How to Stop Dieting and Break Free from the Diet Cycle

The ongoing struggle to diet and lose weight keeps many people in a constant state of appearance dissatisfaction. Diet culture tells us we’ll be happy and successful if we just keep making ourselves smaller, and keep buying services and products to make that happen. Diets are now often repackaged as wellness or lifestyle plans, but the underlying message remains the same – our bodies are never good enough.

We deserve better than a life of misery and trying to make ourselves smaller. So if you want to jump off the diet train, ditch diet culture and learn more to support yourself or others – read on!

The images in this blog are from AllGo - they offer free plus-size stock photos. Representation of happy people in larger bodies is important, and these pool party ones are so joyous!

How Diet Culture is Internalised

From the moment we’re born, we’re learning from others; from TV, social media, parents, friends and more. Diet culture is the water we swim in – it’s there without us even knowing we’re in it sometimes. Many of us grow up seeing others dieting and think it’s normal. It’s almost expected; the “shoulds” and “good/bad” foods, the inner conflict, the anticipated comments and judgments from others, and the inevitable guilt and shame spiral just because you dared to eat that cake.

Many of us growing up in diet culture have internalised the thin ideal. This is the idea that thinner is better, healthier, and happier, and we should all be striving to be thin. But, happiness doesn’t have a body size; many thin people are not happy and many fat people are. To sell happiness as an outcome of thinness is a scam. It’s a very lucrative scam, lining the pockets of rich people who don’t care one bit about our health.
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People in larger bodies and smaller bodies alike have varied health outcomes shaped by genetics, socioeconomic factors, trauma and access to care. One of the strongest predictors of poorer health outcomes is weight cycling from dieting; repeated weight loss and regain is stressful physically and emotionally. For some, dieting can be a contributing influence towards disordered eating and eating disorders.
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​The Hard Truth – Diets Don’t Work

There is little evidence to show that diets lead to lasting weight loss or health benefits, as 95% of dieters regain the weight in the long term (Matz and Frankel, 2024). Weight loss may happen in the short term, but diets can be difficult to sustain when they are restrictive and depriving. When diets don’t work, people often blame themselves (never the diet or diet culture) and this can bring guilt and shame. This is what keeps the diet industry going, keeping us in a state of never feeling good enough, so they can profit off our body shame.

There is no magic solution or quick fix to finding happiness, and certainly losing weight can’t do this. As many people later gain weight back, or gain more weight, trying to build confidence or happiness based on body size is simply too precarious. Dieting usually only makes you more miserable and keeps you in a cycle of shame.
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​How the Diet Cycle Works

A diet cycle is a repeated loop that many people get stuck in. It can sometimes be called yo-yo dieting or chronic dieting, and usually involves rules and inner conflict about what should or should not be eaten. These rules might focus on restricting calories, not eating “bad” foods, eating less, not eating certain food groups, etc.

The cycle can go something like this:

• Attempts to restrict food, be “good”, eat “healthy”, eat less
• Feeling deprived, having cravings, feeling hungry
• Giving in and “failing”, eating the “bad” foods, eating more than planned
• The dreaded guilt and shame set in
• In an attempt to feel back in control and better, a commitment to the regime starts again – “diet starts tomorrow/Monday”

​And back around we go. It’s exhausting and miserable, and it usually just makes people feel worse in the long run. This cycle thrives off continued self-blame and shame, and over time can break trust in yourself and your body.

One example of how a diet cycle might go. Image copyright Mel Ciavucco 2025

"Consumers" is meant in a capitalist sense - dieters are often exploited as body shame keeps them buying products and services. The guilt and shame drive further restriction and deprivation - this can also be part of binge eating.

​The alluring part of dieting can be “getting back on track” and starting the diet. This is the honeymoon period when there can be feelings of taking back control and renewed hope. But sadly, this is only temporary as the cycle plays out again. This feeling of taking control brings an illusion of “sorting myself out”, especially when things in life feel out of control, or you’re struggling in some way. It’s understandable, the grasping onto something seemingly controllable like weight, but there can be underlying factors being missed or ignored.
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​What Lies Beneath the Diet Cycle?

