My Big Fat Diet Show is Channel 4’s latest offering and I have to say that, rather than annoy my partner by shouting at the TV, I did just switch it off after about ten minutes. But ten minutes was more than enough.

The show is described by the programme-makers as an “interactive diet along” hosted by Supersize versus Superskinny presenter and “serial dieter” Anna Richardson.

Well, that’s a good start then, isn’t it. Someone who describes themselves as ‘a serial dieter’ surely isn’t the best person to show people how to be the weight and shape they want to be permanently? Or am I missing something?

There’s more. Richardson is accompanied by six “diet divas”, a group of women who will be dieting along with her.

So, hey, now you can be a diva of the diet, girls. Whoo-hoo. What fun. Let’s all go on one together. It’lll be such fun. (Sorry. I will do my best to keep my sarcasm at bay.)

Over the next two weeks, these women will ‘try to drop a dress size’ (don’t even get me started on ‘trying’ to do something versus just doing it) and, by eating a 1200-calories-a-day diet, they will lose weight. At the end of the two weeks, they will introduce more calories. It’s safe, easy and it’s a great TV show. Ta-da.

Over at Channel 4’s promotional web site for the programme Anna Richardson tells us more about why she describes herself as a ’serial dieter:’
She says:

‘I’ve just done three series of Supersize vs Superskinny, and in series one, my job was to investigate and immerse myself in the world of extreme diets. So I started off that series back in 2007 at 11 and a half stone. Every week for eight weeks, I had to try a different approach. So week one, I had to try the apple diet, week two I tried diet pills, week three I tried surgery. I tried everything going. Over the course of about a year and a half, I successfully lost two stone. I have, over the years, tried every single diet going, and for the first time in 20 years, I have found my own way of eating, that has made me really quite a successful dieter.’

Now, pardon me, but if I am not mistaken, in the course of her investigations for Supersize, Richardson discovered that hypnotherapy was actually the single most helpful method that she used to change her eating habits. Oh, yes, here is my article on that very programme, right here.

Because in that programme, which aired in February 2008, Richardson worked with London-based hypnotherapist, Marisa Peer, to get some marvellous results. In fact, so highly did she recommend hypnotherapy as a means of letting go of unhelpful habits and emotions around food and eating that I had a deluge of phone calls after the programme aired.

So why, now, is Channel 4 churning out the same old boring nonsense about diets – when, in fact, we know from its very own programming that diets are not an effective way of losing wieght and that making changes to the way you think about food and practising, every day, a mindset of healthful eating is the very best way to help people to feel and look good? It seems cynical in the extreme.

Here are Anna’s final words on the subject, again from the programme web site:

‘But 1200 calories doesn’t sound like much. It’s okay to do that for two weeks?’

‘Yes, it’s absolutely safe to do that for two weeks. It’s meant to be a kick-start. You can safely lose a few pounds in that time. After that, yes, of course you increase your calories, but you do it in a healthy way.’

Ahem. Excuse me?

The thing that most people I work with know how to do is to go on a diet for a couple of weeks/months/years and then come off the diet and struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. Of course, you will lose weight if you follow a very rigid restricted eating plan and do some exercise, but few people can hope to maintain that plan for very long. And it’s certainly not a very healthy or enjoyable thing to be doing with your precious life.

Why not give people some information they don’t yet know? Why not give them something new? Why not give people the benefits of your own investigations into healthy ways to lose weight by working with a hypnotherapist to help people to understand how to get a powerfully healthy, happy, focused mindset, Channel 4?

Grrrr…

My advice: forget ‘diet-along.’ Instead, follow the celebs, who seem to have discovered what really works. Follow the example of Lily Allen and Sophie Dahl and work with an experienced hypnotherapist to make some permanent changes, healthy changes that you can maintain and enjoy.

If you want to drop a dress size, start with dropping the diet mentality and get yourself a new way of thinking.