As I’ve written about in my blog before, I used to weigh 350 pounds, and through the ketogenic diet, I lost over 200 pounds in 18 months. Hooray! But then what happened? As Christy Harrison vigorously points out in her thought-provoking book Anti-Diet, 90% of dieters gain back all of the weight they lost, and then some. I had certainly heard before reading this book that the odds were not great of keeping the weight off, and I’ve been really mindful of that, but even knowing that, I found the statistics truly shocking. Most illuminating, Harrison points out that the tiny percentage that do keep the weight off do so by structuring their entire lives around their diet – “They never don’t think about their weight.” That has certainly been my experience.
I hated being 350 pounds. With due deference to Harrison, whose anti-diet approach I find intriguing, I live in terror of weighing over 300 pounds ever again. At that weight, your quality of life is severely impacted, and I love walks in the woods and traipsing through the neighborhood with the dog far too much to ever be okay with that weight again.
Keto melted pounds off of me, and a huge part of the reason it worked while other diets failed miserably was because it was full of joyful eating. Sure, you have to give up bread and pasta and real sugar, but there’s a world of bacon and hollandaise and Swerve sweetened desserts, and there’s a lot to celebrate there. With so much delicious stuff to eat, I didn’t mind at all that there were things I couldn’t eat. Which was great until I got the weight off. At 140, my body stubbornly refused to lose another pound. It took me a while to accept that I was never going to hit a goal of 125, but that was a pretty darn great weight.
But I still have badly disordered eating. After the initial shock of super-low-carb on my body wore off, keto stopped working its magic. AND I was (and still am) having occasional eating binges. When I would binge, the weight wouldn’t melt off like it used to. Keto wasn’t enough. First it was 10 pounds in the second year after my weight loss…then 10 pounds in the third year…then COVID and another 10 pounds… You get the picture. I am unhappily at 180, and looking at being well over 200 pounds in the next couple of years.
Christy Harrison will tell me that my body is ricocheting between deprivation and excess because it’s trying to keep me from starving to death. The severe calorie restrictions during the week are leading to overeating when I do allow myself to eat because my body needs more food than I’m giving it.
I’ve lost a ton of weight, and I’m still dieting. I was obsessed with my weight when I was losing weight on keto, but I was getting great results all the time – it’s easy and fun to be obsessed with an endeavor that’s constantly rewarding. But I’ve been obsessed for the past 3-4 years with watching that number creep up…watching it never drop below a certain floor…watching my weight fail to respond as expected to tweaks in the diet like cutting out this snack, or reducing fake sugar…watching it stubbornly refuse to bend to my will.
I have been obsessed with that number, and with adjusting my diet, to the point that I don’t even get to enjoy being 170 pounds lighter. These results are a miracle! Being in this body is astronomically better than being in my morbidly obese body, but do I take time to enjoy it? Nope, I’m still fighting with it. Living in this body should be a joy, and now it’s frustrating. Honestly, if hardcore keto was still working, I’d still be doing it, and happily. But something’s broken, and it’s just not working any more.
It’s got me thinking a lot about all the ways that dieting strips the joy out of life – what Harrison rather inelegantly calls “The Life Thief.” Here are three ways dieting increases suffering – it certainly did for me, and probably does for you too:
- Social eating causes suffering: Social eating becomes an exercise in restraint and misery, instead of a joyful experience. Your boss gives you candy that you can’t even pretend to want. Parties are a gauntlet of temptations, compromises, and guilt. On the rare occasions you agree to go out to dinner, everyone debates for 20 minutes about what restaurants can best accommodate your dietary restrictions. It’s all humiliating and a huge joy-suck.
- The terrible food causes suffering: Like I said, keto was special because of all the great stuff to eat, but for the most part, the food we eat on diets is just terrible. Delicious food, particular prepared by expert hands in great restaurants and home kitchens, is one of the greatest pleasures life has to offer. Declining a massive source of happiness shouldn’t be taken lightly.
- The endless self-recrimination causes massive suffering: “I shouldn’t have eaten the whole pint.” “Why did I eat the whole bag?” “This has worked a bunch of times before; I must have done something wrong that it didn’t work today.” And when your body doesn’t respond as expected despite your very best efforts, it’s agony. Not “burying your youngest child” agony, but it is hugely frustrating.
I don’t know what the whole trajectory of my weight loss journey with keto will be. Will I be one of the 90% who regain all the weight and then some? Will the “intuitive eating” approach finally change my relationship with food for good? I am eating small amounts of carbs now, eating a life-sustaining amount of food, enjoying social eating more, and eating food that brings me joy, whether it’s low-carb or not. I haven’t binged for two weeks. This is all good news, and feels really good. And this is a statement that’s pretty anti-anti-diet, but lots of days, I’m losing a little weight.
What I can say is that I haven’t celebrated life at X-Large because I’m so tormented that I’m not still a Medium – having totally lost sight of how great it is not to be a 32. My life is short, and I’ve spent most of it weighing several hundred pounds. Today I’m resolving to live life a little differently. I’m not going to be sad about my weight when I could be happy to be alive and spry and in excellent health. My New Year’s diet is to eat more and make sure it includes carbs, meals out, and my mom’s molasses cookies. Micromanaging your food intake is a terrible way to spend your precious time on Earth. With so much unavoidable suffering, I’m resolving to look differently at my relationship with food and joy. Happy New Year.
Losing that amount of weight and keeping it off is a phenomenal achievement. Especially without surgery. In most medical studies, losing 10 % of original and keeping it off for a year is considered a successful response. It seems like you have gotten yourself into the 1 % club in this area life, if not income. Congrats, champ. Glad you get to enjoy the benefits.
Oh thank you! If 10% for one year is “success,” that’s pretty modest. The Anti-Diet approach would look at that and say that’s proof that diets plain don’t work. Keto advocates would look at that measure of success and say that’s why conventional diets don’t work. I’m still figuring out what success means for me. I’m grateful to have had the success I have with keto, and I’m confused about what maintaining that success means for my ability to live a well-rounded life. But I appreciate your encouragement, and I should definitely be appreciating more that I’m under 200 lbs.
I hear you about the struggles. You have come so far, and it’s changed your life so much for the better that it’s hard to imagine going back.
For what it’s worth, the studies I’ve seen about regaining weight are usually about 1-5 years after losing it. A lot (60-90%) of people regain a lot of the lost weight in 1-2 years, but the longer they stayed at a lower weight, the more likely they were to stay there in the long term. So, after 5 years, you are exceptionally successful category and have good reasons to be hopeful about your future weight and health.
I also agree completely about the suffering and loss of joy in some kinds of dieting. Maybe you find more joy and ease with food and weight in the coming year!
Thank you! Ha, Christy Harrison doesn’t talk at all about those studies! I’d be interested in learning more about the studies you cite, because that is very encouraging. I hope I can be one of the people who keep it off!