How come diets don’t work
AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
The main reason diets don’t work is that your metabolism rate varies according to your food intake. If you normally eat 2,000 calories a day, your metabolism will adjust to that level and burn that amount of fuel. If you then reduce your calory intake to 1,000 calories a day, in the hope you will lose weight, then your metabolism will adjust to that and only burn 1,000 calories.
If you would like another helping of bad news, here is some extra. When you restrict your diet, either by the quantity or by eliminating or reducing some part of what you eat (such as low fat, low protein, low carbohydrate – all of which are dangerous to your health), then your body thinks that is a famine. It will respond to this by trying to store fat as a reserve in case the famine keeps going length of time. This means that your body is opposing your wishes and I hate to tell you the body will almost always win in the end!
But things get worse still! When you get sick of sticking to the restrictive diet and return to a regular eating, your body moves fast to restore any weight you did manage to lose. But the worse part is that it remembers that ‘famine’ and adds a few extra pounds to allow for the next one.
That doesn’t mean that you need not try to lose weight. It is very important that you do. Overweight people, and especially very obese people, have a whole range of health issues including high blood pressure, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, diabetes and much more. On top of that, you are denied some of the nicest things in life – you lose freedom of movement, and that in turn means you give up favorite activities like playing sport, horse riding, skiing, bus! hwalking, dancing, or what ever else you liked to do.
I must also tell you that the death toll by obese and overweight people is fast approaching cancer as the number one killer, especially in the USA. So if a traditional style diet doesn’t work, what will? Well you need to find a system or program that is not a diet in the normal sense. Most important, the system you choose must instil a TOTAL CHANGE OF LIFESTYLE.
It is obvious to almost everyone that most programs, especially the diet based ones, only offer a temporary fix, and this is the type of system to avoid, as these types of program will send your weight on the rollercoaster ride we have talked about earlier. You may think to have a look at the american heart association 3 day diet or the american heart association diet plan online or even ask how did mike huckabee lose weight?
Having said all that, if you can find a diet that is healthy and provides proper nutrition (like the raw food diet for example) and you have the will power and determination to stick to it forever, you will lose weight and keep it off, which is just great. I am sure you are aware that thousands have managed to do just this. Unfortunately very few of us have that level of discipline.
Maybe you, like me, lack that amount of discipline. So your task is find a program that offers a permanent life changing along with good nutrition that you know you can sustain permanently. If you can’t see how you can stay on a program for the rest of your life, then please forget about it, for they will hurt your pocket book and your health and your weight loss efforts too. Watch your weight loss eating habits and a vegetables healthy diet.
There is a new social site just launched si! milar in concept to facebook and My Face which is dedicated to weight loss. When you join this site, you will get a huge amount of encouragement, help, motivation and support. Meet other people on the site who have the same problem and the same goal as you who can become ‘buddies’ with you to encourage each other and do weight loss together. Go to www.weight-loss-neighbourhood.com and have a look.
July 01 2009 06:45 am | Weight Loss