Ditch the diet and do something different

MOVE over Weightwatchers, Rosemary Conley, Atkins and the F-Plan diet. Psychologists have some great news for everyone who has been struggling in vain for years to lose weight.

The best way to shed the pounds, it seems, is by not going on a diet.

Hertfordshire psychologist Professor Ben Fletcher announced his revolutionary new 'no diet' diet at a British Psychological Society conference this week. All it involves is changing your daily habits and routines by 'doing something different' each day. It doesn't require willpower, and it doesn't even need you to worry directly about your diet or exercise levels at all.

Best of all, for those who have spent years of misery denying themselves the foods they love and existing on watery cabbage soup in a vain attempt to regain the shape they had as a teenager, it does seem to work.

For 55 volunteers who took part in a programme devised by psychologists at the University of Hertfordshire, the average weight loss at the end of four months was 11lbs.

Some people had lost as much as 40lbs by the end of the first year - and it made no difference whether the participants were on a diet or not. The only thing that influenced how much weight they lost was how good they were at breaking their routines and "doing something different" each day.

So how does it work? It's all about breaking bad habits, the prof says. We all slip into such habits and we become trapped when habit dictates what we eat and what we do.

By "doing something different" every day - choosing something different for lunch, for example, travelling to work in another way or doing something out of the ordinary at the weekend - you can break up your daily habits and routines and find yourself living more healthily almost without noticing it.

You will lose weight, Prof Fletcher says, and you will keep the pounds off.

"With an ordinary diet, you might lose weight by eating less for a few weeks, but that's no solution because you haven't fundamentally altered the core behaviour, your food habit," he said.

People who lose pounds on an ordinary diet often put the weight back on once they come off the diet. Many of those on the trial, by contrast, had kept the weight off up to a year later.

"There's no magic in it," Prof Fletcher said.

"It is because you are breaking the constraints which have kept you doing the same things you have always been doing, which is the reason some people are overweight. You're the fly caught in the web of habit and you need to break those chains. The more you can increase your behavioural flexibility and the more you can increase the range of your behaviour, the better."

It may sound simple, but it makes a lot of sense.

Clive Gott certainly thinks so. "It seems to be absolutely the thing that people have been waiting for, absolutely fantastic," says the Tadcaster-based motivational speaker.

Clive was an outspoken critic of the TV series Fat Club, which followed the struggles of people to lose weight through a strict low-fat eating and exercise regime: everything Prof Fletcher believes to be wrong.

"And I have to agree with him," says Clive.

"It is all about doing something different every day. Even something as simple as brushing your teeth with the opposite hand in the morning will mean you start the day completely differently. A bit of exercise one day, missing out on a meal another day, or eating something different - it is the way to do it."

June Shutt is equally enthusiastic. For 27 years, the Harrogate grandmother tried one quack diet after another, desperate to lose weight. None of them worked.

Even when she did manage to shed a few pounds, she soon put them back on.

The 60-year-old reckons she spent a fortune on diets until finally giving up, and reluctantly accepting herself as she was - a size 20-22 and a good "four stone overweight", in her words.

Part of her problem, she concedes, is that she's "not very strong-willed". She even tried Slimfast once but "didn't have the willpower to stick to it. It didn't fill me up at all, so as well as having the milk shake drink I was eating a meal as well".

But Prof Fletcher's recipe for losing weight sounds entirely sensible, she says. "Your life does become a routine. You get up and you do the same old things - and yes, the food you eat is part of that. I agree with him wholeheartedly."

So might she try it herself? She already has unconsciously been putting something like it into practice for several months, she says triumphantly.

"I have broken out of my old habits by joining a gym," she says. "I go two or three times a week instead of just slobbing in front of the TV. And I am now losing weight."

Half a stone so far, since May - which may not seem a huge amount, but is real, steady progress.

It helps, she thinks, that as well as taking more exercise she has also sought advice on what she eats. It's part of wanting value for money, she jokes. "I'm tight, and I think there's no point paying out all this money for the gym for nothing."

York GP Sarah Bottom says she is not surprised that Prof Fletcher's method for losing weight should work.

People who follow the method "are doing something positive for themselves", she says. "It stops you being a victim and puts you back in control. It shows that you don't have to do something negative, which is what a diet is. A diet is about not having something you enjoy, which is a real penance."

There is nothing fundamentally new about Prof Fletcher's method, however, she says. GPs and other health workers have been trying to hammer home the message about a varied, healthy diet and the benefits of exercise for years.

But if 'doing something different' every day can help us alter our mindset and break out of the ruts we are in, it could be good for all of us, whether we're overweight or not.

Now, where can I get a left-handed toothbrush?

How the no-diet diet works

THE method is based on Professor Fletcher's habit-breaking FIT (Framework for Internal Transformation) science. It involves making regular small changes to your routine so that you don't just settle down into the same sluggish habits.

The idea is to develop more flexibility in the range of your behaviour. It does not require willpower, or a particular focus on what you eat or the exercise you take: simply that you 'do something different' every day and so break your usual habits.

Fifty five people, many of whom had tried diets before, took part in controlled trials over a four-week period. All followed the 'do something different' programme. Half were also on a diet, while half were not.

All lost weight, but the amount of weight lost bore no relation to whether participants were on a diet or not.

Instead, the more successful participants were at 'doing something different' each day to break their usual habits, the more weight they lost. Average weight loss was 11lbs after four weeks, and some people lost 40lbs by the end of the year. Many had kept the weight they lost off up to a year later.

Updated: 11:00 Friday, September 10, 2004