According to the Centers for Disease Control, 62% of American adults are overweight or obese.
Dieting has been around for decades and every few years a new diet fad comes into play, which claims it can help you lose x amount of weight within weeks. But why do these diets never seem to work in the long term?
Discover why losing weight with diet alone doesn’t work and what you need to do to promote a healthier lifestyle.
Why Losing Weight With Diet Alone Doesn’t Work?
Everybody wonders “how do I lose weight faster?” And that’s where the problem lies.
Losing weight isn’t about speed. Losing weight is about implementing healthier choices into your lifestyle. Slowly.
Diets Are Temporary
When you start a new diet and begin a new weight loss journey, your body will lose weight, because you are on a temporary new food plan. Which is great right?
Wrong! Once you stop the diet, you are likely to regain the weight you lost. After the diet, you might even gain more weight.
Diets Are Restricting
If you restrict your body of essential foods during your diet, you might actually slow down how fast you burn weight. This is because your body goes into starvation mode, which slows down your metabolism.
Diets are also restricting in that there is a group of foods that you are allowed to eat and a group of foods that you aren’t allowed to eat. I don’t know about you but, whenever I tell myself I can’t have something I want it more.
Having a restricting diet is setting yourself up for failure. The more you say you can’t have something, the more your body will crave it.
Dieting Alone
Do diets work? Dieting alone does not work, you need to exercise alongside dieting. To effectively lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume.
Exercising plays a crucial role in dieting. Don’t trust diet fads and pills that aren’t scientifically proven to help you lose weight; there isn’t a miracle cure. You need to put in the hard work.
There are many reasons why diets don’t work. But don’t lose hope just yet. There are a number of things you can do to help you lose weight.
Why Diets Don’t Work and What You Can Do
Diets don’t work because they are unhealthy. Restricting your body of calories is not the way to go. Diets damage the way you view yourself and your health. Instead what you need to do is:
- Create a healthy eating plan, something that you can stick to (find foods that are good for you that you like and enjoy eating).
- Start exercising more. Go slowly to begin with – try walking more and then try running. Or if you love doing a certain sport, find a local team.
- Diets don’t work, treat yourself every once in a while – weekly treats are fine! If you have a favorite food such as chocolate, allow yourself to eat it once a week.
Remember that this is a lifestyle change. Which means you can’t create big changes immediately. This will all take time, so be patient and gradually you’ll become healthier and happier.
Ditch the Diet
Ditch the dieting now to create a life-long change. Treat your body with the respect it deserves by making small lifestyle changes. And remember, losing weight is all about exercising more and listening to your body.
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