I don’t know the real statistic, but I would be willing to bet the overwhelming majority of men and women are disappointed with the way they look, feel and perform. Some attempt to correct this with diets, exercise or other methods. Here are the 3 steps you must know to get fast and lasting fitness, fat loss and muscle building results.
Get Control Of Your Diet
When I say “diet”, I am not talking about a restricted calorie diet designed for fat loss. I mean diet as in what you eat.
The fact is, many people are overeating, so reducing the quantity of calories is necessary. But I want you to pay attention to what you eat.
Focus on lean meats, fish, chicken, vegetables and fruits and you’ll find it is hard to eat too many calories. Calorie bombs usually come from processed foods, sweets and high calorie drinks. Avoid them.
Take a good look at what you eat and eliminate unnatural foods from your body, and I’m sure you’ll be amazed at the way you feel, perform and look.
Do The Right Exercise Program For Your Goals
Most exercise programs are designed to either lose fat of build muscle. The truth is, to end up looking the way you want, you probably need to do both.
In my experience, fat loss brings about the biggest changes in your body composition. So use an exercise program that focuses on fat loss, but without sabotaging your muscle building efforts. This means no long-slow cardio routines for fat loss.
Look for a fat loss workout that combines resistance training with high intensity cardio for the fastest and best results.
Coordinate Your Lifestyle With Your Diet And Exercise Program
Now that you are paying attention to your diet and exercise, don’t sabotage your efforts with an unhealthy lifestyle. And keeping your lifestyle in check is easy once you have your diet and workout figured out.
All you need to do is remove activities that hinder your diet, workout and recovery efforts. If if is going to hurt your diet, don’t do it. If the activity is going keep your from working out, hurt your performance during the workout or hinder recovery from the workout… don’t do it.
Getting real fitness, fat loss and physique building results for your efforts is a 3 step process. You need to align your diet, workout and lifestyle with your goals. Then don’t stop until you reach them.
My advice: Look for a fat loss workout and diet plan that fits your goals, dedicate yourself to it and coordinate your lifestyle to meeting your goals. Take a shortcut, and use fat loss workouts from fitness professionals already getting great results, and get busy.

When it comes to dieting you need all the help and information you can get and there is no better place to get it than online. The internet holds a huge amount of resources, help, advice, hints, tips and diet information to help you get started and to keep you going. There are specialist websites that offer all this information free of charge.
If you are looking for diet information to get you started off on a diet or have no idea which type of diet would work best for you then you will find it. There are plenty of diets out there and some work better than others for different individuals. There are low fat diets, low carb diets and calorie counting diets. Diets can have fancy names such as the South Beach, the Atkins diet and the Zone and the internet can give you the information on all of them. You do have to be sensible when starting a diet and take things slowly and be aware that there are “fad” diets which can do more help than good. However you can find all the information relating to the harm that a “fad” diet can do online and also find a sensible eating plan. The majority of diets that are successful are based on counting calories and the internet gives all the diet information needed to get started on this type of diet.
Some of the most successful plans are based on watching what you eat and clubs such as Weightwatchers can be found online. Weightwatchers have local meetings where dieters all get together and share their success but they also give support and diet information by way of the web. They are one of the most successful of all diet clubs and have thousands of members. You can get encouragement, learn about the system, find new recipes and keep a check of your points online. All diets require encouragement and this is why the Weightwatchers system works so well.
If you have already started on a diet and need some hints and tips on how to keep it going by introducing new recipes into the diet then the net holds plenty to tempt your taste buds. There are specialist websites that give free diet information and advice relating to all aspects of dieting. Here you can find articles, recipes and information on the latest diets. If you need help and support during the tough times then websites offer forums where those dieting can get together and give each other support.
There is no need to pay for diet information a simple search will reveal that there are websites that offer this information freely. If you need general information regarding dieting and eating healthily then this can be found too. You can get tips for eating well, including the types of foods you should include in your diet and those that you should cut out. You can also find out what a healthy weight is and the importance of nutrition in the diet.

