After being on the Atkins diet for most of the Summer, I am at the point where I am seriously considering quitting it. One cannot stay on a diet forever. The problem is that I have heard that people tend to gain their weight right back after quitting the Atkins diet. Why does that happen?
Dieting is not easy. It requires people to dramatically change their eating habits. Most people resist change, even if they know that it will benefit them. Dieting forces people to think about each and every food that they are considering eating, which can be quite annoying after a while. It is my understanding that the majority of people enjoy eating, and feel that the restrictions of a diet greatly lessen the satisfaction that they used to feel after a good meal.
It is no wonder that people cheat on their diets. After all, unless your doctor has specifically prescribed a certain type of diet for you, based upon your own, personal, health issues, then you know that the diet is not “forever”. I think this makes a lot of people dream of all the foods that they are going to eat as soon as they get off this diet.
This is exactly the problem. The point of going on the Atkins diet was to learn new, healthier, ways of eating. It was to change a person’s relationship with food into something that is better for their physical, and mental, health.
If you do the Atkins diet for more than a few weeks, you end up becoming very aware of the amount of carbs that are in the tastiest of foods. Oddly enough, this knowledge doesn’t stop people from digging into those formerly forbidden foods the instant they quit their diet.
I was talking with one of my friends, who said that her parents did the Atkins diet. She reported that as soon as they stopped doing the diet, they started gaining back all of the weight that they lost when they were on Atkins.
Why? The reason is simple. They went right back to their old eating habits after they quit the Atkins diet. This happens to a lot of people. The habits and behaviors regarding food and exercise that originally caused a person to gain weight will have the same function, and result, after the diet is over.
It is entirely possible to stay healthy, and eat well, after quitting the Atkins diet, (or any other diet). If you keep exercising, and avoiding junk food, then you will probably be ok.
The Atkins diet made me very aware of the amount of carbs in foods, and I am not likely to “forget” that after stopping the diet. I have gotten into the habit of wanting whole foods, that are fresh, (instead of cookies, that are packaged and full of chemicals). I have found some vegetables that I really enjoy eating as a snack. This knowledge is not going to spontaneously disappear after I officially decide to end the Atkins diet.
Image by Jen Meister on Flickr