Everyone wants to change something about their look; whether it’s a despised nose, an ugly smile, or wrinkled skin. But the biggest thing that people want to change is their weight. Dieting seems to be the obvious weight loss method, but in general a whopping 95% of diets fail in the long run – many even turn to procedures like weight loss surgery. Why is this?
Diets are Short Term
The positive energy we have at the start of a diet will sustain us for a few days, usually a couple of weeks at most, but eventually banning ourselves completely from eating our favourite foods will wear us down and usually ends with a binge upon on the tasty, sugary restricted foods.
The best way of avoiding this is simply not to diet! Big changes are harder to maintain and diet changes are often drastic. Making small changes, one at a time and gradually building up to a new lifestyle is less sudden and will lead to more attainable goals. Think of the process most smokers go through when quitting. Most people reduce what they smoke before quitting completely, as going “cold turkey” is a guaranteed way to fail in both your smoking and diet aspirations. Healthy eating coupled with exercise are the best ways to lose weight and always remembered to reward yourself with something sweet every now and again, so no food becomes a tempting taboo.
Diets Don’t Work Over Night
We live in a world where anything you want is at your fingertips and can be obtained in a matter of days. As such it is quite common to go into dieting with this same mindset, especially when weight loss shows on TV show people losing large amounts of weight in a week.
In actually the maximum amount of weight you should aim to lose is roughly one to two pounds a week, so your weight loss is healthy, rather than drastic. This rate can alter from person to person however, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t lose much in a week and remember that losing weight is a long-term change of lifestyle, not a quick fix.
Slow Metabolism
Blaming a slow metabolism is an excuse many of us use (me included!) when a diet is not going to plan, or we put on weight after a diet. Your metabolism can slow down if you regularly try to diet but then give up within a few days or weeks. Your body becomes used to these short “famines” when your calorie intake shortens for a small amount of time and has learnt to use as few calories as possible while resting and store as many as possible after eating, to stock up when “famine” diets come along again. This erratic change in diet therefore adds to your body’s ability to retain weight and is a bad idea for anyone looking to lose weight permanently.
The best way to encourage healthy weight loss is to exercise while dieting. Fat will be burned rather than muscle mass, aiding your weight loss goals.