Along with the dramatic increase in obesity and other related diseases to gaining too much weight is the advent of a variety of products and medical and even some unscientific technology on how to lose unwanted weight. Losing weight, needless to say, is becoming an important concern not only in the United States but also throughout the world. The number of individuals who are concerned with a lot of health complications brought about by being overweight is continually ballooning to millions. Very recent studies of trusted experts from America reveal that the way many people lead their life nowadays has an important correlation to obesity and other peripheral problems on health. Leading a sedentary lifestyle is one of the most cited contributory factors of being overweight. But aside from not getting ample amount of exercise, the ubiquity of fast food chains and unhealthy food products that are not conducive to health, likewise throws in a lot to the increasing cases of corpulence.
Among the many ways on losing weight that are either endorsed by proper health authorities or not, walking for fat loss is considered the most natural and healthy procedure. There are several accounts, though, that disclaims the potency of walking as an effective way to decrease weight. As per what they claim, merely walking should not be depended too much upon if and when what we want is a dramatic change in weight. Walking for fat loss, they say, should only be supplementary to a more established and effective procedure to diminish fats in our body.
But walking for fat loss should not also be stripped off all credence when it comes to decreasing weight. Medical authorities say that walking should only be given additional attention, in that, people who wants walking to be significant part of their goal, should pay more attention to ‘more serious’ walking.
We prettily understand that walking is already a run-of-the-mill routine our body performs every now and then. But to be able to really commit to walking as an agent of fat loss, the first thing to do is to increase your ‘walking’ time every day. Not only that. We should take note that the old habit of walking is too much a function of our body already. Hence, if we you succumb to this mere ‘ol walking custom, it might be that you are only wasting your time.
An efficient walking for fat loss duration would be 30 to 45 minutes for natural walking. When using apparatus as the treadmill though, a 20 to 30 minute on it would be good enough. Of course this routine would not be as effective if you do it infrequently. Needless to say, a religious and committed dedication to walking for fat loss should be done at least five days every week. This way, albeit walking does not really motivate fat loss, at least, it would not anymore be just a so-so routine to be able to attain your ideal weight. Because proper attention and enough discipline, plus the naturalist nature of walking, might be an efficient pattern to get you back into shape.

Searching for a low-carbohydrate diet? Refined carbohydrates are the main cause of obesity, so Atkins developed a diet plan that helps you to loose weight. Sugar, flour, and high fructose corn syrup and saturated fats are the main causes. Atkins diet plan suggest a way to deal with obesity.

According to Atkins diet plan, carbohydrates are restricted in an attempt to control your body’s way of metabolizing foods. This diet plan is mainly based on the fact that, instead of burning glucose, it allows your body to burn fat.

Atkins diet plan is mainly based on consuming high levels of protein and low levels of carbohydrates. It has become a popular weight loss approach for most of us. Atkins diet plan consists of four phases. They include:

• Induction phase

• Ongoing weight loss phase

• Pre-maintenance phase

• Lifetime maintenance phase

Induction phase:

This is the first phase of Atkins diet plan. During this phase, you are allowed to take only 20 grams of carbohydrates per day. You have to avoid caffeine and alcohol completely. Due to this, your body is in the state of ketosis. Ketosis is a phase in which your body burns fats as fuel but not glucose.

During this phase of Atkins diet plan you will lose most weight. Nearly you will lose 6-8 pounds for every week when you are in this phase.

Ongoing weight loss phase:

The objective of this phase is to slowly introduce carbohydrates back into your diet, but you are not allowed to consume a greater amount. You can increase the intake of carbohydrates up to 5 grams.

In this phase of Atkins diet plan, you need to find the critical carbohydrate level that your body requires in order to continue losing weight. The correct level will allow you to eat carbohydrates that won’t affect your weight. This phase continues until you will come within 10 pounds of what you want to weigh.

Pre-maintenance phase:

In this phase you are allowed to eat 10 grams of carbohydrates in your diet per week schedule. The main goal of this Atkins diet plan is also to find the critical carbohydrate level in order to keep your weight where you want it.

In this phase of Atkins diet plan, you will lose weight slowly and you will be able to test certain foods to observe if you can safely add them to your diet without weight gain. Once you achieve your goal weight, you will enter into the maintenance phase of Atkins diet plan.

