While most nutritionists feel that diets are not worth the paper that they are written on, Americans will still spend billions of dollars on them this year. The reality is that the statistics are not in your favor. It is estimated that at any given time between 15 to 35 of people are dieting, going to the spa or involved in some type of weight loss program. The fact is that 90 to 95 of these people will fail to loose weight and keep it off. Nutritionists realize the key to a successful weight loss program is to adopt a sound eating plan that you can stick with over a lifetime and not going for the next quick fix option that you see advertised. Below we have listed the 5 top reasons why diets fail to help you be in the minority of people that are successful.
#1 DIETS DO NOT LAST. THEY ARE ONLY TEMPORARY FIXES
Diets do not have a long term horizon. They fail because they are short term fixes. Maybe you decide to loose a few pounds so you can get into that dress for an upcoming wedding that you are attending and find that you gain the weight back over a short time period. This is because your original mindset was short term not long term. You want to use your diet to discover new foods that you do not usually eat that can be incorporated into your everyday lifestyle. Deciding that at 9:00 AM Monday morning you are going to change all the things that you are doing wrong is probably not a sustainable goal and does not address the underlying problem of lifestyle. A good rule of thumb is that small changes will last for a long time while large changes do not. Changing a lifetime of behavior is a slow steady process.
#2 WE TEND TO BINGE EAT BECAUSE DIETS MAKE YOU HUNGRY
Diets treat fat loss as a function of nutrition only. The weight loss occurs if you are running at a calorie deficit meaning that you are burning more calories than you are consuming. This is where exercise comes in. During exercise the calories that you burn along with the added metabolism from muscle growth will shift your body into fat burning mode without making you hungry. Because you are going without the foods you enjoy diets also encourage binge eating. The best solution to this is to have a treat once in a while as long as you are being honest with yourself as to portion size.
#3 DIETS SLOW YOUR METABOLISM
When people diet they tend to loose and gain weight. This will cause your body to adjust in order to become more efficient. The result of this is that when you are at rest your body will use fewer calories and when you overeat it will store as much fat as possible. This is because your body is anticipating the next “famine” and it makes it harder for you to loose weight and keep it off.
You can see this in the results of exercising. Most diets have you on such a low caloric intake that you have enough energy to complete your normal daily activities and little left for the exercise portion of your program. This is the point when exercise actually decreases muscle mass and slows your metabolism, the result of this is that you do not burn as many calories.
#4 PEOPLE BECOME IMPATIENT WITH THEIR DIETS
You just saw an advertisement telling you that someone lost 30 pounds in a month on a particular diet. Knowing that summer is coming and you want to look good in that bikini you decide that you too want to loose the weight. The problem is that it is already April. This is obviously an unrealistic plan. When you start out with an unrealistic plan you will become discouraged in a few short weeks because you are not making the progress that you had anticipated. You need to sit down and remind yourself that you did not put on those extra pounds over a month or two and it is probably going to take a while to take it off. It is a fact that people who loose weight slowly have a much better chance of keeping it off.
#5 DIETERS SOMETIMES HAVE AN ALL OR NOTHING MENTALITY
You wake up one day and decide that you are going to have that chocolate bar today that you have been craving. Then at lunch you feel that because you already ate something of your diet why not wash it down with a few slices of pizza that you have been dreaming about for the last couple of nights and before you know it you are off your diet. You need to realize that one bad day does not have to turn into a bad week or month. Start to focus on the good food choices that you have made and incorporate them into your lifestyle.
Author Resource:
John Bradstreet is a nutritional biochemist. He has extensive knowledge and expertise in the area of nutritional supplementation. To learn more about this topic visit http://worldvitaminsonline.com/healthyweightformula90tablets.aspx Or subscribe to our blog at http://worldvitaminsonline.blogspot.com/
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