Why Do I Keep Having to Diet? - Skinny Fitalicious®

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If your goal is to lose weight and keep it off, why do you keep trying to get better at dieting? Most women over 35 aren’t actually trying to build a healthier lifestyle. They’re trying to master restriction.

Jumping from one diet to the next, cutting out foods, and aiming for perfection might help you lose weight temporarily, but it doesn’t solve the real problem.

The truth is, your weight isn’t a dieting problem. It’s a lifestyle problem.

Many women get stuck in the same cycle: living their normal routine, gaining weight, hitting an “oh crap” moment, starting a restrictive diet, getting frustrated, quitting, and then going right back to the habits that caused the weight gain.

Over time, this cycle repeats, and the weight slowly creeps up.

If you want lasting results, you have to stop focusing on short-term diets and start changing your everyday life. That means moving more, eating in a way you can sustain, and building habits gradually instead of going all-in and burning out.

If you’re tired of starting over and want to understand how to break this cycle for good, listen to the full Dish On Ditching Diets episode – The Real Reason You Keep Having to Diet.

In this Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episode, You Will Hear:

Why constantly dieting is keeping you stuck instead of helping you lose weight for good
The hidden “oh crap” cycle that leads to repeated weight gain and frustration
How your everyday lifestyle (not a lack of willpower) is the real cause of weight gain
Why restrictive diets fail long term (even if they work short term)
The simple shift from dieting to sustainable habits that actually leads to lasting results
How to start building a healthier, leaner lifestyle without extremes or burnout

Never Miss An Episode! Subscribe to the Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify or Amazon Music

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The Real Reason You Keep Having to Diet Podcast Transcript

Today we’re talking about the real reason you keep having to diet and this is what you should think about. Is your goal to become a better dieter? Is your goal to become an expert at all the different mainstream diets?

Keto, carnivore, Paleo, low carb, bone broth diet, Optavia.

Is your goal to get better at those diets? Is your goal to get better at restricting and cutting out certain foods? Is your goal to get better at only allowing yourself to eat healthy foods and being an all or nothing person?

Or is your goal to improve your health, improve your lifestyle, lose fat, maintain fat loss, get stronger, live a balanced and healthier life?

Because if your goal is to improve your health and lifestyle and lose fat then why would you keep trying to be a better dieter? Like why would you keep trying different diets? Why would you keep trying to get better at cutting out certain foods? Why would you keep trying to get better at only eating healthy foods?

If your goal is not to become a better dieter, you have to ask yourself why am I doing these diets? All your doing is trying to get better at being a dieter. A lot of women are doing this and not aware they’re doing this.

Before losing 80 pounds, I always was searching for a diet and how to lose weight. Until one day I thought it’s weird that I keep having to go on a diet. Then I realized oh, diets don’t really work. I mean they work. You lose weight. But they don’t work because you can’t keep the weight off.

Once I realized that, I finally realized it was how I was living my normal day to day life that was causing me to gain weight over time. It wasn’t that I needed a diet. I didn’t to adjust how I was living my life.

Like me, many women tend to focus on the weight loss problem not realizing the pattern of their lifestyle is the real problem.

You go on some diet and the diet’s restrictive and unsustainable, and you get frustrated and annoyed. And what do you do? You go back to your normal lifestyle that created the weight gain.

Default lifestyle, oh crap, restriction, lose weight fast right now, diet, frustration, stop the diet, back to the default lifestyle, gain weight, oh crap, restriction, lose weight fast right now, stop the diet.

It’s just a cycle that keeps repeating. And your weight literally zigzags its way up and up and up and up even though you’ve lost weight plenty of times. Because restrictive dieting has become a part of your lifestyle.

The way I coach my 1:1 weight loss clients is to literally stop restrictive dieting and help them adjust their lifestyle so that they can be healthier and lose weight.

When I was 215 pounds, I was only focused on losing weight. But losing weight was exactly why I always had to keep dieting and that’s your problem too because for you to become a leaner person who is healthy and fit, you must have the lifestyle, habits, routines, belief systems and mindsets compatible with being a healthy and fit person.

If your lifestyle is not compatible with being overweight, you won’t be overweight. If you are overweight, it is because your lifestyle, habits, routines, belief systems, and mindsets are compatible with being overweight.

Now you must think about this because if you are on a weight loss journey your lifestyle right now is compatible with where your weight is at right now. If want to become leaner, healthy and stronger, that means you need to adapt the lifestyle of a healthier person.

We typically call these diets. The technical definition of a diet is how you eat.