Life maintenance phase:

In this phase you need to add some more carbohydrates into your diet, but not bad ones. This phase helps you continue to follow the eating habits that you picked up during this diet. You will be suggested to choose healthy carbs instead of bad ones such as whole wheat bread.

Once you get into this phase and start to gain weight then you need to go back to an earlier stage and start again from there.

The problems and consequences of Atkins diet plan:

• You will lose weight very quickly if you follow the Atkins diet plan.

• You won’t feel hungry because your body produces ketones, which act as an appetite suppressant.

• Atkins diet plan has some disagreeable physical side effects. Sometimes you may feel tired, constipated, have bad breath and lack of energy.

Before following Atkins diet plan, it is better to do your own research, because there are problems and consequences for every diet. It is best to visit your doctor to make a decision about which diet best suits for your condition. visit Weight Loss Diet Watch

Cataracts have become one of the most significant causes of blindness, so that a large number of studies and researches are focusing on the way to prevent cataracts or slow down their progression. Herbs have been proved to be effective in decreasing the risk of cataracts in mice, but relative researches in human body are rare. You should be cautious about taking herbs as a medicinal remedy. Many more studies are now underway about the influence of a healthy diet on cataracts prevention. Antioxidants and certain vitamins are considered possibly effective to decrease cataracts and slow their advancement.

Exposure to pollution, chemicals, smoking, radiation exposure and unhealthy foods can cause free radicals, which in turn lead to oxidation in human body including eyes. Free radicals in the body have unpaired electrons so that they stole an electron from another molecule. This unpaired molecule in turn tries to get an electron from another molecule. In this way, many healthy cells of organs and other tissues will be damaged. This process is named oxidation, which damages proteins and fats in the eye’s lens and causes cataracts.

Be clear of the principle of oxidation, nutrient experts recommend antioxidants including some vitamins and phytochemicals to reduce oxidation formation so that cataracts can be avoided. Studies have showed that antioxidants such as vitamin C, A and E and lutein have potential effect in preventing cataracts. Antioxidants can be found in foods such as fruits and colorful or dark green vegetables. These vegetables also contain folic acid and calcium, which may also reduce the risk of cataracts.

In this consideration, experts recommend a healthy diet that includes fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Fish are rich in omega-3 essential fatty acids, which may be also effective. An exactly healthy diet should contain nine servings of fruits and vegetables, three serving of 100% whole grains every day and two servings of fish every week. And the daily calories consumption should not exceed the basic need to maintain a healthy weight.

People still have different opinions about the sources of those nutrients, antioxidants and phytochemicals. In the market, dietary supplements are available in many forms. While some experts insist on a healthy diet, others argue that dietary supplements are helpful addition to even a healthy diet.

A healthy diet should avoid unhealthy foods such as fried foods, processed foods, sugary foods, and foods rich in sodium. High consumption of salt and sugary may increase the risk of cataracts. Extra soft drinks, desserts, greasy snack foods and fast foods should also be reduced or stopped. Just enjoy delicious fruits, vegetables and fresh fish.this article is come from:http://vision.firmoo.com/eye-diseases/healthy-diet-cataracts-prevention.html

