Discarded Diet Books

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Kay Williams, One of Thousands of Health and Fitness Coaches on Noomii.

Several days ago I was waiting for a friend at a local bookstore/coffee shop. Before she arrived I looked through the used books, and in particular, the holistic health section.

There were shelves and shelves of used volumes and most were about dieting. Since I am studying holistic health, I can safely say that there are many more facets to this subject than just dieting. However, that’s where many people are looking to make change and make it fast.

It seems that there are new diet books out every day. Someone always has a new miracle formula to help you take off weight faster and easier than ever before. They would have you believe that their system is the holy grail that you have been searching for. Everyone who has ever tried a diet and failed at it, or had only temporary success, is vulnerable to each new claim of a sure-fire way to finally take off those extra pounds.

I began thinking about all those used diet books and wondered why the original purchasers had given them up. If a book really resonates with you and you get results from reading it you would keep it, right? The discarded books might have had some good information but the readers didn’t find it valuable enough to keep the book.

Why are all these books, claiming to have real answers to your real problems, ending up at the used book store?

There are several answers to this question.

Number 1 is that people want an instant fix and there just isn’t one. We all know we are living in a society that has come to expect instant everything. From the speed of our computers, to the length of time to get a loan approval, to the speed at which we feel our food should be ready to eat, we want it now.

Number 2 is that no one diet or eating plan works for everyone. People who read a book and follow it, believing that it will solve their problems because it solved someone else’s are often disappointed. There are many ways to eat and it takes some time and experimentation to find what is right for you and what your own bio-individuality looks like.

Number 3 is that reading the book does not mean the reader has assimilated the new information into their experience. If you think about all the books, articles, newsletters and other pieces of information most of us have read and listened to in the last year, it’s only a very small percentage that we allow to become part of our experience and change us in some way. It is simply not feasible that everything that is read will work it’s way deeply into our life.

Number 4 (and this may be the biggest) is that advertising works! No matter how the owners of the discarded diet books discovered them in the first place, it’s likely that advertising somehow hooked them. Pretty people on glossy book covers draw us in because we have that hope (albeit subconscious) that we will look like the pretty person on the cover if we read the book.

If the answer to health concerns and weight loss was in reading a book, there would be many more people who have it totally together and far fewer diet books on the used bookstore shelves. There is no lack of information. There is rarely anything authentically new out there. Most things are just tweaked and repackaged.

So what’s a person to do if they find themselves looking for what will work for them and they still haven’t found the magic formula? Well, you can certainly keep reading diet books and hope one resonates with you.

Another answer is to get support and accountability! Whether the support you find is from a trusted friend or a professional, it makes all the difference when you are looking to make sustainable change for lasting results!

Remember, the subject of holistic health is about the whole person, not just about how much one weighs.