*********Pat King is Challenged Yet Again! Read The Article, Watch the video**************
I’ve been land blasted many times for saying this. When I say that diets don’t work, I am usually referring to weight loss diets and that they “don’t work” for a long term solution for people struggling with shedding some pounds!
In my experience most weight loss diets don’t work and are really hard for people to stick to. Is that to say that they don’t work ever…..of course not! There is plenty of evidence showing that diets do work if you stick to them, but who in the H** wants to be on a diet for the rest of their life and what happens when you go off? Do I need to tell you?
Surely you have read some of my other posts and maybe have even read my book or other articles of mine where I suggest making lifestyle changes for a weight loss that works. Gradual lifestyle changes are easier in the beginning and will yield lasting results in the end. Surely someone will challenge me on this! 
On to my point here……I absolutely love when new studies are done that support my findings!
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, examining 31 weight-loss studies found that long-term dieting doesn’t keep the pounds off. While people can lose weight initially, many relapse and regain the weight they shed. The findings confirm what many scientists have been saying all along: Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off is another story.
“If dieting worked, there would be a bunch of skinny people walking around,” said obesity researcher Dr. David Katz, head of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center. Since the 1970s, the ranks of overweight and obese Americans have risen with two-thirds of adults in that category. Obesity raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.
So there it is, the facts that support what I been saying!
A suggestion if I may…….take all the money that you are throwing away on different fad diets, weight loss pills and god only knows what other gimmicks that you may see on a late night infomercial and put it towards a good health coach. Wether it’s me or someone else, health coaching has proven to be most rewarding over diets as recent Yale articles have shown.
It’s much easier to make lifestyle changes and learn a new way to live gradually than to jump in to a diet full force that is only torturing you and giving you some short term results at best!
That’s just my take!
Well as long as people will do the exact same things they did before losing those extra pounds, they will simply get that weight right back. Lifestyle changes could be the key.
You are right that people need to make life-style changes. But you are wrong to suggest people shouldn’t try to get healthy.
Drug addiction rehabilitation has a very low success rate. That does not mean addicts should not attempt to get clean. It does mean that they will struggle and probably enter treatment centers many times over before they can kick the habit.
Weight loss is a profitable industry. Unfortunately, you are right that most people want an easy way to lose weight and keep it off; meaning that most people are not prepared to make life-style changes to be healthy. They want the crash-diets, and they want to shed the weight without really having to do anything. Look at all the fat-burning pills on the market and you can see my point.
To suggest that all diets don’t work because most diets are flawed is not fair. WeightWatchers is generally recognized by doctors as one the best. It encourages it members to make life-style changes and has a program for maintaining weight-loss once you reach your goal.
The reality is, most people fail to keep weight off because they don’t understand what is necessary. People want an easy solution, and they will do ANYTHING to avoid regular exercise with healthy eating.
Surely he has trouble reading.
BTW, I agree with you that “most” diets don’t work for people.
I have to agree, I’m not sure where “David” is getting this, nowhere did you say people shouldn’t try to get healthy, isn’t that what your career is based on? Helping people get healthy? David, please read the article again and see what Pat is all about and then comment.
I come to your blog yes because you always return an EC drop on mine, but I do actually read your blog, I don’t just drop and run, and I read it because I like what you have to say.
As an overweight person(according to my BMI I’m even considered “obese” though I definitely don’t look obese) I agree with you 100% that diets don’t work. I’ve tried many of them, and with some yes I did lose 10 or 20 lbs, but diets are set out with unrealistic ways of long term eating and the weight will come back, in my experience not only does the weight lost come back, but some extra pounds always come with it.. The average person just does not have the willpower to never eat another carb again for example(or whatever deprivation your diet consists of). So yes you can lose weight with a diet, but sticking to that diet forever and keeping that weight off? Forget it!
I do believe though that if you use a diet to lose weight and then immediately go to just plain and simple healthy eating and exercise you will keep that weight off. But most of us don’t do that, we deprive ourselves of so much in the duration of our diet that we hit a point where just want everything again, whereas if we just went with the rule of healthy eating and “everything in moderation” to begin with we probably wouldn’t feel that strong urge to pig out on everything because we haven’t had it in months.
