Why Diets Don't Work

Do we all know, or agree, that diets don't work?

I'm not just talking about a diet to lose weight, but about diet as an idea.

Whether it's for belly fat, IBS or migraines.

But weight works best for the analogy.

You go to a dietitian or to someone selling one method or another, you lose weight, and after a while you go right back to your old weight.

What's really happening is that we go to someone who tells us what to do.

Eat this, don't eat that, eat this before that, this after a workout, a glass of water before the meal, more vegetables on your plate and so on.

First of all,

while in many cases all of these do work, they don't address the body's other needs.

Maybe a glass of water before the meal lowers appetite, but it also impairs absorption and digestion.

Second,

we let another person tell us what to do without understanding the full picture.

They keep the power, and we stay dependent.

So why don't diets work?

Because they address a method and not a person.

After all, what makes a person make real change?

1\. Above all, they need to learn something new (deeply, something that sinks into their consciousness and their bones).

2\. They need a goal.

(But not a goal to lose 4 pounds, because what happens once they reach it? We know the answer.)

Everyone needs goals that support them through the process of life. A goal could be to be a better parent, to fulfill my dreams, to contribute to my community and so on.

3\. And more than anything, they need daily habits that support them through any process they want to embark on.

All of these change your identity. When a person is driven by, or acts in, a holistic way with meaning, then every obstacle along the way becomes minor.

That's why it's so important to me to share what I learned and discovered about my own body:

the art of listening to the body, understanding its needs, the foods we're used to eating or avoiding, the mechanisms that affect appetite, thinking, sensations and diseases.

This isn't a method, it's an opportunity to change your identity in a sovereign, empowering way.

Still Counting Calories?

You know the most ingenious invention in the history of the processed food industry?

Does anyone count calories in nature? In tribes? In communities of hunter-gatherers?

Who even needs to worry about calories when they're eating real food?

The obsession with calories was an ingenious invention meant to keep people consuming processed foods,

after people started to realize that those foods create obesity and sickness.

Processed food, processed-food fat and simple sugars create obesity and sickness.

But what about low-calorie food? Or low-fat? Or sugar-free? Or only 100 calories? That sounds good...

But if there's no sugar, if there's no fat, there's no taste...

So what do they do? They replace them with processed food under another name. So people buy "diet" food that's actually synthetic.

And then they still get sick and fat.

Let me make a quick comparison to set things straight for the calorie counters.

Are 100 calories from avocado and 100 calories from chips the same thing?

Avocado is anti-inflammatory, improves metabolism, is rich in fiber and nutrients, rich in antioxidants, doesn't turn into fat in the body, feeds the brain, and creates a feeling of fullness.

Chips create inflammation, harm metabolism, oxidize, increase hunger, turn into fat in the body, and are devoid of nutrients.

Which of them do you think will create obesity and sickness in the body?

Counting calories is an invention meant to distract from health. It's an approach that gets people not to think and not to understand beyond it.

Don't count calories, count nutrients.

Why Won't I Listen to the Dietitian? (Reciting Messages From Academia)

Who teaches us to count calories?

Who teaches us that processed milk, from a cow that ate processed feed, was given preventive antibiotics and growth hormones, milk meant for calves, that's pasteurized, homogenized and tastes nothing like real milk, is good for us?

Who teaches us that seed oils, which used to be machine oils, are good for the heart?

Dietitians.

Or in other words, academia.

Funny how we agreed to believe that academia is a sacred place. (Listen, but don't be indoctrinated.)

If knowledge in the world is constantly changing, why doesn't the content in high school or universities change?

Why have syllabuses stayed the same for centuries?

In the age of artificial intelligence, no one thinks it makes sense for a high school student in 2025

to learn the same things I learned in 2001.

On that we all agree.

But about university? For most of us that's a pure place.

But there too there are political, economic and ideological interests that you're not allowed to question.

I'll try not to stray from the topic.

In a capitalist world, corporations control everything.

If I make billions of dollars a year selling seed oils, I need the whole scientific community and all the governments to back me.

That's why there's an official "health authority approval," that's why there are studies showing they're healthy, and that's why nutrition schools teach the byproduct of all of this.

The corporations create the studies, donate to the schools, control the media and advertising of course, and lobby politicians.

So academia becomes an extension of the corporations.

That doesn't mean everything there is bad, but the status quo holds.

Centuries of academia, and still psychologists aren't stopping the rise in depression.

Dietitians aren't stopping obesity.

And doctors aren't stopping disease.

Back to nutrition.

At university nutrition schools, especially in countries like the United States, they receive funding, donations or collaborations from food companies, agricultural corporations, or the drug and supplement industry.

Sometimes it's direct funding for research, lab equipment, student scholarships, professional conferences or certain courses.

Examples of cases like this:

Nestlé, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills and other companies have in the past donated significant sums to nutrition departments, mainly at U.S. universities.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the main professional body for dietitians in the U.S., has come under heavy criticism for ties to processed food and sweetened beverage companies.

Sometimes studies done in academic settings are published with a "Conflict of Interest" disclaimer when an industry body is involved in the funding.

Why does this matter? These ties influence the direction of research, the content taught in courses, and the messages passed on to students in the nutrition field.

For example, topics like the risk of processed food, the effect of sugar, or the seed oil and dairy industries, become...

Everything in moderation.

Or in the worst case, important for health.

Look, I'm not vegan in any way, but to think we were meant to drink a calf's milk, on a regular basis, just so we'll get enough calcium, is ridiculous.

Apparently not every academic institution operates this way.

Or maybe there are simply many researchers and lecturers who act with full integrity and want to expose the truth even in the face of economic pressure.

But those people usually leave academia, because they can't always express themselves freely there.

Here too there are ties between academic institutions and the food industry.

Dairy companies fund studies on the benefits of milk.

Supplement companies fund studies on the effectiveness of their products.

Sometimes there's no direct funding, but there are collaborations through bodies like the health ministry or the dairy board, which are involved in the content or in professional conferences.

For example: sponsored lectures or seminars organized under the patronage of the food industry.

Industrial oils like canola oil, soybean oil and corn oil have industrial interests invested in research, in public campaigns, and sometimes in academia too.

I didn't write all this to damage the reputation of dietitians or of academia. There are wonderful things in both.

And either way, most of our world is influenced by interests of one kind or another, so there's no point taking anything personally.

But it is important to learn as much as we can ourselves and to question things. I try to question even the things that seem true to me.

And when we do learn through institutions of higher education, it's worth making sure we learn but stay sovereign, and don't surrender to indoctrination.