Diet vs. Lifestyle

Many people realize that they are overweight and need to change their eating habits, they think, "No problem. I'll just go on a diet for a month or two to take off the extra pounds. "There's an important reason why this plan is faulty: Diets don't work. The medical explanation behind this is complicated and difficult to understand, but the gist of it is that when you begin a diet, your caloric intake is much less than normal. Because of this radical change, your body immediately responds with, "Help! I'm starving! I need more energy than this!" and begins using up stored calories. Which, you may think, is what the idea was behind dieting in the first place. But there's a problem. When your body enters "starvation mode", it conserves all the body fat it can to protect itself, and instead burns more calories stored in muscle tissue to make up for the difference. So, yes, you may start losing weight when on a diet. But it's the wrong type of weight! As soon as the diet ends and you slacken your calorie intake standards, your body starts craving the foods that you've been keeping off of. If at this point you return to the eating habits that you had before you started the diet, where will the extra calories end up? The extra workload on your body will be piled onto your current body fat. So going on a diet actually works against you: after you resume your previous lifestyle, you'll end up with more weight than you started with!


Its not about starving yourself, it's about making healthy choices. Nor is it temporary, it's a lifestyle change. this is one of the most common errors made by people in their desperation to lose weight. Focusing too heavily on weight loss, rather than specifically on body fat loss. More often than not, people tend to diet which in turn produces (usually temporary) weight loss from dehydration and loss of lean body tissue (loss of muscle mass).


 The key to trimming down is not to eat less, but to actually eat more sensible portioned meals. Instead of eating 1-3 large meals per day, you should be eating 5-6 smaller meals. Eating more frequent, smaller meals will boost your metabolism and reduce hunger throughout the day.You should also always eat breakfast within one hour of waking up because your metabolism has slowed down during the night. Breakfast, which is the break of the fasting period that occurs while sleeping, will kick-start your metabolism. For this reason, it is crucial to not skip breakfast.


It is also important to track your caloric intake. By doing this you will be able to more accurately monitor the amount of calories you are putting into your body. Dieting is about balance. It is not about depriving yourself of food, but about having the correct amount of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. This is where journaling your meals will help you along your journey to weight loss.


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