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You Didn't Fail Your Diet; It Failed You

Discover why diets don’t work and how diet culture sets us up to fail. Learn the science behind weight cycling, metabolism, and intuitive eating — and how to find lasting food freedom, from a Registered Dietitian.


Have you ever blamed yourself for “failing” a diet — for "giving in" to cravings, breaking the "rules", or regaining the weight you fought so hard to lose? If so, you’re not alone, and it’s not your fault. In this blog, we will dive into exactly why that is.


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Let's Start Here: You Are Worthy, Right Now

Here’s a fundamental truth: No matter your body size, history, culture, gender identity, skin colour, or mental health journey — you are worthy, without any conditions or changes.

For decades, diet culture has profited from convincing us that our worth lies in our weight. It tries to convince us we’ll be happy or “enough” when we finally lose the weight, fit into the smaller size, or earn the compliment. But that's a lie, designed to keep us chasing the worthiness we already have.


The worthiness we all seek isn't waiting in a smaller body, the hunger pangs of deprivation, or the “inspiration jeans” hanging in the closet. It is innate, and lives in self-compassion, connection, and care for the bodies we're already in, as they are.


My Story: When Diet Culture Had Me Hooked

Like many of my clients, I know the throes of diet culture firsthand. I was one of many who fell victim to it, because reality is, for those of us brought up in Western culture, we've all been steeped in it from day one. Nobody is immune — but we can choose to rise above it.


Over a decade ago, I was doing everything I could to “succeed” at dieting: squeezing into smaller sizes, skipping meals to find the version of me that finally felt worthy, and feeling proud of my “willpower” for only eating “clean” foods — until the inevitable binge came. I was severely stuck, for many years, developing an eating disorder that took years for me to reckon with and recover from.


I can promise you this: nothing positive came from shrinking myself. We cannot cultivate happiness from something designed to profit from self-hate.

The Truth About Diet Culture

Diet culture is a multi-billion-dollar industry. It thrives on convincing people that they are not enough, and profits from their cyclical attempts to rectify that. Which is exactly why you didn't fail your diet — it was never designed to "work" (at least not in your favour).


Please know this: The least interesting and important thing about you is your weight. But, diet culture doesn’t want you to believe that — because if you did, they’d stop profiting. The industry is designed to keep you believing that you’re not good, thin, or disciplined enough. And that the solution for that is right around the corner... in the next diet, trend, or beautification process.

It’s time to opt out. Let's get into the nitty-gritty of why that really is.


The Science Behind Why Diets Don’t Work

As registered health professionals, we’re obligated to follow the evidence — and the evidence is clear: diets don’t work long-term.


Research consistently shows that intentional weight loss through dieting not only fails to produce lasting results, but can also cause physical and psychological harm. Let’s look at just three of the many scientific reasons diets don’t work:


1. Dieting Increases the Risk of Weight Cycling (and Weight Gain)

Research(1-3) has repeatedly found that dieting is not only heavily predictive of future weight gain, but that the majority of dieters gain back more weight than they initially lost. And this is not only true among an "obese" population, but among those dieters who were "non-obese" or considered a "normal weight" initially(2,3).

Suffice it to say, science supports the notion that dieting doesn’t just fail long-term — but that it hastens weight regain, typically above and beyond where the dieter started in the first place.

This repeated pattern of weight loss and regain is known as weight cycling, or “yo-yo dieting", and not only is it discouraging to the dieter, but it is correlated with the exact negative health markers we typically associate with being in a larger body — heart disease, inflammation, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes(4).


2. Dieting Slows Down Your Metabolism (5,6)

When you restrict food, your body interprets it as a threat — not a choice. Biologically and psychologically, dieting feels a lot like starvation. This is especially true when we consume below what our body and brain need for maintenance, or under-eat from essential food groups, which are the skeletons of most diets.


Your reptilian brain goes, "If I had access to all the food I needed, why wouldn't I be eating it? I must be in famine". So, to protect you, your metabolism slows down, conserving energy and storing nutrients more efficiently. This is your body’s built-in survival system, honed over thousands of years of famine and scarcity.


So, when the diet ends and "normal" eating resumes, your metabolism is still in “survival mode", and it takes time for it to return to normal. Unfortunately, though, most people end up on another diet before this happens... which further lends to an impaired metabolism. That’s why the weight often comes back — and then some.


3. Dieting Teaches the Body to Store More Fat

Research(7) has helped us understand that one of the ways our bodies adapt to deprivation is by increasing the enzymes needed to make and store fat — another survival mechanism meant to protect us during famine. It also shows us that after periods of weight loss, our fat cells become more efficient at taking up and storing nutrients, creating a biological environment that favours weight gain(8).