What is the one thing you find the hardest to grasp with dieting?Is it the type of food you eat, the amount of food you eat, the amount of exercise or is it the lack of freedom of food choices.After overcoming my weight problem after spending 7 and a half years of my life yo-yo dieting, I thought it would be fun to write down on paper the things I struggled with most. These 10 factors are the ones that more likely than not, caused me to ruin my diet.1. EATING SMALLER MEALSThis was extremely difficult for me. I like to feel content and full after a meal. I found I could only do this if I was really busy. However, if I had nothing else to do after finishing my diet meal, I would get irresistible cravings to splurge…and more often than not I did…in a big way!2. EATING DISGUSTING FOODI found this the most difficult. Not only did I have to give up my favourite foods, I had to eat the most blend and tasteless food imaginable. Even if a diet did sound good to start with (the high fat diet) the lack of variety soon made me hate those foods. I still cringe thinking about how I used to force myself to eat tuna in spring water and egg whites. After a while I was dry reaching every time I put them in my mouth! To solve this problem, I would take a mouthful of tuna, then take a mouthful of water and drink it down! Yuck! After having this meal for lunch at work, I would get home and eat half a box of Nutri-Grain cereal…with nearly a litre of milk!3. CUTTING CARBOHYDRATESThis drove me crazy! Whenever I did this I felt so drained and weak. I was always tired. I found it hard to string more than a few days of consistent dieting together without pigging out on cereal, pasta, juice and sandwiches. What I realize now is that whatever I wasn’t allowed to have, that’s what I craved.4. CONSUMING LESS FOOD AT NIGHTI don’t like to admit it, but one of my favourite things is to eat a large, almost challenging-to-finish meal for dinner that will leave me stuffed. I don’t know why but I love the feeling. Maybe I like the challenge and almost like to show off how much food I can eat. Also, night time is when I’m unwinding and I would like to have a snack or two while relaxing and watching T.V before going to bed. Many diets actually want you to eat very little from 5pm onwards and not eat for 3 hours before going to bed…I obviously struggled with this one. My most common time for pigging out and ruining my diet was (and still is) at night time. 5. EATING A TON OF PROTEINI found this the hardest in my day to day activities. Some diets won’t let you even have an apple without having a piece of protein with it. I couldn’t stand to eat so much meat…blend meat at that because it had to be lean. Do you know hard it is to get a lean piece of meat when you are out and about? I would have to carry tins of tuna with me because this was the only portable meat. I couldn’t always leave the house because I had to eat protein every 2-3 hours! (I know that’s a bit extreme but I felt like that some times!) This is where supplement companies must be loving it, because the most portable source of protein is…protein powder… which leads me to my next point… 6. EXPENSIVE SUPPLEMENTSI personally found that the most restricting diets were the ones that recommended that you use supplements to make the diet easier. Maybe they made the diet so hard that you had no choice but to buy their supplements? I don’t know. All I know is many of those supplements (predominantly Meal Replacement Powders) were disgusting and extremely expensive. I would fork out over a $100 for a few weeks supply. What I find amusing is that they also say that you should follow their diet for life (I wonder why?!…$$) Besides how can a powdered mix be more healthy than natural from the ground real food?7. DIETS THAT CUT OUT AN ENTIRE FOOD GROUPThese diets were the hardest ones to follow. Whether it was a no fat diet, a no protein diet (all fruit, or soup diets) or a no carbohydrate diet I couldn’t stand the lack of freedom. I personally found the no carb diet the hardest, I felt like a zombie and I was talking as slow as Rocky Balboa! Any diet that cuts out a whole macronutrient (whether be protein, carbs or fat) was just way to demanding for me.8. EATING LOW FATMany of the high protein diets also recommend that you keep your fat intake to a minimum (some allow us to have a tablespoon of flaxseed oil a day…Hooray!) This is what made high protein diets unbearable for me. Not only did we have to eat a ton of it, it had to be as lean as possible. Only the egg white, grilled chicken, no fat, nothing on it, or tuna in spring water…drained…Yuck! If I was lucky some diets would even grant me the luxury of no fat, watery skim milk! No fat = no taste = no chance for me to stick to it9. NO FREEDOM OR FLEXIBILITYThis drove me crazy. Most…wait actually all diets had an authorised food list. If a food you wanted to eat wasn’t on the list, you simply couldn’t eat it. Problem was the authorised list normally contained no more than 10-20 foods…that was it! Typically it was: chicken, tuna, egg whites, fish, protein powder and oatmeal, brown rice, whole-wheat pasta and some allowed whole-wheat bread sparingly, along with plenty of vegetables. What if I was away from my house for more than 2 hours, where was I going to cook this food? Why can’t I just have a chicken burger at McDonalds? Can’t I just have a bottle of Orange Juice at the petrol station? No, No, No if it’s not on the authorised list you can’t eat it!These damn authorised lists also stopped me from dining out altogether…so my girlfriend suffered. At first I tried to dine out and stick to the authorised list, but I would spend half an hour explaining to the waiter what I wanted. Not only this hassle but the temptation of delicious food all around me made me to simply give up dining full stop.This drove me crazy because I love dining out. Taking people you care about out for a special night and delicious food. Depriving myself of this right was probably one of the hardest things to cope with.This lack of flexibility with the diet caused me to pig out on so much junk food (I don’t even want to think about how much money I have given to ol’ Colonel Sanders) I think subconsciously I might also pig out because I am a bit head strong and rebellious. (I’ll show you for not allowing me to eat my favourite foods!)And last, but definitely not least…10. NOT BEING ALLOWED TO “OVER-INDULGE” OCCASIONALLYI have a ridiculously large appetite. I love to eat until I’m stuffed and feel completely satisfied. I almost show off with how much I can eat sometimes (I know that sounds bad but I am proud of how much I can put away!) All diets were a huge culture shock to me because of how little I was allowed to eat. I probably could have stuck to them if they just let me let my hair down occasionally and “indulge” a little. Many didn’t allow any leeway though. So the pressure of depriving myself of overeating just kept building up and building up until it became unbearable. Then guess what happened. That’s right I OVER ATE and in a big way. At first I felt good about it, but then felt really depressed because I had done the wrong thing by the diet I was following.I honestly didn’t and to this day still don’t see the harm in “pigging out” every now and then. If you stick to your diet and train hard, a large pizza to yourself or a visit to an all you can eat buffet once or twice a week will definitely not hurt your progress… in actual fact I believe it helps you. I believe it actually speeds up weight loss (I’ll go more in-depth in another article) but more importantly it helps keep you sane, and keeps cravings down, which enables you to be more consistent for a longer period of time.

