Diets: Why Diets Don't Work? What is Dieting? |
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Restriction of food intake for losing or maintaining weight is what is loosely called dieting. It has become the path that millions of people all over the world are taking. This they are doing to achieve the perfect (as per their own perception) body shape and size. What Most Diets Do? Regardless of individual tastes about food, diets tell us what and how much we should (and shouldn’t) eat. Dieting will result in loss of body weight including fat, muscle and water in the short term. You should not practice such a dieting because it is unnatural. This type of weight loss is different from fat loss and is difficult to sustain for a long time. Unhealthy Diet Programs There are fewer weight loss programs which teach us how to select healthy and low fat food, low fat cooking etc. There are numerous weight loss programs on the net offering us unrealistic and life-threatening recommendations. They do not teach the users effective and safe ways to lose FAT. Their methods do not take into account our cravings, desires and the complex nature of hunger and satiety. Eventually, due to the inherent fault in such weight loss programs we get fed up of :
As a result, we throw the diet program into dust bin with anger and contempt and begin to binge, and in a very short time gain more weight than was lost. The sad part being this time that the weight gain is more of a fat gain in place of lost muscle! The Alarm and the frustration After a while our physician alarms us about the gained weight and the associated medical parameters like lipid profile, hypertension, BMI etc, etc. We wake up to this alarm and start another new diet program. As we switch from one unhealthy weight loss diet program to another, we are not only becoming more and more unhealthy, but it is becoming more and more difficult for us to lose fat. Ultimately frustration takes over and we end up blaming ourselves or our genetic make up. True, genetic make up makes fat loss difficult, but not in all cases. In most cases the main factor responsible for the failure of fat loss is lack of scientific foundation and lack of sustainable practical approach inherent in such unhealthy dieting programs. The Yo-Yo Cycle By accepting the unhealthy and impractical diets, we are thrown in a vicious cycle of fat gain and weight loss. This is the infamous “yo-yo cycle”. Yo-yo ccle begins with distorted image of the body. We disrespect what nature has gifted us and try to imitate celebrities. In doing so we ignore body’s signal of natural hunger and satiety. We ignore being psychologically and physically satisfied. Our eating pattern becomes artificial and mechanical rather than natural. Healthy and Unhealthy Calories What most diet programs are offering you is cut in calories irrespective of the source of the calories. This is the basic fault of such diet programs. You should know that all calories are not the same! 300 calories coming from the whites of eggs or soy (soya) are not the same as 300 calories coming from a pizza or burger. The former calories give you nutrition while the latter give you fat deposited on your body. The Difference Between Fat Loss and Muscle Loss The indiscriminate and drastic cut in calories without heeding nutritional needs of the body results in muscle loss rather than fat loss. Because, when you consume fewer calories than necessary to maintain body’s activities for survival and health, you lose muscle along with fat! To save yourself from fad diets, unhealthy and unscientific diet programs please read what is the CDBD (Calorie Deficit Balanced Diet)
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