Diet cycles can be fuelled by anxiety, trauma, stress, poor body image, relationship issues, dopamine or sensory seeking (especially for those who are neurodivergent), emotional overwhelm and more. It can be helpful to understand the triggers in everyday life, though for many people, healing involves exploring underlying issues in depth in therapy. Difficult experiences in life and trauma can impact relationships with your body and food. Dieting, and disordered eating, can be a way to try and cope with difficult things in life or traumatic past experiences.
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Many people feel they must be thinner to find a romantic partner; that they can only be deserving of love in a smaller body. This can sometimes stem from difficult family relationships and attachment dynamics learnt as a child, especially if parents/caregivers also had internalised thin ideals. Sometimes weight seems the only controllable outcome to change in an attempt to gain praise, validation or love from others. This can impact relationships throughout life.
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​The Impact of Weight Stigma

Weight stigma refers to the assumptions, biases and discrimination people face due to body shape and size. People in larger bodies may struggle physically and emotionally due to accessibility issues in physical spaces (e.g. due to seating being too small), and due to attitudes, bullying and abuse. Weight stigma is a harmful experience and can negatively impact emotional and physical health. It impacts everyone, including those in smaller bodies who may be fearful of weight gain as they see how larger people are treated.

Dieting can be an attempt to escape weight stigma and the pressure of living in a society that values thinness. It’s understandable that people want to escape this; however, making yourself smaller only colludes with societal biases and reinforces weight stigma. We wouldn’t tell a child being bullied to change themselves to stop the bullying – we’d go to the source. More importantly, we’d need to challenge the culture that creates this harm.

Nobody should have to change themselves to avoid harm from others – instead this discrimination and stigma needs to stop. We need to refuse to collude with diet culture, weight stigma and thin ideals, for the good of others and the next generations.
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How Therapy Can Help Stop Dieting

Therapy can help explore the deeper roots of dieting and diet cycles. These might include:

• Growing up around adults who diet or struggle with disordered eating
• Media messages about ideal bodies and diet culture
• Being criticised for weight, including bullying
• Trauma or emotional distress
• The impact of minority stress, discrimination and oppression
• Experiencing weight stigma and anti-fat bias
• Food scarcity or inconsistent availability of food
• Learnt rules and behaviours around food, e.g. good and bad foods, cutting out food groups, calorie counting
• Perfectionism and people-pleasing tendencies, which may be linked to relationships with caregivers and attachment styles
• Difficult relationships with caregivers as a child, and with partners in adulthood
• Low self-worth and shame

 
It is usually a combination of influences rather than one single cause, which is why a therapeutic approach can be important. When people begin to understand the bigger picture, this can allow for acceptance and self-compassion. Letting go of dieting can be scary, but it’s worth it to be able to start accepting yourself and building your self-worth from the inside, not based on your appearance or weight.

For those who want to work on their health, this could be done in non-weight-related ways; improving sleep, reducing stress, self-care, mental health, movement, social interactions and more. Shame and punishment are not helpful motivators – in order to look after ourselves, we need to work on self-compassion, respect and acceptance. It’s important to note that “health” isn’t accessible to everyone due to age, illness, disability etc, and also due to wider social inequalities.
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Breaking Free from Dieting

Stopping dieting can take time. Consider how many years we spend absorbing diet culture – it can take a lot of unlearning! Exploring underlying, deeper factors also takes time, but it’s worth it to get to the root of the issue and stop the cycles of shame. A space to talk about such issues with somebody who has been there, gets it, and has done specific training in these areas is important.

In therapy, as well as exploring the past, we might explore thoughts, emotional triggers and behaviour patterns while building practical strategies for coping.
This can help to:

• Step out of the cycle instead of starting another diet on Monday
• Build trust in yourself and your body
• Work towards body neutrality or acceptance
• Put in boundaries around diet culture pressures
• Feel more at ease around food
• Start living and enjoying your life in the present instead of worrying about food/your body all the time
• Build confidence and self-esteem

 
Diet cycles are not a sign of weakness or lack of willpower. They are an understandable response to living in a society that constantly tells people their bodies are flawed. Diet culture is harmful.

If you’ve struggled with dieting, body image, or eating in any way - you deserve support.  It is absolutely possible to heal your relationship with food, unlearn diet culture and let go of dieting, and build body acceptance and self-worth.

I offer therapy for a range  of body image or eating concerns. You don't need to have a label or a diagnosis of anything. Dieting and food restriction is an understandable response to systems of our society, so I have an anti-diet perspective but this means being anti-diet culture, not anti-people who diet. 

I offer a free 15-minute introductory call on Zoom to discuss your needs. Get in touch here:

Contact me here

Further reading

Informative blog posts

How to Start Healing your Relationship with Food

What is binge eating and how to break the binge cycle

Atypical Anorexia 

Weight loss injections and food noise

Therapeutic writing exercises for body image

Recommended Books

• Just Eat It by Laura Thomas
• Anti-Diet by Christie Harrison
• What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
• "You just need to lose weight" and 19 other myths about fat people by Aubrey Gordon
• Beyond the Shadow of a Diet by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel

For a full list of recommendations and resources for body image and eating disorders - CLICK HERE