Why Weight-Loss Fad Diets Always Fail
You want to shed some extra pounds quickly, and you're wondering if the latest diet craze is what you need. Should you try itI? Is it going to work? ? The truth is, if you want to drop a few pounds for a short period of time, almost any fad diet will do the job. However, once your fad diet is over, the odds are that you will not only gain back the weight you lost, but probably even some more. This is why weight loss fad diets are not effective in the long term…
Because of the lack of calories available for your body to burn, it will switch over to “survival mode” to adjust to the decreased intake of food. Once your body enters this mode, it reduces your metabolic rate drastically. It tries to hold onto every calorie that you consume in order to fulfil your body's nutritional requirements. Your body responds to the calorie deprivation as it would to a famine.
With weight loss fad diets, you lose as much muscle as fat. It's your muscle tissue that works to keep up your strength and maintain a high metabolic rate. When you lose that muscle, your metabolism will slow down further. This is because your muscle tissue is more active in burning calories than your body-fat is.
My point is, if you decide to follow a fad diet plan you can expect a yo-yo effect with your weight. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, be patient and develop a sensible dietary plan that works. You need to accept that one or two-pound weight loss per week is smarter and is something that you can maintain much easier than some rapid, dramatic weight loss.
Essentially, when you get caught up in a weight loss fad diet, you are restricting too many calories and are physically guaranteed to fail. It's a better idea to go for a lower calorie restrictionsomething like 15 to 20 percent below your typical maintenance level. Maintenance level is the number of calories you need every day to keep your weight steady.
Considering that one pound of stored fat has a whopping 3500 calories, you can typically knock off 1-2 pounds of fat each week once you add exercise to your program. Have you noticed that most weight loss fad diet programs don't suggest any additional exercise? Although it is possible to lose fat just by dieting, you vastly improve your results when you add cardiovascular exercises and resistance training to your program.
With these forms of exercise, you can keep up your levels of lean muscle mass while igniting your fat-burning metabolism.
Remember, it is always smarter to follow a weight-loss program that will guide you step-by-step with what and when to eat and how to exercise for safe, steady fat loss — with no fad diets.
Barry Richardson is webmaster at weight-to-lose.blogspot.com, where you will find expert nutritional and training advice for structuring an effective weight-loss program.
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