Being Set Up to Fail

All diets have a common thread that preordains an eventual outcome: the inability to manage and maintain weight loss. The dieting industry fails to prepare dieters to adapt and adjust to ever-changing temptations and situations. With virtually all weight-loss programs and methods, there will come a point when you will have to face an imminent, unplanned eating event that represents nonadherence to the diet and typically starts the downward trajectory toward an unrecoverable relapse. Such seemingly impulsive yet preordained decisions trigger a chain reaction that results in psychologically destructive feelings of personal defeat. It is virtually indisputable that dieters who dare to deviate from the chiseled-in-stone dictates of their traditional diet plan are ultimately destined to compromise their own success.

Succumbing repeatedly to enticements underscores how virtually every diet program sets up the dieter for inevitable failure. The first deviation from the edicts of the diet might be almost unnoticeable, but rest assured, the rule violations invariably produce dire consequences. The first slip results in a shockingly private moment in the dieter’s mind when he or she can no longer deny the obvious and must shamefully admit, “I’ve failed.” Every subsequent noncompliant act compounds this initial disappointment and adds to the burden of the many letdowns the dieter has already experienced in previous dieting attempts.

Weight-loss sustainability is where virtually every diet fails miserably. This is the Achilles heel in the dieting process. Weight-loss methods that rely on willpower for getting back on track will never provide the learning skills necessary for the permanent management of your food at the moment of consumption. This can only be accomplished when going off track and being able to get back on track is strategically factored into the program.

The “succumbing phenomenon” highlights the one common denominator in essentially every dieting program—other than the one proposed in this book—namely, the lack of a method for managing the inevitable unplanned and high-calorie eating events that doom so many dieters to failure. In other programs, dieters are forced to rely on willpower and self-control tactics as the way to manage and resist temptations and non-hunger eating events. But at some point, all the willpower in the world will not enable you to avoid an unplanned and high-calorie eating event that can derail a traditional diet. Yet through consistent application of the Immaculate Consumption Program (ICP), you’ll learn habits and develop strategies for lifelong weight management even in the face of ever-changing circumstances.