Esther Kane, MSW
Registered Clinical Counsellor
Therapy for Women & Families
Serving Courtenay and the Comox Valley, BC
250.338.1800
esther@estherkane.com

Women's Community Counsellor
Volume 1, Issue 2 - Summer 2005

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In this issue:

What Really Happens When We Diet?

How we diet What really happens
Skipping meals or decreasing calories
  • Lowers metabolism so we store fat more easily from fewer calories
  • The brain’s and muscle’s demand for fuel causes rebound “munchies”, usually for high fat and high sugar items
  • Poor attention span, irritability, fatigue
  • Muscle tissue may be lost
Cut out starchy foods (i.e., Atkins Diet)
  • Your body loses its best source of stable energy, and you’ll be more likely to feel moody and tired
  • You’ll end up eating higher fat and sugary foods to satisfy munchies
Go on preplanned meal replacement diet or liquid diet
  • You have a 95% chance of regaining any weight you lose in 1-2 years
  • You give away control to the plan, which lowers your self-esteem
  • You often lose muscle mass along with fat which lowers your metabolism, making it easier to store fat on fewer calories
  • Habits are replaced temporarily, not changed permanently
  • It’s expensive!
Fasting
  • Most of weight lost is water
  • Muscle mass decreases which lowers metabolism- leads to weight gain
  • Can be medically dangerous for some
   
Why we diet What really happens
To be slim
  • Slimness is temporary. Over the long run, 95% of dieters regain the weight. Many women get fatter, so they diet again, with similar poor results. This is called diet cycling and can lead to obesity
To be healthier
  • Diet cycling increases health risks more than being overweight
  • There is no evidence that being fat is unhealthy. There is evidence to show that being too thin is unhealthy
  • Most dieting decreases our muscle mass. Muscles are needed for good health.
  • Many diets are unhealthy. Your body and mind don’t run well when you restrict calories. Dieting makes you cranky and obsessed with food. This feels like a failure, but is just a physiological response and has nothing at all to do with willpower
To be more attractive
  • What attracts you to someone else? Do you want your friends to like you for your body or who you are? What are long-term relationships based upon? If you are dieting, are you any fun to be around?

Adapted from “Together We Care” prepared by the Boundary Health Unit Nutritionists in Delta, B.C.

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Top 10 Reasons to Give Up Dieting

  1. Diets don’t work. Even if you lose weight, you will probably gain it all back, and you might gain back more than you lost.
  2. Diets are expensive. If you didn’t buy special diet products, you could save enough to get new clothes, which would improve your outlook right now.
  3. Diets are boring. People on diets talk and think about food and practically nothing else. There’s a lot more to life than food.
  4. Diets don’t necessarily improve your health. Like the weight loss, health improvement is temporary. Dieting can actually cause health problems.
  5. Diets don’t make you beautiful. Very few people will ever look like models. Glamour is a look, not a size. You don’t have to be thin to be attractive.
  6. Diets are not sexy. If you want to be more attractive, take care of your body and your appearance. Feeling healthy makes you look your best.
  7. Diets can turn into life-threatening eating disorders. The obsession to be thin can lead to anorexia, bulimia, bingeing, and compulsive exercising.
  8. Diets can make you afraid of food. Food nourishes and comforts us, and gives us pleasure. Dieting can make food seem like your enemy, and can deprive you of all the positives about food.
  9. Diets can rob you of energy. If you want to lead a full and active life, you need good nutrition, and enough food to meet your body’s needs.
  10. Learning to love and accept yourself just as you are will give you self-confidence, better health, and a sense of well-being that will last a lifetime.

Adapted from the 1994 Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, Inc.

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Esther’s “Top Ten” Favourite Books on This Topic:

  1. “When Girls Feel Fat” by Sandra Friedman
  2. “Body Thieves” by Sandra Friedman
  3. “The Beauty Myth” by Naomi Wolf
  4. “Fat is a Feminist Issue” (1 and 2) by Susie Orbach
  5. “The Hungry Self” by Kim Chernin
  6. “Fat and Furious: Women and Food Obsession” by Judi Hollis
  7. “In Her Image: The Unhealed Daughter’s Search for Her Mother” by Kathie Carlson
  8. “When Food is Love” by Geneen Roth
  9. “Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating” by Geneen Roth
  10. “Why Weight? A Guide to Ending Compulsive Eating” by Geneen Roth

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Esther Kane, MSW, RCC relocated to the Comox Valley over two years ago from Vancouver. She is in full-time private practise as a psychotherapist in Courtenay. Esther has over a decade of experience counselling women and their loved ones with a multitude of presenting problems. Her main focus is helping women to become free of barriers which keep them stuck so that they can become all that they dream of being. To book a session or to set up a free 15-minute phone consultation, call Esther at 250.338.1800. Or e-mail her at: esther@estherkane.com. You can check out her detailed website at: www.estherkane.com.

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