2 Reasons Why Low Calorie Diets Fail To Work
March 27, 2009 by admin
Filed under Weight Loss
2 Reasons Why Low Calorie Diets Fail To Work
Planning on choosing a low calorie diet to lose weight? Consider this before you try:
Many people have emailed me saying that they’ve been following the latest low calorie plan now for a few weeks, but they haven’t lost as much weight as they wanted to. Worse yet the weight loss seems to have stopped and it’s so difficult to follow that their considering quiting the diet.
One reason why the low calorie diet seems destined to failure is that by cutting calories you’re also cutting back on the body’s fuel supply. The body then signals the brain that you’re not getting enough food so it better slow down it’s metabolism to compensate, thus slowing your body’s fat burning process. Energy levels also decline and along with it the desire to do any physical activities such as exercise.
To be successfully lose any weight you’ll need to keep several things in mind.
1. Calories isn’t the enemy if it’s used to supply the body with fuel for energy. But there’s a whole lot of difference in the kind of calories that you choose to eat. If you eat healthy nutritious well balanced meals your body will have the right fuel needed to keep metabolism and energy levels up. However, if you stuff yourself with fast food burgers it’s much more likely to be stored as fat, making you sluggish and robbing you of energy. There’s a whole lot of difference in 2000 calories empty calorie junk food verses 2000 calories in wholesome nutritious foods.
2.Consider strength training. Muscle burns more fat then just normal tissue. When you cut back on calories the body tends to lose muscle as well. Making sure you eat enough protein is one way to combat this. But, lean muscle also enhances the fat burning process. Strength also tends to keep the metabolism higher which helps fat burning.
Most low calorie diets will also give you the false impression of weight loss early in the diet by helping to get rid of any excess water and not by getting rid of fat. Carbohydrates store more water so having less of them by eating a low calorie diet will mean less water weight as well.
