How many times in your life have you started a diet? If you are like most people, you have probably done so, a lot more than just once. Sadly, I’ll bet that if you lost some weight—none of it stayed off for long.
I will tell you a secret—most diets don’t work, or if they do, the results are not sustainable.
There is a good reason for why this happens. If you want to lose weight, you have to do it the right way. And. I will tell you right now that skipping meals or following extremely low-calorie diets is not in any way, shape, or form the answer for losing weight. Extreme calorie deprivation only sets you up for yo-yo dieting, or “weight cycling.” If you diet this way—your weight will continue to go up and down for the rest of your life. If you want to lose weight permanently, in a healthy way, read on.
The lack of understanding about the right way to lose weight naturally can set people up for big-time failure. Even if you do have initial success on one of these extreme diets, the toll it takes on your body is not worth it. Extreme diets that promise big weight loss in a short amount of time, merely cut out macronutrients like carbs and fats, and this is horrible for your hormone balance and your metabolism.
Do you actually know why are you in this pattern of dieting, and then slipping up and binging, and then dieting with simple minded, single variable ideas again?
Let’s use this example:
You want to lose weight for a special occasion, and figure that eating 800 calories a day, for a few weeks will give you results you want.
Many people do this, and truthfully—the method works, as a short-term tactic. However, it is not healthy or sustainable.
The problem is that while you are focusing on starving and fitting into that dress, or tux, you are not thinking about what eating this way is doing to your health, or what will happen once you go back to having a normal eating pattern.
Here is what happened to your body, while you took in very few calories:
You most likely took in so few nutrients that you compromised your own immune system, and actually threw your body so far out of balance depleting your body that the minute your pattern of eating changes, you will have an inverse reaction of the same magnitude. This is yo yo dieting.
Here is what happened next:
When you inevitably started gaining back weight, you started the yo-yo dieting cycle all over again. And, it gets more and more frustrating every time you do it.
Solution:
It’s time to end this vicious cycle of yo yo dieting once and for all! The way to do this is to get rid of the “dieting” mentality altogether. Remember, how I told you at the beginning of this article that dieting with simple minded single variables alone like just giving up meat, cutting carbs, eating more protein, cutting out gluten, eating less, etc, all of which may have value, but by themselves are not a healthy eating style, never work for long?
Now it’s time to start learning about eating nutrient rich.
Instead of dieting, dig deeper and make what seems harder but is actually easier and that is, a lifestyle change; a wholehearted decision to begin making the switch to nutrient rich eating, By shifting your thinking from merely “cutting back” to eating large or appropriate portions of the right nutrient rich superfoods—greens, vegetables, fruits, berries, beans and legumes, nuts and seeds and whole grains.
These types of whole, nutritious foods will repair, nourish, and support every cell in your body, so it will work for you and not against you. Be good to your body and it will be good to you!