Why “Eat Less, Move More” Is Terrible Advice

So I am sure you have heard it a thousand times. To lose weight and shape up, all you have to do is eat less and move more. And it is hard to argue with, at least at face value.

But this advice is about as useful as…

· Telling a business owner that to be successful, all they have to do is make more money than they spend…

· Telling someone who is depressed to cheer up and focus on the positive; · Telling someone who is anxious to stop worrying and chill out!

Although the advice is well-meaning, it does fall short. You see, most of the time, we know what to do, yet we struggle to do it consistently enough to make a difference. The problem isn’t a lack of information; it is a lack of application (generally caused by too much confusing and conflicting information!). We know that eating a doughnut isn’t going to help us be healthy, yet we still do it because we do it to create a feeling—one that makes us feel different and satisfies a need. So we know eating a doughnut won’t help us be healthy, but at that moment, our immediate priority is something other than losing weight and changing our habits. Our needs are based on the here and now and how we can feel good right now. Deep down, there is a more pressing need that isn’t being met. The need to feel safe and content.

Most of us live busy, hectic, and stressful lives, and through a lifetime of conditioning, we have associated sugar, alcohol, and carbohydrates with feelings of pleasure. We’shortcut’ these associations in our brain, and they become the “go-to” remedy to solve stress and insecurities.

Overeating, comfort eating and inactivity all become strategies for creating a feeling of security and safety. We often have had pain, threat and stress all day at work so the last thing we want to do is to volunteer more pain and more stress in our free time through restrictive diets and tough, painful exercise sessions that we don’t really enjoy.

Our brains are primed to avoid pain and move towards pleasure. So if someone has a really chilled lifestyle with no stress and no worries, it is not such a big deal to be uncomfortable for 30 minutes to go for a run. If, however, someone else is uncomfortable all day because they are in a job they hate with a horrible boss, struggle to pay the bills, and have stressful relationships with family and friends, adding to this with yet more pain and hardship becomes too much.

So you don’t want to exercise because you don’t have the energy. You don’t have the energy because you haven’t eaten well. You haven’t eaten well because you haven’t had the time to plan ahead. You didn’t plan ahead because you were too tired from struggling to sleep the night before. You couldn’t sleep because you were too busy stressing about work. You stress about work because you struggle with the confidence to say “no” and end up taking on too much.

Until you work on the reason why you can’t say no and find ways to build your confidence and self-esteem, advice like eating less and moving more will always fall on deaf ears because the real issue has nothing to do with food or exercise. It has to do with not having the confidence to do the things that make you happy because you are always trying to please other people.

So yes, “eat less, move more” is useful when things are good. But until we deal with the deeper issues around why we are unhappy, why we cannot sleep at night, and finally start living a life that we love by doing the things we love, we are likely to remain stuck and frustrated by this overly simplistic advice. So rather than eat less, eat better—eat real food packed with taste and nutrition. Rather than move more, move in ways that you enjoy and look forward to.

Above all, look at the bigger picture—think about doing less but doing it better. Raise the quality and reduce the quantity so that you do less and get more. Look, this is a big problem and one that is really, really common, but you know what? It doesn’t have to be that way.