Why Diets Keep Failing: The Hidden Food Stories Behind the Weight Loss Cycle

Every diet begins with hope. A new plan, a fresh start, the belief that this time will finally be different.

But for most women, especially those navigating perimenopause, that hope is short-lived.

Why Francine's diets keep failing

Francine’s story is not unusual. At nearly fifty, she had spent decades cycling through diets: shakes, calorie-controlled deliveries, fasting. Each promised results but ended in disappointment. After yet another attempt, she found herself heavier than when she started, exhausted, and exhausted by the thought of starting again.

Willpower wasn't her problem

Why did her diets keep failing. The problem wasn’t willpower. It wasn’t even the diet. It was her invisible eating system that had shaped her relationship with food since childhood. For her, food meant love and belonging. Sweet treats were how her parent’s showed affection, and family meals became her own way of keeping that tradition alive. So, when a diet stripped away those foods, it stripped away comfort, connection, and joy. No wonder she couldn’t stick with a diet.

Every woman has a unique eating system. For one, food may equal safety. For another’s, it might be reward, control, or escape. These systems are as individual as fingerprints and no one-size-fits-all diet can override them.

That’s why dieting feels like running in circles. They keep covering all the same old ground without ever touching the root cause. Until you uncover your own food story, the cycle of diet, hope and abandonment, will keep repeating.

The solution to why diets failed her

Francine’s turning point came when she realised the cost of holding on to her food story. If food equals love and belonging, what message was she passing to her children? That question gave her the power to see solutions beyond dieting.

Your food story matters. The first step is not another diet. It’s finding out more about yourself, your relationship with food and the place where it lives in your life.

Start with these two questions to begin understanding your personal food story.

1. What is my earliest memory of comfort food?

2. How has food and eating shaped the course of my life?

Diets can help, once you know what your food story is solving.

👉 Listen to the full episode of Before Dieting to hear Francine’s story and start uncovering your own.