But if I say, hey you’re going on a diet. What does go on a diet mean to you? Many women will say a diet means restriction. I can’t eat my favorite foods. I have to be constantly hungry. I have to eat a bunch of foods I don’t really like. It means eating only healthy foods. This is what I thought a diet meant when I was 215 pounds.

If we look at all the foods you eat, that is your diet. You’re always on a diet. You’re always eating to a diet, right? That’s why I’m going on a diet doesn’t make sense and it’s not helpful at all to say I’m going on a diet.

If you have weight to lose, stop saying I’m going on a diet because all that means is I’m going to starve myself, only allow myself to eat healthy foods and restrict foods I think are wrong, and that’s exactly why your weight won’t budge.

You’re already on a diet. Every day you are eating food. Your diet is just the foods you currently eat.

If weight loss and becoming healthier is the goal, then the adjustment that needs to happen is your lifestyle. You must change your regular life.

If your normal life has resulted in you gaining weight, there are disconnects with that lifestyle. For many women, one issue is their lifestyle is restrictive dieting. We must look at this pattern to understand how going on a diet fits in with your weight gain.

So, you’re living your normal lifestyle. You’re not trying to lose any weight. You’re just living your life. Eating based on whatever your habits are today, your routines are, the way other people around you eat food. You’re not trying to lose weight. Just living your normal life.

So, you’re living your normal life and what happens? You’re gaining weight because that lifestyle is contributing to weight gain. And then you have your oh crap moment. Something triggers you where you go oh, crap. I’ve gained weight.

Sometimes it’s a number on the scale. Sometimes it’s how your clothes fit. Sometimes it’s like OMG summer’s coming and I’ve gained weight.

You go oh crap, I’ve gained weight. I gotta do something about this! I need to lose weight. I gotta go on a diet which to you means I need to massively restrict. I need to be good. I need to solve this problem right now. I’m fat now. I don’t want to be fat now. I need to change this really fast. I need to be unfat right now.

What is the absolute fastest way I can get this weight off my body? So, you go on a restrictive diet, only eat healthy foods and what happens?

It’s too hard. You don’t think it’s restrictive or too hard because you’re eating healthy foods. You think if you’re eating healthy foods this must be the way to lose weight. Your mindset is like the only way to get healthy and strong is I can only eat healthy foods.

I have to save up all my calories so I can eat whatever I want at night. Which kind of insinuates that you want to lose weight and keep overeating or that you don’t how to properly feed your body or both even though you don’t realize it. But I digress…

So, you go on this diet where you only eat healthy foods, but then you get frustrated and annoyed that you can’t just eat healthy foods, or something happens, or you get into a situation where you can’t follow your diet rules.

You’re on keto or some diet or traveling and realizing you can’t enjoy yourself sticking to your diet.

So, what do you do? You stop the diet. And then you go back to your normal lifestyle that caused the weight in the first place. Women tend to miss that this entire oh crap cycle of their normal lifestyle.

Weight gain, oh crap, restriction, solve everything now, diet, frustration, stop diet, back to normal lifestyle, gain weight, oh crap, restriction, solve everything now, diet, frustration, stop diet.

It’s a cycle that keeps repeating and meanwhile your weight zigzags up and up and up and up even though you’ve lost weight on some of those diets. Because restrictive dieting becomes part of your lifestyle.

If you want to become leaner, stronger and healthier (you know – lose weight and stay there forever), you have to stop this restrictive dieting because that is part of the problem contributing to your weight problem. You must get rid of that. Your normal lifestyle plus the restrictive dieting is the problem. It’s the real reason why you keep having to diet.

Now let me give an example of a lifestyle change that a person may need to make if they want to lose weight and keep their results forever.

Many women if they begin to look at the course of their life, they will notice a trend. They will notice they are living a chair-to-chair lifestyle where they are relocating from chair to chair all day long. If you were to chart how much you are moving since you were 20 years old, you would see on that chart a line decreasing over time.

If you observe the behaviors of people, what you will notice is they wake up which of course they are laying down when they’re in bed. They get up from their bed and relocate to a chair. Either the kitchen table or to their car to commute to work. Then they relocate to their desk, then back to their car, then back to the kitchen table, then to the couch and back to bed.

This was me when I was 215 pounds. I would wake up and get of bed, relocate to my car and go through Starbucks drive-thru to get my coffee handed to me in my chair (in the car), where I would then drive to my office to relocate to another chair. Then I would sit in that office chair for hours until it was lunch and relocate to another chair to eat my lunch in the breakroom.

