So if you’ve been here before, you know that I’ve been struggling to articulate why I’m not more anti-weight loss (for example, see why I weigh myself). Curiously, even if I’m not anti-weight loss, I am against dieting as a weight-loss tactic.

Seems like an unlikely position? Well, read on!

Today, I came across a pointer to a case against weight-loss dieting over at Alas, a blog. The pointer was courtesy of Jimmy Moore, who, as a low-carb diet evangelist, had a lot of issues with the Alas post.

I have different issues with the case than does Jimmy, as I’ll discuss below. But I encourage you to read the original post to get the whole argument.

So what is this case against weight-loss dieting? There are three primary points Ampersand makes.

For The Vast Majority Of Fat People, Weight Loss Dieting Doesn’t Work

Ah, where to begin here? Ampersand notes that there isn’t a “single peer-reviewed controlled clinical study of any weight-loss diet that shows success in losing a significant amount of weight over the long term.” Having been on a dozen or more weight-loss diets, I have no real issue with this statement.

Jimmy Moore’s issue with this is that part of the problem is matching the person with the right diet. But while I think that’s somewhat valid, I think the real issue is that to be successful over the longer term is to change your diet over the long term. So “livin’ la vida low-carb” may work for Jimmy not because it’s a weight-loss diet, but because it is a long-term way of eating that helps him manage the overeating that got him to 400 lbs.

For my part, I’ve given up “dieting.” But I’ve also considerably changed the way I eat. I’ve really minimized sugar and refined, processed foods, and that change has helped me control my overeating.

As an aside, there is a story at the end of The Hungry Years about Shelley Bovey, a woman who had been active in the fat acceptance movement in the UK (her first book was The Forbidden Body: Why Fat is Not a Sin). Since that time, Shelley has actually lost 100 lbs or so not by dieting, but by cutting back just a little bit. She’s described her story in What Have You Got to Lose?

Anyways, my feeling is that the cliche is probably true: diets just don’t work. More problematically, I think that dieting is actually a really good way to take moderate (and potentially pretty healthy) overweight and turn it into morbid obesity.

Losing Weight Makes It More Likely You’ll Die Sooner

For me, this one is a lot more blurry than the former. There are so many variables here, it’s hard to tell what the real story is (and if you read the citations Ampersand lists, it’s pretty confusing. Some show some benefits from weight loss, some show that it matters whether you’re a man or a woman, etc.).

Here’s what I think. First of all, I’ve been losing weight for nearly 40 years, so for me, the damage is already done. When they’ve done the study that says that staying really, really fat after decades of yo-yo dieting is healthier for you, then maybe I’ll reconsider adding Big Macs back to my diet.

Instead, what I believe is that it isn’t so much the losing weight that is the problem as much as the method of losing weight. I’ll bet that gradual weight loss as a result of healthier eating is not a problem compared to drastic weight loss as a result of starvation diets, pills, and so on.

Also, like Jimmy, I tend to think that the health issues are more blurry for people like us who are hundreds of pounds overweight. For us, it may well not have been the weight that was the problem as much as the poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. If fixing these results in weight loss, then it’s hard to see how this kind of weight loss is detrimental compared to the health issues we were facing.

The Idea Of “Normalizing” Eating Habits Is A Myth

Here’s what Ampersand has to say about this:

The case for weight loss dieting typically assumes that fat people are fat because they eat more and exercise less than thin people; that thin people, if they ate as much as fat people, would also be fat; and that if fat people only “normalized” their eating habits, they would be thin.

Under this model, fat people eat like fat people, and so need to “modify their lifestyle” to eat “normally,” after which they’ll lose weight.

But evidence indicates that all these assumptions may be false.

Hmmm…you know what they say, all generalizations are false.

I think there’s a lot to this, and some of it has to do with the damage we do to ourselves through dieting. More drastic diets can result in lowered metabolisms, reduced muscle mass, and disordered eating. For lots of fat people, they may well be eating less than their thin friends.

But there are people like me. Folks like Ampersand may want to just put me in the “diseased” (at least psychologically) group, but I was eating a lot.

So, I think people need to look at their eating and figure out whether they are in this class of folks who are already eating too little. If so, then dieting will surely hurt, not help.

But folks like me who are eating in a disordered way may well wind up losing weight by “normalizing” their eating patterns. Now of course, this doesn’t imply dieting. It implies stopping binge eating, etc. For me, the way I’m eating now has resulted in my being able to minimize my overeating, which has resulted in a lot of weight loss. So my diet (read: what I eat) has helped me, where dieting had failed me.

Like Jonny Bowden says, “No one plan works for everyone!” I would strongly encourage people to avoid dieting at all costs. Yes, it may appear to take longer, or it may even involve learning to appreciate your body at a higher weight than you’d like. But in general, the more drastic the diet, the less likely you will be to benefit.