WHY TYPICAL DIETS FAIL
By Noelle Walker at New Fitness Personal Training
The claims sure are enticing. Lose twenty pounds in a week. Get the body of your
dreams before beach season. Be the envy of all your friends. And just to show you that
they’re serious, all the information is presented by a human Barbie doll. It’s gotta work, right? Though popular diets come and go quicker than the turning of seasons, people are still pulled in like moths to a flame. Despite what the best-selling books and peppy
infomercials will tell you, there is no magic formula to getting the body of your dreams.
I agree that weight loss can be an overwhelming task, which only makes the
popular diet programs that promise easy weight loss more tempting. The sad truth is that most often these fad diets result in regained pounds and in additional weight gained.What does it take to achieve real weight loss that is safe and permanent? It takes two important things:
1) Creating healthy eating habits
2) Exercising as a lifestyle
Unfortunately the popular diets do not address these two steps to permanent weight loss.
THE DIET DO'S
There are ways to ensure you are successful with your diet. These diet do’s are all things you should be thinking about and incorporating so that you can finally be successful in your weight loss journey. These diet do’s are:
Be Realistic. Look, I know you’d love to lose twenty pounds in a week, but that just isn’t realistic. Safe weight loss is at the rate of no more than two pounds each week. Weight loss that is faster than that will cause your metabolism to slow, which makes it easier for you to regain the weight after you return to your normal eating pattern.
Incorporate An Exercise Plan. Sure, the idea of losing weight without breaking a sweat is appealing—but truly permanent weight loss will not happen without exercise. Think of it this way: to lose weight most effectively you burn it off rather than starve it off.
Eat Whole Natural Foods.Diet plan that encourage eating natural whole foods are on the right track. Nothing is better for your body than what nature provides. You didn’t gain the weight by eating too many carrot sticks, right? Weight is put on by eating processed and refined foods, so it makes sense that nature’s food will help you lose weight.
Change For Life. If you are dabbling with a diet plan that has a set end date, you’re in trouble. To make weight loss permanent, changes must be made for
life and not just for a few weeks. Remember that you are changing your shape
and your life permanently, so your diet must follow this model.
THE DIET DON'TS
Just like there are diet do’s, there are also diet don’ts. Unfortunately this is more common and more people are doing these diet don’ts. Don’t be one of the those people. If you avoid these don’ts, you are well on your way to weight loss success! These are the diet don’ts:
Don’t Purchase Special Products. There are no chemically enhanced food items or gimmicks needed for weight loss. Simply eat a balance of vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, fruits and low fat dairy products. Any program that expects you to give up healthy whole foods in exchange for manufactured ‘diet’ products simply will not work.
Don’t Eliminate Food Groups. Any program that wants you to eliminate healthy food from your diet will set you up for failure and even risk your health. Your body requires an array of healthy foods; eliminating food groups causes you to lose out on nutrients that you need.
Don’t Include A Strict Plan. Come on, we are humans, not robots. Who can really stick with a drastic diet schedule? If a program cannot be customized to fit your personal likes and dislikes as well as your schedule then you won’t stick with it.
EASE INTO DIETING
You may be tempted to go gung ho into your new diet program because you want
to lose a certain amount of weight fast. But depending on how much weight you have to lose, you may not need to make as drastic a cut as you think you do.
Start out small. Whether you’re counting calories, carbohydrates, or fats, reduce
your daily intake by no more than one third what you were eating on a normal day before you started dieting. For instance, if you were eating 3000 cal per day, reduce your calorie intake by 1000 cal per day to start off your diet program. Once your body gets used to the new amount of calories you are eating, you can further reduce your calories, if necessary. You may find that you won’t have to reduce your calories much more as even a 30% drop in calories can be enough to kick start weight loss.
The good thing about easing into dieting is that it won’t feel like extreme lifestyle
change. You may still be able to treat yourself with the occasional snack or treat and still remain within your calorie guidelines.
While you may want to lose weight fast, you need to remember that that weight
you want to lose didn’t appear overnight. It’s not going to disappear overnight either.
Easing into dieting can be a better way to ensure long-term diet success.
There you have it, the real reason that popular diets fail. Take the time to incorporate this information into your daily lifestyle, and you will be pleasantly surprised with your results! Remember that any diet that includes food that is fresh and natural food will help you burn fat. This includes fruits and vegetables of all kinds. Stick with organic varieties and keep a wide variety of colors.
To gain the most from these tips I suggest that you hire an experienced personal trainer who can guide you all the way to your goals, and lucky for you…I’m available to coach and guide you every step of the way.
