Diets are often experienced as excruciating and when the diet state is over, maintenance is experienced as excruciating too. Eating is a primary passion for some people, and strenuous exercise is the antithesis of passion for many. Sometimes the dream of achieved long term goal weights enables people to endure such passion reduction, but diet abandonment after several weeks is the typical scenario. This dismal track record for standard diet programs speaks to the need for an approach to diet which focuses primarily on lifestyle enhancement, not lifestyle truncation. A harm reduction approach to overeating would uphold as the most desirable change goal is the attainment of, or the return to, a normal weight and normal patterns of eating.
Overweight people are sometimes socially unskilled, depressed or isolated.
Using goal weights as the sole criteria for improvement is myopic. This approach leads to empowerment which can fuel further efforts toward weight reduction. Be prepared, as this approach can have some funny outcomes. Some overweight individuals who are able to make their lives more passionate, while only losing a minimal amount of weight often opt for maintenance, as more stringent reduction decreases the quality of life. Passionate lifestyles, people sometimes find, come in all shapes and sizes.