Fighting ‘Fat Logic'

An overweight dieter for most of her life, behavioural therapist dr Nadja Hermann had finally had a gutsful, so she set out to find a new way.

Whether three, 13 or 30 kilos, slimming down is about much more than just losing weight – it’s about seeking health, wellbeing and confidence. But if diets boycott this, how can we permanently achieve a healthy weight?   In so many areas of life, we strive to stand out, but when it comes to weight, we want to fit the mould at all costs, and many of us are willing to put ourselves through the wringer to achieve it. The problem is that the long-term success rates of diets is abysmal, meaning most of us are struggling without success. Why?  

DITCHING THE DIET LIES  

The search for answers about why diets don’t work keeps leading scientists back to the brain. It’s estimated that we make 35,000 decisions a day, many of which affect what and how much we eat, and whether and how we exercise. US neuroscientist and diet objector Sandra Aamodt says, “My studies have shown that diets often make people fatter and less healthy in the long term, because they inhibit people’s ability to recognise real hunger as such. This ultimately makes people extremely prone to emotional eating, and susceptible to the temptations of clever food marketing.”  

False perceptions often also play tricks on us when it comes to our weight and diet. Behavioural therapist and German author Dr Nadja Hermann knows this all too well. About four years ago, having spent half her life on diets and reached her heaviest weight of 150kg, she asked herself: ‘Why do I always put on weight instead of losing it? Is it my destiny to be heavy, or can I change something, and if so, how?’ She found the answers in a number of studies that revealed that most diets deceive us, and that we’re often too willing to believe their weightloss lies. Here, Nadja Hermann reveals how she lost 80kg and what she knows now.