Why I’m Breaking Up With Extreme Diets (and Dating Science Instead)

There comes a point where you’ve tried so many diets that your body could qualify for a PhD in metabolic confusion. I’ve tried liquid only diets, the ‘no food after 6 pm’ rule, and I’ve counted enough calories, macros and points to win big on a diet themed ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire’.

Maybe it’s age, or maybe it’s wisdom disguised as fatigue. Either way, I’m done with the chaos. I don’t want another quick fix that promises to ‘reset’ my body; I want a way of living that doesn’t require an apology to my nervous system every Monday.

This isn’t a weight-loss confessional or a ‘before and after’ of using GLP-1 medication. It’s the story of unlearning the extremes and learning to trust the slow, evidence-based stuff that actually lasts.

The ridiculous years: how diet culture broke me

I’ve done everything short of eating air. I’ve cut carbs, chewed gum to kill hunger and turned social meals into guilt trips. Each plan came with the same promise - control. And each one left me more dysregulated, anxious, and, ironically, heavier.

The long term side effects? A folate deficiency that robbed me of my energy and muscles that felt like string. Constant anxiety around food - every meal came with a side of moral judgement. And eventually, a body that simply said enough.

At my heaviest, walking too far triggered posterior tibial tendon dysfunction (PTTD). A fancy way of saying that my foot gave out under the weight of years of yo-yoing. Turns out ‘pushing through’ in the name of health can literally break you.

And the irony? I was trying to be healthy.

When health becomes harm

You know the saying ‘everything in moderation’? Diet culture heard that and said, ‘Challenge accepted’.
We’ve been sold countless extremes dressed up as discipline. Detox teas that make you spend more time in the bathroom than the gym. ‘Clean eating’ rules that turn lunch into a moral exam.

But the damage isn’t just physical - it’s how it warps our relationship with ourselves. Years of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food talk rewired my brain to think hunger was failure and rest was laziness. The body keeps score, but so does the mind.

Then came the wake up call that hit harder than anything else - watching my mum lose her mobility. She isn’t someone who binges or lives off takeaways. Whilst she has always struggled with her weight, a mixture of osteoarthritis and pain (and random missing bones in her ankle) resulted in the slow shrink of what she could do physically. Now she’s mostly housebound. Not through a lack of willpower but through a body that had lost its way.

And that’s when it hit me: if I didn’t sort my own habits - not in a ‘get smaller’ way, but a ‘stay mobile’ way - I could end up in the same position. I don’t want to live in fear of not being able to walk my furbabies or not be able to climb the stairs.

That’s not vanity. That’s self-preservation.

The science bit: obesity isn’t simple (and why diets miss the point)

If diet culture were right, we’d all be thin by now. The ‘eat less, move more’ mantra sounds sensible until you realise it’s about as nuanced as saying ‘just spend less’ to someone with debt and a broken boiler.

Obesity isn’t a moral failing; it’s a condition shaped by a tangle of biology, psychology and environment. Genes play a role - some people are wired to store energy more efficiently. Hormones like leptin, ghrelin, and Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 influence hunger, fullness, and how our brains interpret both. Sleep, stress, medication, trauma, and even the microbiome all rock up to the party as well.

A 2022 review in Nature Medicine describes obesity as a ‘chronic, relapsing, multifactorial disease.”[^1] Translation: it’s complicated, and it’s not your fault.

That’s why traditional diets fail around 80% of the time within a few years.[^2] They don’t fix the root causes - they just create a temporary calorie deficit, often at the expense of mental stability and metabolism. When the diet ends, biology pushes back. Hunger increases, energy expenditure drops, and your brain quietly screams, ‘Please feed me something with actual joy.’

Cue the rebound. Cue the guilt. Cue the next diet.

We’ve been trying to out-discipline physiology - and physiology always wins.

Where GLP-1 medications fit in (and what they don’t fix)

When I started Wegovy (followed by Mounjaro), the first thing I noticed wasn’t dramatic weight loss; it was silence. For the first time in years, food wasn’t shouting at me from every corner of my brain. I could walk past the confectionary section in a supermarket without feeling like I was betraying myself.

That’s because GLP-1 is a hormone that helps regulate appetite and blood-sugar control. Normally, your gut releases it after eating to tell your brain, ‘We’re good here, put the fork down.’ GLP-1 medications imitate this signal - they slow digestion, steady blood sugar, and calm the constant hunger loop.

But here’s the catch: while the medication works on the hormonal piece, it doesn’t automatically re-programme the behavioural one.
Your old habits don’t automatically get the memo and change too.

If you used food to cope with stress, boredom, or overwhelm, that circuitry’s still there. The difference is now you’ve got breathing room to retrain it. The drug gives you the peace and quiet; what you build inside that silence determines the outcome.

Research backs this up. The STEP trials (semaglutide) and SURPASS series (tirzepatide) show impressive weight loss results, but follow-ups reveal that without lifestyle change, weight tends to creep back once medication stops.[^3][^4] Not because the drug ‘fails’, but because biology reverts when old routines return.

So no, Mounjaro (and the other drugs) aren’t magic - they’re a tool. One that’s finally letting me separate hunger from habit and build something sustainable in the space between.

The missing link: the nervous system and emotional eating

For years I thought emotional eating was just ‘weak willpower’. Turns out it’s more like nervous system management gone rogue.

When stress hits, the body gears up for survival. Heart rate spikes, cortisol floods the bloodstream, and your brain craves quick comfort - sugar, carbs, anything that promises relief in seconds. It’s biology, not bad behaviour.