Fat is the body’s most energy-dense nutrient, so your body holds onto it when it senses scarcity. Ironically, this means that the more we diet, the more our bodies learn to retain fat in the future.


Ever heard of "survival of the fittest?". Well, it used to be "survival of the fattest", and it's how we made it through periods of famine in our evolutionary past, when food was less abundant and accessible.


Your Body Is Not the Problem — Diet Culture Is

It can be frustrating to recognize how damaging (and off-base) diet rhetoric is.


It can be equally frustrating to realize how hardwired our bodies are to resist dieting, when all we want is to "shed a few pounds", but we keep gaining... But it’s also incredible, because your body is protecting you.


So, take a deep breath and say it with me:

Diets. Do. Not. Work.

And it is not my fault.


So, if not dieting, then what?

Instead of continuing down the exhausting and ever-disappointing road of restriction and guilt, it’s time to try something different: a journey rooted in intuitive eating, self-compassion, and self-acceptance.


This does not mean we abandon the needs of our bodies or stop caring for them; it means the opposite. If we can begin from a place of self-love and acceptance, caring for ourselves in more empowered and sustainable ways actually becomes a lot more accessible to us. We can cheerlead ourselves versus bully ourselves, make informed decisions that leave us with our autonomy (rather than doubt, guilt, or shame), and work towards health goals that are actually a lot more motivating than weight loss... like quality of life, longevity, stamina, emotional wellbeing, etc.


This approach might feel radical compared to what we’ve been taught — but it’s actually a return to something deeply human. Our bodies already know how to communicate their needs; we’ve just been conditioned to stop listening. The non-diet, anti-diet culture philosophy helps us rebuild that trust, one meal, one moment, one act of self-kindness at a time.


And the best part? The science backs it. As health professionals, we’re guided by evidence — and the evidence is clear: diets don’t work. They disconnect us from ourselves, damage our relationship with food, and keep us chasing a version of worthiness that was never conditional in the first place. It’s time for our culture to catch up with what our bodies have known all along: nourishment comes from connection, not control.


Where to go from here

If you’re ready to step away from diet culture but aren’t sure where to begin, know that you’re not alone — and you don’t have to figure it out on your own. There are lots of great resources out there, like the book "Intuitive Eating", by some of the pioneers of the movement — Evylen Tribole and Elyse Resch.


Working with a Registered Dietitian who practices through a non-diet, trauma-informed, and intuitive lens can also be a transformative place to start, since it is tailored to your unique relationship with food and what informs it. Working with a Dietitian also offers the opportunity for nutrition education and meal planning that meets you where you're at, and is actually informed by realistic goals and real science, versus the plethora of unachievable meal plans and misinformation that exists out there.


At The Nourished Collaborative, we support you in learning to listen to your body, rebuild trust with food, and create a sense of safety and peace within yourself — no guilt, no shame, no rules. We do this through one-on-one nutrition counselling, as well as group programs!


✨ Book a free, no-obligation connect call to explore what working together could look like. You can reach me at amber@thenourishedco.com or visit www.thenourishedco.com to learn more and get started!


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References

(1)Mann, T., Tomiyama, A. J., Westling, E., Lew, A. M., Samuels, B. & Chatman, J. (2007) Medicare's search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer. American Psychology, 62(3), 220-33. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.62.3.220.


(2)Lowe, M. R., Doshi, S. D., Katterman, S. N., & Feig, E. H. (2013). Dieting and restrained eating as prospective predictors of weight gain. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 577. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00577


(3)Dulloo, A. G., Montani, J. P., Schutz, Y., & Horne, M. (2023). Is dieting a risk for higher weight gain in normal-weight individuals? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obesity Reviews, 24(3), e13526. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13526


(4)Bacon, L. & Aphramor, L. (2011). Weight science: evaluating the evidence for a paradigm shift. Nutrition Journal, 10(9). Received from: https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9


(5)Johannsen, D. L., Knuth, N. D., Huizenga, R., Walters, M. R., & Hall, K. D. (2012). Metabolic slowing with massive weight loss despite preservation of fat-free mass. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 97(7), 2489–2496. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2011-2910


(6)Camps, S. G. J. A., Verhoef, S. P., Westerterp-Plantenga, M. S., & Westerterp, K. R. (2013). Weight loss, weight maintenance, and adaptive thermogenesis. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 97(5), 990–994. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.112.051607


(7)Tribole, E. & Resch, E. (2020). Intuitive Eating, 4th edition. St. Martins Publishing Group


(8)MacLean, P. S., Bergouignan, A., Cornier, M.-A., & Jackman, M. R. (2015). The role for adipose tissue in weight regain after weight loss. Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 11(12), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2015.170






 
 
 

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