Cutting out all of the treats can sometimes make us grumpy
Crash diets are never good for our health in the long run, as we gain the weight we lost when we return to our normal diet, and as it turns out, we lose our friends too.
New research released by NÄkd Wholefoods has found just how irritating we find our friends when they diet, with one third of us deliberately avoiding those we know to be dieting and a quarter even trying to sabotage their friends’ bids to lose weight.
Over half of us are happiest when we’re not dieting – leading a healthy balanced lifestyle, and yet so many of us undertake January diets that not only leave us unhappy, but those around us too.
Marina Love, Marketing Director at NÄkd Wholefoods said: ‘I'm surprised that so many people are avoiding their friends who crash diet, our research shows that we're happiest when we're not on a diet so people shouldn't feel pressure to crash diet this January – healthy options for snacking alone have become so widely available, and taste great too, so you don’t have to compromise. NÄkd would like to encourage people to lead a healthy, natural and therefore happy life – and by eating more plant-based wholefoods we can all achieve this.’
The research reveals that two thirds of the friends, colleagues and partners of dieters find them irritating for a number of reasons: they talk about their diet too much; make them as non-dieters feel bad about themselves for not dieting; find dieters grumpy and miserable; that dieters refuse to socialise and ban treats such as birthday cake.
Over a quarter of people would actively avoid a friend on a crash diet with sabotage attempts ranging from: inviting the dieter out for dinner or a drink; deliberately tempting them with unhealthy treats or talking them into giving up their diet, we’ve all heard the white-lies people say to dieters, such as, ‘you don’t need to lose weight!’ or ‘you’re too thin now!’
When asked, the reasons why the friends, partners and colleagues of dieters sabotage their weight loss attempts are wide ranging, some answered that they just don’t find their calorie-counting friends fun whilst they’re on a diet; others revealed that they were particularly jealous about friends losing weight and worried about the dieter stealing their thunder and, finally, remaining friends were resentful of dieters for making them feel bad about not losing weight themselves.
Let this be a wake up call to any crash dieters planning to embark upon the latest diet trend. Just remember that living a healthy, balanced diet, without persistent calorie counting is the best way to keep your friends, family and yourself happy.
Tagged in Diet Weight loss