! Sigh. Anyway, my main bugbear with the programme was the categorisations.

"Feasters", they were told, are people who - through no fault of their own, they were told - failed to stop eating when they were full. It's all to do with their gut hormones, which fail to pass on the right messages to the brain. There was relief on the faces of some of the participants. At last!!! They're not fat because they have make poor choices air have no self-restraint, they're fat because of some specific medical issue!! Phew! Up steps the second group. "Emotional eaters", they were told, are ruled by their emotions and habits. (some of them seemed surprised to find that out) And the third group, the "Constant Cravers" were told they're always feeling hungry because they have the obesity gene. One woman was positivively beaming to camera "I've always told everyone this is genetic, but they'd never listen!" - omg. You've just given another third of the study the right to not take any personal responsibility for their choices and actions. They're genetically programmed wrong, so they might as well eat that cake, because their grandparents were fat too.

You might gather from my tone I am not terribly impressed. Each of the people in the groups were given their "personalised" diets (that a third of the study were also "personally" following) and then did some more tests and studies directly related to their particular issues. I won't lie, there were some useful tips and observations here, but vastly oversimplified. I'm SO not a fan of the one-size-fits-all approach (or three sizes fits all).

My personal issue is emotional eating, which in me is linked to low self-esteem. Their solution for the emotional eaters was to join a slimming group, because misery loves company having support networks in place will greatly help them under times of stress. Follow a low-calorie diet, they're told, and go to cognitive therapy counselling. So, now, what if you have issues on top of the emotional eating: social anxieties and low self-esteem, how do you find those support networks? You can't necessarily join a slimming club. I did, and it worked well for me for a while, but then... well, I'll just say here "but then it no longer did", and we'll leave it at that. I know why, and it's down to some of my other personality traits. Cognitive therapy didn't work for me, either - again, I know why, and I learned a hell of a lot from it, but it wasn't the magical cure, and I finished it still eating when tired/stressed/unhappy/happy/emotional/lonely/etc... Here's my point. Knowing you're an emotional eater isn't the cure, you still have to take responsibility for your decisions, you still need to work fucking hard at it, and you are the one who has to "fix" it - by finding out why, and addressing it. Therapy/counselling will help, but not everyone. Definitely not everyone. Low calorie diets aren't necessarily the right way to go, either, because if you are rigidly counting calories, and you get stressed and go for food, "breaking the diet" (as they showed in he third episode) will make you feel like you might as well carry on eating the bad stuff, because everything is ruined. Also, not everyone can deal with counting calories strictly, and get disheartened/stressed by it. Finally, the right sort of support network is crucial. Absolutely essential. If you join a slimming group, and it's not the right fit for you, for whatever reason, you have to find a different one. You must enrol support of your nearest and dearest too. If you feel that your close friends/family are not going to be supporting you, to the level you need (which can be a lot, if you're liable to eat when you're lonely or tired or stressed or... whatever!) then you need to find more/others who share the same ideals and passion as you. Get a "mentor", someone who's been successful in weightloss, or maybe someone who professionally deals with health and fitness, or maybe just a supportive friend who inspires you with their attitudes to health and fitness - get someone you can talk to, openly, about your journey. You're going to need them. Above all, I believe, you simply cannot stop being an emotional eater if you feel you are battling it alone.

I think the mechanisms the programme suggested for the people who overeat when they're full, and who constantly want food, were equally as vague. By pinning the blame on our physiology or genetics, though, they're taking away the vital part of ANY weightloss journey: personal responsibility. You got yourself into the situation, not your body or your genes - yes, your gut hormone might be sending the wrong messages out, but it's YOU who decides to put the fork down. Yes, your genetics might mean you're hungry more often than not, but it's YOU who decides to act on that feeling. Choices. Decisions. You're only to break these habits and decision-making processes if you take. some. bloody. responsibility.

You know, I think I could talk about this for days, if not more. I'm always up for a conversation on the subject - make me a cuppa, and we'll chat. Many of the tips, tricks, and suggestions they raised in the shown make absolute sense. But it's a flawed premise, that the individual is exactly the same as many of the other individuals - and for a show that kept referring to the "science", they never explained how they selected their study group. I greatly disagree with their claims this is designing "individual, personalised" diets based on brains, guts, and genes. Ultimately, I do believe that you have to find your way in this world of weightloss and general life nutrition, and I recommend you read as much as you can, and learn about why you make the decisions you do. Learn the best way for you, get a support network in place who you trust and who believe in you, and then just get your head down and do it. And move more - it's not all about the food, believe me.

Believe in yourself, and you can achieve anything. Hell, I'm finally learning that last lesson I've been trying to crack for years - and although I have well over 4 stone to lose, I think I've finally got the right set of tools to do it. x x

PS. I really recommend reading "Diet Cults" by Matt Fitzgerald, it gives you a brilliant overview of the main diets out there, why they work for some but not for the masses, and how generally to eat to lose weight. Of course, it doesn't really touch on the mental side of weightloss, but we can't have everything... x