Diets DO Work, Here's the Real Problem

Scott: You touched on this a little bit but there is so many books out there, so many different diets out there, and people have tried them all. Why don't diets work? Why do people start something and sustain it?

Mark MacDonald: So the challenge is that diets do work. That's what excites people because you can lose weight really, really quick. The problem is it's unsustainable weight loss. So someone will lose weight it's, imagine this, you have a busy life and now you've hit your tipping point. So you're gonna say, I just gotta get the weight off, I don't care what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna cut everything. I'm just gonna drink water or drink lemonade. And you drop that weight, then the pain isn't as severe. 

You never learned anything. You didn't really learn something to work into your life or yourself and your family. So the moment you drop that weight, oh, I'm gonna go back to what I did." And the cycle repeats itself. So people are never really being educated and then my challenge is as a health professional is that the health professionals of the world, they don't lead by example either. You know, we're inundated with, you know, losing seven pounds in seven days. We're  inundated with so many health professionals creating these gl-, like these little niche markets for people to drop weight fast, but they are not providing real tools for people. So the audience is looking for the answers, but we don't have enough people really sharing the right message.

Scott: Mm-hmm. So if somebody learns about this and learns the right way to do it and gets educated, there' still putting it into practice and that can be the hard thing. Like you said, people lose some weight, oh, this worked pretty good. I'm gonna have some pizza tonight and that kinda snowballs. Sustaining it has still got to be the hard thing even when people know they are doing the wrong thing.

Mark MacDonald: Step one is shifting your mind set. So, rather than using food to lose weight, use it to create hormonal balance. And that's about eating in three. So just like eating like a baby, a baby feeds every three hours. They eat a balance of protein, fats, carbs and breast milk. They stop eating when they're satisfied, They eat again when they're hungry.  First year of life that's how our body is gonna have to be fed, cause that's how our body creates energy. 

So once you accept, okay, so I have to eat five to six times for the rest for my life. Once you shift that mind set, and you understand why. Now we can create a plan to make that work. The problem is that shift never occurs. So people think they have to starve, they have to deprive, they have to cut, and they suffer. 

So once you get there, then it's, okay, well, how do we live that plan? How do we take the foods that you love, yogurts, cottage cheese; what are the proteins, carbs and fats you love, balance it out, educate you on how to do that, and then what are you gonna use to fill the gaps? So so many times . . . in 1999 I launched our practice in Venice Beach, and I've worked with, our practice how hundreds of thousands of clients and it would be like you and I would sit here.

Scott: Mm-hmm.

Mark MacDonald: Set you up on a plan. And you're okay, Mark, we eat five to six times a day. And I'd say, well you probably should put a meal replacement somewhere in there. Like a bar or a shake to fill the gaps. And you're,  no, no, I'm just gonna do real food. And a week later you come back and go, what's the name of that bar? Because the reality is that real food is the solution, but supplements help you fill the gaps. So if you don't have a meal replacement to fill that mid-morning or mid-afternoon or when you're running late, you wake up late, you're running late to work, you skip that meal, your blood sugar drops, you burn muscle, and then you go into that next meal craving food which makes you overeat and store fat. So it's shifting your mindset, filling your gaps, and then living your plan. And once you create a system and a rhythm, you're set up to win.