How cool is that!

Don’t believe me?

I don’t blame you; in fact I was a sceptic for years, because of the general beliefs on dieting and weight loss.

It wasn’t until, after struggling for over 8 years to lose weight, (because I love chocolate, ice cream and sugary cereals too much) that I decided to stop worrying about what I was eating, and instead focus on my total calorie intake.

Surprisingly I lost 35 pounds, and got a six pack for the first time in my life, all while eating absolutely whatever I wanted everyday.

If you too love your food, (and especially those sugary carbohydrates) then you can check out http:///www.junkfooddietsite.com for photo proof and to discover exactly how I did it.

After Pregnancy Weight Loss – Six Effective ways After Pregnancy Weight Loss

After Pregnancy Weight Loss is slightly different from normal weight loss as there are other considerations. You have a new life to care for. You need lots of energy. Your body has gone through a trauma.

Step One to After Pregnancy Weight Loss – Give yourself lots of TIME.

The best thing you can do is eat healthily during pregnancy thus reducing the amount of weight you put on and increasing nutrition to both of you. This reduces the need for after pregnancy weight loss to a minimum. Even if you do this the amount you put on in pregnancy is about 25-35 pounds and as an average, you only lose 14 to 21 pounds after the birth so you still have a way to go to return to normal weight. Normally every one wants to lose weight fast yet now there are other considerations and its best to give you plenty of TIME during after pregnancy weight loss.

Step Two to After Pregnancy Weight Loss – Have GOALS

What are your goals for after pregnancy weight loss? How much weight do you need to lose and by when? Remember you have used a lot of energy both carrying and having the baby. Your body has been through a lot so you need to take your time now and give your body a chance to recover. You also have a little one to take care of so you need to be very careful how you eat – no rushing. After pregnancy weight loss should be slower than normal.

Step Three to After Pregnancy Weight Loss – Don’t worry about weight loss – Eat Healthily

For the first few months it’s more important to eat healthily – especially if you are breast-feeding so both of you get plenty of nutrition. Your whole life will have changed. The last thing you need is added stress and worry of after pregnancy weight loss. Once you feel up to it, you can increase your exercise and start your diet – slowly!

Step Four to After Pregnancy Weight Loss – Eat a well balanced diet

Eating the right foods and keeping active go a long way to losing the weight and feeling good about you. However, knowing what the best course of action to take to how best to After Pregnancy Weight Loss is difficult. It is best to check out several weight loss plans if possible. Make certain you have enough of all the food types necessary.

