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Very few people realise that nearly 100% of people who lose weight through a diet program put that weight back on even more quickly than before. Read on to discover why our health departments are now saying that even healthy diets should be avoided.

In the first month of a diet the weight you lose is mostly water and muscle weight. As soon as you go off the diet, those are replaced with more fat! In addition, almost no-one can stick to a diet because it is so out of kilter with the person's familiar eating patterns. The very act of dieting both lowers metabolic processing, and increases food cravings. No wonder that three years after going on a diet, over 95% have put that weight back on or are even heavier!

Nevertheless there is no doubt we have a serious weight problem. In Australia the latest National Nutrition Survey showed that we have 45% of women and 65% of men overweight. Over the last 20 years our obesity rate has doubled to 17% of men and 19% of women. According to the National Health & Medical Research Council paper 'Acting on Australia's Weight' our children are 2-3 times more likely to be obese, as their rates have also doubled since the 1980's.

The costs of overweight are enormous: over $700 million dollars of the public purse, and over $500 million spent attending diet or weight loss clinics. Our hospitals are clogged with people who have diseases which are a consequence of overweight: heart disease, metabolic disorders, diabetes, oedema, osteoarthritis, gallbladder disease, cancers of the endometrium, biliary system disease and respiratory problems. The cost in loss of life is even worse. Every year in Australia we lose many thousands of people to the effects of overweight. We also lose thousands of young women every year dying from dieting diseases such as anorexia and bulimia.

So not only does dieting not work, it's dangerous, and we can no longer afford to tolerate a culture of dieting.

The following are a list of health problems caused by dieting, all of which are thoroughly backed by worldwide consensus research:

1. Diets have been linked with fatal eating disorders, particularly amongst children, and particularly amongst children of mothers who have dieted.

2. Weight loss dieting can cause health problems and can even lead to gall bladder disease and emergency surgery if the decrease is too rapid.

3. Dieting has been linked with lowered libido. Diets can wreck a wonderful sex life and a great relationship!

4. Diets usually cost money, money that could have been spent on lovely new clothes or family treats. If diets worked, this would be a wise investment, but the problem is, the weight loss effects are merely temporary and the damage done by dieting persists!

5. Diets often don't provide correct nutrition, leading to problems with concentration and memory and also decreased well-being, lowered immune system and more illness.

6. Food deprivation causes food cravings that become so intense that sooner or later everyone busts out of their diet! At this point the myth of willpower is shown to be the awful lie that it truly is.

So why diet? It doesn't work. It causes problems. And there's a much better way!

What is this better way? Certainly we now know that healthy weight loss does not involve any special eating regime or exercise regime. Instead the best weight loss programs will ensure that a thorough study is made of how the person behaves and the lifestyle choices they make when they are NOT trying to lose weight. This is the realistic baseline that we're starting from.

Often we find that if the person is fairly active and not overeating too severely, that it is something very small that is nevertheless making a very big difference in weight. It could be that they're eating or drinking something on a regular basis that they had no idea contained so many empty calories. The caf' latt' is a perfect example, as some of these can add up to as much as half one's daily calorie needs! One of these each day could easily add 0.5 kg per week in excess weight. Many people are surprised to learn that it only takes an excess of just 250 calories a day for most people to accumulate an extra 11 kilos of fat every year!

Or it could be that the person has reduced their physical activity level by giving up some sport or activity that they enjoyed and need to give themselves permission, even as adults, to get out there and play and engage with life again. This should not on any account be confused with an exercise regime. This really is about PLAYING and genuine pleasure is the key.

So this is why we should focus on healthy weight loss practices only, and really look at what choices people are making, and why they are making them, before we even begin to construct a plan, not by imposing it on someone, but by working together as a team to build an informed, customised, workable and permanent solution.

Finally, the compulsive and addictive components of weight loss have been so poorly understood that they've been ignored totally, leaving the poor overweight person out of control with cravings. Until now there has not really been a satisfactory answer to cravings, but by using modern deconditioning methods, people can now learn to literally switch off these cravings, quickly and permanently. I hope after reading this article that you would never again consider dieting, and instead look at the real reasons for your weight issues, and real solutions for healthy weight loss! Thank you for reading.