Then I would relocate back to my office to work more and then relocate to the chair in my car to drive home. Then when I got home, I would relocate to the chair in my living room after eating at the dining room table chair and then I would relocate the bathtub and sit in the bathtub before relocating to my bed. I was only ever moving when I was relocating myself to another chair.

So, you’re just sitting in chairs all the time like I was. That means your body is using very little energy when you are chair sitting and relocating chair to chair all day long.

Your lifestyle is that you sit in chairs and most likely you’ve increased the amount of chair sitting over the course of your life. If you look over the course of your life, evaluate all your chair sitting versus 20 or 30 years ago.

Maybe you’re no longer chasing small children around or carrying them around. Because your kids are grown up. Maybe you’re working from home now instead of going to an office.

Slowly, gradually, over time the course of your life you are chair sitting more and more. Burning less and less energy. Likely eating the same as you always have and that is one way your normal life creates weight gain.

You need to gradually shift away from this chair sitting lifestyle if you want to be leaner, healthier and stronger and stay there.

When I began my journey, I started with walking 10 minutes a day. There is no way when I was 215 pounds that I could just start walking 10,000 steps a day. That’s what a lot of you do. You go maximum effort on day one and then you burn out and can’t be consistent.

That would be like me driving my car 130 mph to the grocery store. Sure, I could drive my car that fast but I’m going to get into an accident so probably a better idea is to go the speed limit even though it’s going to take me a little longer to get to the store.

Like if I had tried to do 10,000 steps a day when I was 215 pounds, I wouldn’t have been able to mentally sustain that beyond a week. That’s why walking 10 minutes a day, I got consistent with that first. I wrapped my head around building the habit first then over time, gradually increased how much I was walking.

Slow habit changes are the ones that stick so this goes back to the oh crap cycle where you go into restrictive diet mode and when you do that, you also try to jump to 10,000 steps a day. But you’re not ready for that. You have to build that over time. There is no secret. There is no shortcut.

If you want to be leaner, stronger, healthier and stay there, you must accept habits are built gradually over time. There is no magic trick other than starting slow and gradual and accepting there is no shortcut to that. There is no faster way.

Do you know what the real secret thing is for weight loss because there is a secret. The secret is the very thing most women try to circumvent. They try to not have to deal with this secret, and the secret is time.

Time is going to pass no matter what. 2026 is going to pass and in a few months it will be 2027. The 365 days of this year are going to happen. What are you going to have to show for all that time this year that has passed in 2026? If time is going to pass anyway, you might as well have something to show for it.

You see, I used to think that time was my enemy not realizing that time was my friend. I always felt like I had to race to the finish or know when I’d be done. So, what I would do is look for hacks and tricks. Oh crap, I’m fat. My clothes don’t fit. I need to fix this weight right now. Right now!

Why? I didn’t like how I felt right now, and I wanted to change that right now. Sometimes I thought I’d run out of motivation if I didn’t fix everything right now.

But a lot of it came down to impatience and that I didn’t want to accept the fact that I had spent years and years and years creating this body and lifestyle that I didn’t like and that it was probably going to take a few years to undo it in a permanent way. And I didn’t like that.

Think about this. When you gain weight. It’s always in a progression. It’s a little worse, a little worse, a little worse and progressively it gets a lot worst.

So, if you’re trying to go reverse that when you’re trying to lose weight, it gets a little better, then a little better, then a little better. Then one day you wake up and you’re like, wow, my life is a lot better. I’m nowhere near where I used to be! That’s because time if your ally.

So, you’re like okay Megan what do I do? I need to lose weight, but you’re telling me I can’t go on a restrictive diet. I can’t only eat healthy foods. What do I do? Alright, let’s talk about some things you can do.

We’re just going to distill this down to the basics. I’m not going discuss any nuance. Now remember what I said earlier about walking.

If I had just suddenly jumped to 10,000 steps of walking, I’m doing now, that would have been too much and unsustainable. I would have given up, and the way I eat food now would have been too large of a change when I was first beginning my journey. This must be done gradually.

Slowly increase your movement over time from where you are right now. I’m not talking about exercise either. I’m talking about how much you move outside of exercise. If you exercise, great. The problem is you exercise 3 or 4 days out of the week. That’s only 3 or 4 hours out of 168 hours of the week you are moving. That’s very sedentary.

So, slowly increase how much you move outside of exercise. More importantly, whatever your normal life was before this journey, your chair-to-chair lifestyle.

You cannot go back to that. You can never go back. That life will take you right back to weight gain land. You cannot go back there.