Chronic stress keeps us in this fight-or-flight state, and that constant alertness messes with hormones that regulate appetite. Elevated cortisol can make ghrelin (the hunger hormone) louder and blunt leptin (the fullness one). So even when you’re full, your brain keeps asking for more.

Food becomes the regulator your nervous system never got. It’s soothing, predictable and effective - until it isn’t.

That’s why ‘just eat less’ advice falls apart. You can’t logic your way out of a dysregulated state. You have to calm the nervous system before you can change the behaviour.

This is where practices like steady meal timing, hydration, movement and sleep hygiene become more than lifestyle fluff - they’re nervous system care. They rebuild the foundation for consistent energy and appetite regulation.

GLP-1 medications help by quieting the hunger noise, but behavioural science is what teaches your brain new methods once the noise dies down. The combination is where the magic happens.

Behavioural science: what actually builds sustainable change

Dieting taught me how to shrink my body. Behavioural science is teaching me how to live in it.

At its heart, behaviour change isn’t about motivation - it’s about structure. Motivation is like a match: bright, hot, and gone in seconds. Structure is the stove that keeps burning.

Research from the Behavioural Insights Team and habit experts like James Clear and BJ Fogg all circle the same truth: big change starts small.[^5][^6] The brain resists dramatic overhauls but adapts beautifully to gradual, repeatable routines. That’s why ‘I’ll walk for 10 minutes after dinner’ works better than ‘I’ll run 5k every morning from now on’.

Each small action builds evidence for a new identity. Every time I hydrate before coffee, I reinforce, I’m someone who takes care of my body. That’s the difference between ‘goal-based’ and ‘identity-based’ change. Goals end. Identities evolve.

Behavioural science also gives us permission to design our environments for success - what researchers call ‘choice architecture.’[^7] You don’t need more discipline if your systems are well built. If the healthy meal is prepped and visible, the biscuit tin becomes less relevant. It’s not willpower; it’s engineering.

And habits aren’t just physical - they’re regulatory. Predictable meal timing, gentle movement, a consistent bedtime - all these cue safety to the nervous system. The steadier the system, the easier it is to sustain healthy behaviour.

Redefining health: more than being skinny

If you’d asked me five years ago what ‘healthy’ looked like, I’d have said it was me in a mini-skirt with Britney’s abs.
Now? I’m learning that health looks like capacity - the ability to move, think, rest, and feel without my body staging a protest.

Because hydration, nutrition, and movement aren’t vanity metrics; they’re maintenance. A hydrated brain makes better decisions. Fed muscles support joints. Strong legs mean independence at seventy, not ‘fitspo’ at 35. The aesthetic stuff is a side effect, not the goal.

And there’s a kind of relief in letting that be enough. I no longer chase ‘good’ days versus ‘bad’ days - I chase steady ones.
The older I get, the more I realise: extremes are exciting, but steadiness is freedom.

Watching my mum lose her mobility was the hard proof. She didn’t ‘let herself go’. She just never got the chance to build systems that worked with her body, not against it. That’s what I’m trying to do now - not chase smaller, but chase sustainable.

And yes, GLP-1 medication has helped me lose 40lbs so far. But what I’ve gained is far more valuable - perspective, peace, and the physical ease to live my life without negotiating every meal.

maybe I’m not getting old - maybe I’m just getting wise

There’s a line between discipline and self-punishment, and I crossed it for years thinking I was being ‘good’.
Now I’m convinced the real rebellion isn’t restriction - it’s regulation. It’s listening to what my body’s trying to tell me and responding with something better than guilt.

Maybe I am getting old. Or maybe I’ve finally realised that no detox tea, macro split, or 30-day challenge can do what daily steadiness can. The science agrees - sustainable health isn’t built on extremes. It’s built on systems that work with your biology, not against it.

So I’m not dieting anymore. I’m designing my life (and my nervous system) to support the body I want to live in for decades to come.

If you’re curious about what that looks like in practice - the GLP-1 medication habits, the steady routines, and the evidence that underpins them - you can follow along and grab the same habit and tracker tools I use myself. Because lasting change isn’t about perfection; it’s about patterns.

And frankly, I’d rather spend the rest of my life living than ‘starting again on Monday’.

References

[^1] → Bray & Ryan, Nature Medicine (2022) → supports “obesity is a chronic, relapsing, multifactorial disease.”

[^2] → Mann et al., American Psychologist (2007) → backs up “around 80% of diets fail within a few years.”

[^3] → Wilding et al., NEJM STEP 1 trial → evidence for semaglutide effectiveness and the need for continued behaviour change.

[^4] → Jastreboff et al., NEJM SURPASS 2 trial → tirzepatide (Mounjaro) data showing strong results and rebound when lifestyle doesn’t change.

[^5], [^6], [^7] → the behavioural-science sources: BJ Fogg, James Clear, and Thaler & Sunstein, supporting the habits and systems discussion.

Further Reading

• NICE guidance: Obesity: identification, assessment and management (CG189) — updated 2023.

• NHS resources: “Understanding Obesity” and “GLP-1 receptor agonists for weight management.”

• Behavioural Insights Team: EAST Framework: Four Simple Ways to Apply Behavioural Insights.

• World Health Organization (WHO): Obesity and Overweight: Key Facts (2024).

• Nature Reviews Endocrinology (2023): Mechanisms of appetite regulation and implications for GLP-1 therapies.