why low calorie diets fail

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

By Marcus Aurelius

The main reason why most low calorie diet plans don't work is that starving your body of calories, leaves it mal nourished and lacking in energy. This leaves you feeling sickly and tired, with no energy to complete the exercise you need, or even enough to just complete your regular daily activities. These things happen because of the bodies starvation response causing your metabolic rate to drop.

To lose weight successfully you should remember a few things...

Firstly calories are not your enemy, although a slight calorie deficit is required to achieve fat loss, you body needs a certain amount of calories each day to function correctly (BMR / A quick estimate of your BMR is your weight multiplied by 10 - 11). When your body feels that it is getting enough food, your metabolic rate will stay high, which is what you need to lose weight!

What you need to do avoid the empty calories in the junk foods and aim to eat more of what is known as negative calorie food. A negative calorie food isn't a food that actually has negative calories. A negative calorie food is a food that forces your body to burn up more calories than it supplies when it is digested (Yes digesting food actually burns up a certain amount of calories!). Negative calories foods include cucumber, cress, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, celery, lettuce, peppers and tomatoes, to name but a few. Eating these negative calorie foods will help you will you weight loss goals.

The thing you should aim for to lose fat successfully is build muscle – thus, EXERCISE!. Muscle actually burns up calories just by maintaining themselves. This is the great effect that having more lean muscle will give you, the more muscle you have the more calories they will burn up, and therefore the faster you will be able to lose weight!

To build lean muscle you need to supply your body with enough protein. Protein is the body's building blocks and without it you will be unable to grow new muscle. Foods including poultry, fish and lean meat are the best sources of protein, so ensure that you are getting enough protein in your diet. As a rough guide you need about one gram of protein per pound of lean body weight. The other great advantage of eating protein rich foods is that they help to keep hunger at bay, so the possibility of over eating is much lower.

To effectively build muscle you should combine this protein rich diet with a suitable resistance training routine. Training with weights two or three times a week will encourage new muscle growth to occur.
If you are following a very low calorie, you will not be able build muscle, in fact if your calorie in take is too low you may in fact lose muscle. This is because your body thinks that it is being starved of calories and may begin to break down muscle as an internal energy source.

A lot of these low calorie diets trick you into thinking you are losing fat quickly at first, this weight loss is actually only from muscle and water, with no weight being lost from fat at all! If you apply the two points in this article you will begin to see some better results in your fat loss goals.

Following some reasons why low calorie diets fail;

1. Low adhearance.
• 21% of dieter droped out in the first 2 months, 45% had quit by the end of the year (Tufts-New England Medical Center, JAMA Jan 5, 2005)
• 90-95% of people who lose weight with diet gain most of the weight back within 3 to 5 years.
2. Most diets restrict your caloric intake so much that metabolism slows down.
• Drastically reducing calories can slow your metabolism and hinder the weight loss process (Leibel, Rosenbaum & Hirsch 1995)
• Dieter's body becomes highly efficient at conserving calories and storing them as fat.
• Lowered metabolism increases likelihood dieter regains even more weight particularly when old eating habits are resumed.
• Often times more body fat, or weight is gained back due to yo-yo dieting.
• Frequent changes of weight increases risk of heart disease and premature death (Brownell & Rodin 1994; Lissner et al. 1991).
• Permanent changes in eating habits and exercise are required for sustained weight loss.
• If too few calories are being consumed, simultaneous adjustments should be made
• increase calories throughout day by eating 3 balance meals and 2-3 snacks
• increase both anaerobic and aerobic activity
• starvation effect.
3. Low Calorie dieting may result in depression, which is counter productive to losing weight.
• Depriving yourself of food can lead to depriving yourself of social events. You may give up eating meals out or eating with friends because you don't want to eat something off your diet. This can lead to depression and possible overeating to compensate for what your missing.
4. Most diets don't encourage lifestyle changes.
• Making temporary changes in eating habits or eating prepackaged foods from weight loss programs will facilitate weight loss. However, when you reach your goals or go off the weight loss program, you maybe more likely to return to old eating habits and gain the weight back (and possibly more). To have permanent weight loss, you must make permanent changes in food choices, eating habits, and physical activity.
5. With very low calorie diets, weight loss is usually lean body weight.
• Diets that severely restricts caloric intake, facilitates loss of lean body weight as opposed to fat weight. This can result in a person who isn't overweight, but has a high body fat composition.
• If diet is implemented, a very subtle decrease in calories may result in longer lasting weight loss with less lean body weight loss.
6. Exercise is not part of the program.
• ACSM recognizes exercise as the greatest predictor of maintaining weight loss
• Weight training can decrease the loss of muscle without proper nutrition

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from your failures.

By Colin Powers