People who limit the types of foods they can eat end up eating significantly more than those who don’t.

Quick, try not to think of a pink elephant. What do you think of? A pink elephant of course. That’s what it’s like going on a diet. Simply planning to go on a diet can trigger overeating. Research has found that people who limit the types of foods they can eat end up eating significantly more food than those people who don’t.

As soon as you are told you can’t eat something, you want it all the more. When people are told they can’t have a food it often increases their preference for it. It doesn’t matter if it’s you or someone else telling you that you can’t have a food. This seems a little odd, but people don’t like being told what to do, even when they are doing the telling.

Restrict yourself from a food and you start thinking about it. You start craving it. And the cravings eventually become strong enough you fall of your diet. You might find yourself throwing up your hands and saying to yourself “I’ll eventually break my diet anyway, so I should just enjoy myself and pig out.”

To make the situation worse, when people go on a diet they usually plan their meals around a small selection of boring foods.  This triggers cravings. A monotonous diet has been shown to lead to large increases in the number of food cravings. And once you experience cravings the same cycle we talked about previously happens and you fall of your diet.

The craving for food is no joke. These are the same cravings people have for drugs and they are extremely powerful causes of relapse in drug addicts. When you crave food and fall off your diet it’s like a drug addict relapsing and going back to drug use.