Step Five to After Pregnancy Weight Loss – Enjoy the Journey

Part of your after pregnancy weight loss plan should, if possible, take time out for yourself. Although, it’s almost impossible with a new born its also much more important. No, no one can look after your baby like you – but do they have to? You will be a better mom for it and enjoy the journey of motherhood much better if you can.

 Step Six to After Pregnancy Weight Loss – A Great Weight Loss Plan

Now a few months have past and you and baby are in a routine you can look for a great after pregnancy weight loss plan to get you back in shape. Still take it easy though; there’s no hurry. Before you know it, you will be back in a bikini looking and feeling great!

Help me lose weight and how can I lose weight?.  Losing flab is one of the finest things that you can do to enhance your healthiness and wellbeing.  By losing flab I was able to reduce my possibility of a heart attack, reduce my probability of diabetes, help lessen my cholesterol ratio and help lessen my ldl cholesterol.  Losing weight in addition helped to give me more energy and make me feel and look better and improved my self confidence levels.There are lots of fine reasons for losing weight but lots of people are put off as they find dieting a very frustrating and demoralising experience.  After months of arduous work losing weight they attain their targets only to observe with the purpose of they start to put on pounds as soon as they start eating normally again.  This can lead to yo yo dieting where weight is constantly going up and down or cause individuals to cease attempting to lose weight altogether.The cause for this is that most diets or weight loss programmes do nothing to educate people concerning the long term changes that need to be made to diet and lifestyle to make weight loss enduring.  Any low calorie diet will help you to lose weight as to lose flab all you need to do is burn more calories than you take in every day.  You can do this by decreasing the number of calories consumed and by increasing the number of calories burnt to create a calorie shortfall.When you stop a diet and go back to earlier eating habits weight will be regained unless changes are made to diet and lifestyle.  To make any weight loss lasting you need to focus on creating a healthier diet that you can keep to for life and improve the amount of exercise that is taken every day.  A balanced healthy diet ought to include lots of fruit and vegetables, a quantity of low fat dairy products, a regular source of lean protein and lots of wholegrain foods such as brown bread, pasta and rice.Thousands of informative free weight loss tips can be found online.  Many websites additionally provide worthwhile tools such as calorie counters and meal planners.  Calorie counters are very convenient for determining how many calories are in your favourite foods and for keeping track of how many calories you are consuming every day.  A BMI calculator is valuable for determining a healthy weight range for your age and height and will let you know how much weight you need to lose.If you need to lose weight whether it’s for health reasons or simply to feel and look better you ought to start right away.  Dieting needn’t be an miserable experience if you go about it in the proper way and keep a constructive outlook.  A healthy diet and regular keep fit are all you need to start lose weight right now.

There are millions of men and women looking for information on the diet called fat loss 4 idiots. The system is considered to be one of the most effective in the web. In this article I will tell you how this fat loss system works and what to expect from it.There are so many diet plans all over the web but fat loss for idiots in totally different. It has a menu generating software. This software creates a special meal plan for each user based on the food items that he or she chooses. This awesome feature makes the diet so effective: you show what you like to eat. The generator just splits the food items that you like to eat into dieting plans. Generated meal plan consists of 4 meals each day and you will need to eat until you’re just short of being full. However, even fat loss for idiots has a ouple of downsides.It is grounded essentially on food. From my experience, the most effective technique to get rid of fat is to combine cardio exercises and dieting. Yet FL4I is based on dieting. However more and more people say that the diet plan is indeed effective and they have already dropped 2 to 6 lbs in 11 weeks.To sum up I would like to say, if you are really serious about reducing fat and do not want to spend your time on so-called fat loss creams, fat loss 4 idiots is indeed what you were looking for, just visit the link below to learn more about the package.

