Interesting stat given that in the long-term the overwhelming number of people who go on diets (“lifestyle changes”, etc.) a. don’t keep they weight they lose off and/or b. gain back more than they have lost.
I get the feeling the stat should really say, “96% of members are all whooo hoooo, I’m gonna lose weight (or have lost some already) – so that means you can too!!” That attitude of, “If I can do it, so can you!!!” really raises my hackles. People really are different. Contrary to popular belief, we aren’t all clones such that if something is applicable to me, it MUST be applicable to you. Nevermind that 95% (up to 99% depending on what study you use) of diets DON’T WORK.
For example, if there was a contest for who could drink the most caffeine and then go to deep sleep, I’d win. I have some weird brain chemistry that makes caffeine usually have a reverse effect on me than it does on most folks. That’s why, when I take my ritalin in the morning, I usually immediately go back to sleep for a small nap. Seriously – a nap after a dose of ritalin (for me) is just beautiful. I relax in a way my ADD’d brain doesn’t normally let me without the meds. My boyfriend never gets car sick (that I know 0f). However, I feel car sick all the time. I never had car sickness until I was 20 and it’s been a constant companion ever since. Because my boyfriend (and most other people I know) can be in the car without feeling horrible nausea, does that mean I should too?
I wonder why people are so keen to spout off the “IF I CAN DO IT YOU CAN TOO!!!!” idea. I have a feeling it has something to do with bragging to an extent. I don’t think it’s really about (in most cases) wanting to cheer other people on, so much as being able to say, “I am not a lazy, smelly, gluttonous, good-for-nothing fat person… celebrate me!” I remember how I used to get so high on the idea that I had lost weight and could continue to lose weight that I couldn’t stop babbling about it to anyone who would (or wouldn’t – I was pushy) listen. I could turn any conversation into a conversation about my weight loss or weight loss in general… or good/bad foods and all that. Sure, I had an eating disorder, but how many people do we know who do this who do not have an eating disorder?
Why is it that in order to go on a diet, most people must psych themselves up to the point that the diet becomes religion? It becomes every conversation. It becomes every thought. Simply ordering at a restaurant can cause much-ado about calories (or fat, or carbs… or whatever they’re obsessing on) in a proud and loud way. These are the people who start badgering their fat and even not-fat friends to jump on the bandwagon. Why is it that dieters often feel the need to prostelatize their diet (read: religion) to others? Sometimes those folks remind me of Charlie the Unicorn’s annoying friends. How ironic that in the end, Charlie is pressured by supposed well-meaning friends into being totally scammed.
Why do many dieters feel this overwhelming need to prostelatize their diet (read: religion)?
My opinion is that these folks know deep-down that diets don’t work, but it’s just such a TRAGEDY to be fat or not model-skinny that the hail mary pass seems like a good idea anyway. Therefore, they pump themselves up. They turn parts of their world upside-down for the sake of weight loss. They try to recruit as many friends as possible to maintain the psyched-up, diet fervor. The fanatacism of the dieter underscores his/her belief deep-down that the diet isn’t going to work. In my experience, things usually aren’t really what they seem to be on the surface. 😉
–AngryGrayRainbows
–Updated to include more links… I was too sleepy to put them in last night. 😀
Angry Gray Rainbows 
Maybe it’s because misery loves company. Every time I’ve ever been on a diet, I’ve been miserable, and seeing other people happy and able to eat whatever they wanted was pure torture. So if I could get friends to join me on the diet, we could be miserable together (and it’s not that having a friend with whom to diet makes it easier to diet, it doesn’t, it just makes sure that you have someone with whom you can commiserate about how good you’re being by not having that cookie or how you only ate half your lunch or dinner instead of all of it).
I think you hit the nail on the head. Actually, I’ll take it a step further. It seems to me that misery REQUIRES company… at least in the case of dieters.
Like you said – diets are miserable. Maybe dieters require lots of other people to be deluded with them otherwise they can’t keep the facade of “THIS CAN WORK!!” up…?
One of my favorite ways to bond with other women when I was younger was to compete in dieting. On the one hand, it was great to have a battle buddy in the dieting trenches… on the other hand, I was gonna lose way more weight than that chick and make her feel soooooooo fatttttt.
Meh.
I don’t miss it.
LOL… Vesta. Your mentioning the celebration of eating half a cookie makes me laugh. It’s too true. But dang… life is so much more than half a cookie. How narrow does one’s life have to become that eating half a cookie becomes some huge achievement?
Thanks for stopping by, Vesta!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
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