- 1. Why 95% of diets never work!!!! by OntheBorder
16 y
3,246 3 Messages Shown
Blog: Healthy Eating = Healthy Living - Lose weight the right wa..
Diets Never Work!!! And here's why.
Let's begin by defining the word "diet." A "diet" is any severe restriction of food or calories that's temporary. Most conventional diet programs call for extremely low calories: 800-1200 or less for women and 1500-1800 or less for men. Any time you restrict calories drastically like this, you will lose weight. So if your only criteria for success is weight loss, and you don't care where the weight comes from, or how long it stays off, then you could say that "all diets work."
There are two major problems with this approach: First, the weight loss & from very low calorie dieting almost never lasts; 95% of the people who lose weight on conventional diet programs can't keep it off. The second problem is that most of the weight you lose from low calorie dieting is muscle, not fat. If permanent fat loss without losing muscle is your goal (it should be), then it would be closer to the truth to say "diets never work."
There's a valid scientific reason why most diets fail dismally. Most people make the classic mistake of trying to "starve" the fat with strict diets. However, because the human body has a complex and infallible series of defense mechanisms to protect you from starvation, it's physiologically impossible to permanently lose fat with very low calorie diets. As soon as your body senses a food shortage, these defense mechanisms start to kick in. The human body is simply too "smart" for the restrictive very low calorie diet approach to ever work.
If you eat more calories than you burn, you will store the excess as body fat. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose fat. Simple mathematics, right? Well, not exactly.
If fat loss were as black and white as calories in vs. calories out, then how do you explain why some overweight people eat less than lean people, yet they still can't lose an ounce? And how is it possible for someone with a 2200-calorie maintenance level to eat only 800 to 1000 calories a day without losing any weight?
Using the strictly mathematical model, if you cut out 1000 calories per day from your maintenance level, that will add up to a 7000-calorie deficit in one week. There are 3500 calories in a pound of stored body fat, so cutting out 1000 calories a day should - in theory - produce a weight loss of two pounds per week. Actual real world fat loss rarely works out with such mathematical precision.
When a calorie deficit is first introduced, weight loss generally occurs rapidly, just as the numbers would dictate, but it never takes long before weight loss slows, and then eventually stops completely. Why does this happen? Why is it that you don't lose 50 pounds in 25 weeks or 100 pounds in 50 weeks with a 1000-calorie deficit?
The explanation is quite simple: Over thousands of years, humans have developed a weight-regulating mechanism that recognizes when there's a food shortage and decreases energy expenditure to "protect you." This survival mechanism is known as the "starvation response."
The Starvation Response
You can survive for months without food. You've probably heard stories about people getting lost in the mountains or wilderness for months with no food at all (only water), or being confined in a prisoner of war camp for years with only tiny amounts of food. What makes surviving under these conditions possible is your body's remarkable ability to slow down its rate of calorie burning.
When your body senses calorie deprivation it says to itself, "It looks like this is all the food we're going to be getting for a while, so we'd better stop burning so many calories and start saving our energy. This way we'll be able to survive longer on the little amount of food we have."
The starvation response developed largely from exposure to adverse environmental conditions like droughts, natural disasters and food shortages. Furthermore, there were no supermarkets ten thousand years ago - if people wanted to eat, they had to either grow their food or kill it. It's likely that at times, ancient man didn't know when the next meal was coming and may have only eaten once or twice a week. The starvation response evolved in humans to ensure the survival of the species.
Your body can't tell the difference between dieting and starvation
7 Reasons why you should stay away from very low calorie diets.
1. Very low calorie diets slow down your metabolic rate
2. Very low calorie diets make you lose muscle
3. Very low calorie diets increase activity of fat-storing enzymes and decrease the activity of fat burning enzymes
4. Very low calorie diets decrease output of thyroid hormone.
5. Very Low calorie dieting increases the chance of rebound weight gain
6. Very low calorie diets increase appetite and cravings.
7. Very low calorie diets decrease your energy and work capacity
8 Powerful Strategies to Stay Out of The Starvation Mode and Lose Fat Permanently Without Dieting or Deprivation.
1. Adopt the "habit" mindset instead of the "diet" mindset
2. Keep your muscle at all costs
3. Use a small calorie deficit.
4. Use exercise to burn the fat rather than diets to starve the fat
5. Determine your minimal calorie requirements and never drop below them - ever!
6. Eat more frequently and never skip meals
7. Don't stay in a negative calorie balance long
8. Make your goal to lose weight slowly at a rate of 1-2 Ibs. per week. Be patient.
Anyone wanting me to elaberate on anything from this post, I will gladly clarify.
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OntheBorder
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- Re: 1. Why 95% of diets never work!!!! by cushman
16 y
3,115
Ontheborder, great post. totally agree 100%.
i've never been one to try diets because i have soooo many friends doing it. it's like every other month there's another diet "fad." Whether its another south beach or atkins variation, one of my friends will be raving on and on about it. And when you see what they eat or how they "don't" eat, it's just saddening. Eating is one of the blessings in life. I can't think of any other activity as fun and rewarding as eating.
These diets don't work because in essence you just try to starve yourself. You do it in such a hurry that your body is also quickly adapting to it. So if you eat less, your body burns less. and nothing happens.
The best way for me is to eat 6 small balance meals in a day. making sure you have a balance of fruits,fiber,meats and veggies throughout. And just because you eat a lot doesn't mean you'll gain weight. Some actually lose from it, because some food stuff are actually weight loss inducers like fermented foods such as yogurt and kefir from kefir grains.
If you really really want to lose weight and you can't get yourself to count and research on the foodstuff you eat, i think the best way is to train your body to eat less and less over a long period while maintaining the same amount of activities. Small calorie deficits.
I think with these two you won't go wrong. happy eating! : )
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cushman
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- Re: 1. Why 95% of diets never work!!!! by OntheBorder
16 y
2,472
I am glad to see anyone benefit from eating right. I cant tell you how much time, energy, effort and money went into finally finding something that works.
I too was fooled by the "fad" diets. I was looking for something that helped me lose weight without losing muscle.
Anyone who benefits from anything here is great. I hope that this helps many people looking. I know I was at my wits end looking for something I could get results from.
Something like eating properly is not to be looked at as a diet. Its not something you "go on" for awhile and then "get off" when your finished. It is a life changing event. Something you stick with the rest of your life.
OTB
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OntheBorder
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