Fad diet have been popular for years, and every year thousands of people search the internet for the recipe for that famous cabbage soup – or they decide to go on the 3 day diet or the grapefruit diet, or the mayo clinic diet.
All fad diets claim that a certain extremely limited group of foods will help you lose weight really fast. For instance, the cabbage soup diet consists of mostly cabbage, potatoes and bananas. The three-day diet lets you eat grapefruit, a little bit of tuna, a tiny amount of meat or chicken, some veggies, and, strangely enough, a cup of ice cream. The so-called Israeli army diet only lets you eat one kind of food a day – apples one day, cheese the next, and so on.
You really do lose weight on these diets. You have to. These diets used to be called starvation diets for a reason.
But if you go on one of these diets, or any low-calorie diet, for that matter, you want to make sure you don’t want to throw away your fat clothes, because within just a few weeks after going off the diet you’ll weigh more than you did when you started.
Starvation will cause you to lose weight, there’s no question about it. But scientists have known for over 91 years that one of the almost inevitable results of starvation is weight gain. Your body objects strongly to not being given enough food to keep its internal fires burning, and it can’t survive for long without the nutrients it needs to keep all the various functions of it’s cells working properly.
That’s why you slow down when you’re on a low-fat diet. You feel tired and irritable because your body is trying to conserve the little amount of food you’re feeding it.
You also get cravings for food – almost any food will do, but the cravings are especially strong for the very foods that make us fat – the sugars and breads and pastas and other simple carbohydrates that make us store extra body fat. Since starvation is a threat to your survival, the cravings will continue to get stronger until they’re absolutely uncontrollable.
Then you go off the diet, and gain back all the weight you lost. Most people go on to gain an additional 3 to 8 pounds.
And weight gain is obviously not what you had in mind when you started on the diet in the first place.
But the inevitable weight gain is just one of the reasons why fad diets are such a bad idea.
The other reasons are considerably more serious. On the rare occasions when a doctor prescribes a very low calorie diet, of 900 calories a day or less, they almost always require that their patients get constant medical supervision. That’s because this qualified as a starvation diet, and they can be very risky.
Even ‘normal’ reduced calorie diets have health consequences. That scientific study I mentioned earlier put healthy college students on a reduced calorie diet to see how their minds and bodies would react.
The study volunteers actually ate more calories than the kind of diet that almost every doctor tells you to go on when he thinks you’re overweight, and they certainly ate way more calories than you get on most fad diets, like the cabbage soup diet and the 3-day diet. The study had the students eat from 1400 to 2100 calories a day.
A later study done in 1945 for the US army found that the symptoms would get worse if you added exercise to the program.
When I found out about this study, it made me downright angry – why haven’t we been told that scientists have known for over 91 years that low-calorie and low-fat diets actually cause the following health problems: Listen closely to this list, because this is what you may experience if you go on any of the currently popular weight loss diets:
* Weight gain.
* Depression.
* Food cravings.
* Feeling tired and listless.
* Constant hunger.
* Reduced interest in sex.
* Chronic fatigue.
* Hypothyroidism.
* Hormone imbalance.2100
* Scaly skin or eczema.
* Premature wrinkling of the skin.
* Dandruff or dull, lifeless hair.
* Mood swings.
* Chronic yeast infections.
* Poor immune system – frequent colds or respiratory illnesses.
* Digestive problems.
Most people believe that the only way to lose weight is to cut back on the calories, even though scientists have known for almost a century that those serious psychological and physical problems could result.
Let’s take a close look at some of the most serious symptoms on that list:
Depression, mood swings, and chronic fatigue. It is impossible to be motivated to stay on a diet, (or to do anything else, for that matter), when you suffer from chronic depression.
Heck, those healthy college-aged men who participated in the low-calorie diet studies even lost their interest in sex.
And many people take antidepressants, like Wellbutrin, for both depression and to lose weight.
Two important studies have found that the depression caused by a reduced calorie diet may actually get worse for a while after you start eating normally again. It takes time for the body to recover from semi-starvation eating plans.
Constant hunger and food cravings, especially for refined carbs: When you combine the lack of motivation that always accompanies depression and chronic fatigue, and match it up with constant hunger and food cravings, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to find out that most people who start a low-calorie diet will actually end up gaining weight.
The only safe way to lose weight is to eat a correctly balanced diet that gives your body all the nutrients it needs, every single day. Stop eating the kinds of foods that cause the excess storage of body fat, and eat lots of the foods that help you lose weight faster.