If you look at the amount of movement you’re doing now as an overweight person, the reality is you are not moving enough. Not even remotely close to half. You’re maybe a quarter of what you ought to be moving to get the results you’re looking for and to just be a healthy person.

It is not unusual for me to start working with a client and find that they’re only taking 1500 steps a day, 2000 steps a day, 3000 steps a day. Literally, I take more steps in a day than they take in a week. I take more steps in a month than they take in a week. Really let that sink in!

I move more, so much more than I did when I was 215 pounds. I’m not talking about exercise either. I’m talking about moving and not living that chair to chair lifestyle anymore.

Now let’s talk about food. When I was 215 pounds, I always ate between 3000 to 3500 calories Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I was eating more food in a week than I eat now in two weeks. That’s crazy!

So how you fix the food? You need to have a smart strategy for eating a little less. Not going on a restrictive diet where you can only eat healthy foods. That is not a smart strategy, and you must be smart about this so that you never have to lose weight again.

Unfortunately, I see a lot of women whose meals are a protein and a vegetable. That’s not a meal and even though those foods are healthy, you’re still restrictive dieting. You’re going to the extreme.

Oh CRAP! I gotta lose weight. Diet starts tomorrow! So you go the extreme of only eating a protein and a vegetable because you think carbs are bad. But then you’re not satisfied and you’re hungry and then you start grazing and snacking and after a week your diet’s over and you’re like I failed. I have no self-control.

When the real issue is your approach is failing you because you’re reacting to the oh crap vs. looking at upgrading your lifestyle in gradually.

The key to all this, is you cannot go back to however you were eating before. And you must do all this gradually. You have to figure out how to eat in a calorie deficit to lose weight with foods you’re happy with that get you the nutrition you need but also getting things you enjoy without going on a restrictive diet and moving more. Not living the chair-to-chair lifestyle anymore.

Every time I get hungry. I eat. I don’t sit in hunger. I don’t starve myself. There’s nothing I’m not allowed to have. Every food is ON limits for me. I get to have everything.

I eat higher calorie foods (foods you might call junky), but I also eat a ton of healthy foods. Same now as when I was losing 80 pounds.

And so, what you must do is reduce your food intake slightly, add the types of foods you need like protein and fiber and increase the movement slowly and gradually over time. But you can never go back to the way you lived in your normal lifestyle before.

Now here’s a little bonus mindset tip that’s really going to help you. Many of you, did not seek to gain weight as you were living your normal life. You did not make a plan on how to gain weight.

And yet, you did all the behaviors that would encourage your body to gain weight over time. Let’s take the chair-to-chair lifestyle. The goal was never to create a chair-to-chair lifestyle that would result in me becoming 215 pounds.

The goal was to create a chair-to-chair lifestyle so I could be comfortable. So, I could rest, watch tv, scroll on my phone, decompress, drive my car, work. It was just how I lived, but I gained weight.

My goal wasn’t to become 215 pounds, but I did. Why? Because I did all the behaviors that led to weight gain for reasons that had nothing to do with weight gain.

Even though I would see my weight going up and I knew it had to do with my lack of movement and food, it didn’t stop me. It didn’t cause me to make any changes because I wasn’t doing those things to gain weight.

The weight gain was an unintentional byproduct of how I was living my normal life. The way I was handling stress. The way I would pass time after work or spend my weekends.

A mental trick you can play with yourself is to find reasons to lose weight the same way you gained it. So, we do the behaviors that will lead to weight loss, and we do these behaviors for reasons that have nothing to do with weight loss.

For example, I don’t exercise to manage my weight. I exercise because I like how I feel when I do it. I walk because I like how I feel after I do it. I eat the way I eat because it makes me feel better in my body. I sleep better, my workouts are better, my exercise is better. My mind thinks clearer. I started giving my body more of what it needed. More protein. More fiber.

So, the mental trick is finding reasons to do the habits that lead to weight loss and doing them for reasons that have nothing to do with weight loss.

But none of what I just said matters unless you understand that your normal lifestyle, how you live right now is causing your weight issue.

You don’t have a weight loss problem. You have a weight gaining problem when you live your normal life and that is the real reason why you keep having to diet.

If you’re sick and tired of having to go on a diet, step one is becoming aware that your normal life is the issue and then gradually and slowly over time adjusting your normal life so that you can lose weight and be healthier.

I hope this helps! Remember if you have not taken my 5 steps to lasting weight loss class. Make sure you grab that free class in the shows notes and I’ll talk to you soon!