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Too many look at “diet” as a short-term thing. Whatever I happen to be eating constitutes my diet. My diet once consisted of more calories than my body required and I gained (a lot of) weight. A conscious decision to recognize that excess calories are stored as fat and then decrease consumption and/or increase activity to achieve a sustainable healthy weight may seem like a lifestyle change to some. For me, it’s just life. Adapt and overcome.
Actually, I don’t have trouble reading. But your use of the term “diet” is misleading. Diet could mean everything you eat, or it could mean restricting calories to lose weight. When you post that “diets don’t work” and that specifically “weight loss diets don’t work,” you have to consider that 98% of diets out there have no scientific basis, are unsustainable, and overly restrictive.
There are “diets” out their that actually teach life-style changes that you sustain over the long-term. WeightWatchers is one of those diets. You speak as if all weight-loss diets are bad. But comparing fad diets to legitimate diets is unfair.
When you make broad statements that weight-loss diets don’t work, you suggest that people should accept their weight because if they do diet they will just regain the weight and then some.
We agree that the only real way to lose weight and keep it off is to make life-style changes. But this is EXACTLY what some diets encourage people to do.
But I will admit that principally I agree with you, and that this argument is just semantics.
Ok, I did just see your video response as well. I must have offended you and I don’t mind your feedback. But calling your video, “Challenged by ignorance” is a bit of a dig in itself.
I will concede that you don’t specifically state the remarks you said I said you said. Notice in my first post, however, that I said “suggest.” I was not directly quoting you. I was saying that your statements come with implied assumptions.
All arguments have assumptions. They would not be worthy arguments if they didn’t have something that was just a given. I challenged something that your blog was suggesting, not something you directly said. When I first read your article–I neglected that you qualified your statement with “most.”
That is significant, and to that extent we are in complete agreement: most diets don’t work.
What I will say is that it might be a little uncharitable to title your video response “challenged with ignorance.” I would think that would constitute an ad hominem attack. But you might easily respond that it isn’t a personal attack if it is actually true.
However, that you had to respond at all to defend your views should not be a problem, and obviously, I’m allowed to defend my earlier post. But a certain degree of respect despite a slight disagreement should still be maintained.
Though, I will admit that I think your response is fair, and that in my post I actually might have come to a false conclusion about what it was that was implied by your article.
David Said - “you have to consider that 98% of diets out there have no scientific basis, are unsustainable, and overly restrictive.”
My Response-That’s My Point exactly!
David Said - “There are “diets” out their that actually teach life-style changes that you sustain over the long-term. WeightWatchers is one of those diets.”
My Response- I agree! I weight watchers promotes healthy lifestyle changes, which is what I recommend.
David Said - “you suggest that people should accept their weight”
My Response- I didn’t say that either, again you are hearing what you want, but I do think they should accept it. They should accept it and do something about it.
David Said- “We agree that the only real way to lose weight and keep it off is to make life-style changes.”
My Response- We do agree on that.
Okay the definition of Ignorance according to Dictionary.com is “the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc.”
You appeared to have lack of knowledge and about my actual stance on this matter and therefor challenged my point of view in which you clearly misquoted and came from your perception only.
No offense was intended towards you on a personal level, just your perception of what I wrote.
Also, you can’t really suggest what others are suggesting.
Okay and in the end you get my point and we agree correct?
Again, no offense was intended towards you on a personal note.
Yes, we agree.
I did concede that I made a false assumption about what your article suggested. It is easy to misinterpret someone when you start thinking about what statements do or do not imply.
I’m not offended. I think it’s good to have a civil disagreement with someone. Academically though, I would say though that the term ignorant is pejorative.
pejorative…did you look that up?
Civil disagreements are awesome! Keeping them civil is a bit of challenge most of the time.
NOTE: I said “most”….not ALL the time….LOL!