Where Do Diets Go Wrong?

Have you ever stared into the mirror and not liked what is looking back at you? When most people discover that they are heavier than they want to be, their first impulse is to eat less food. They may choose to skip breakfast entirely, eat a tiny lunch and have a small dinner in hopes that if they eat less, their body will burn off some of the excess fat. The truth of the matter is that the total opposite is true. Eating less food will actually make it more difficult for people to lose weight.

You need to keep in the back of your mind that the human body was formed a long time ago and during this time, there was no such thing as diets. Starvation was the only low-calorie thing that was in existence. Those who could get by with small or no amount of food during some times were the ones who survived. This is why our bodies have a built-in mechanism to help us survive when we consume low amounts of food.

An interesting fact discovered by researchers is that when overweight and thin people are compared, they have roughly the same amount of calories. The difference is that overweight people eat more fat than thin people do as they tend to eat foods that have less fat and more carbohydrates.

Losing weight is not an easy thing to do and the process is not instantaneous. A good weight loss program involves careful planning along with common sense and guidelines to follow. The sad thing is that there is a lot of bad information out there and many people who are desperate to lose weight are ripped off by promises that are not kept.

All you have to do is to turn on your television or read a magazine or newspaper and you will see an advertisement that promises a pill or patch that will take off excess weight quickly. Seems like everyone is looking for that magic pill that will help them lose weight. People in the United States are spending billions of dollars every year on diet programs and products. The end results of most of these programs are that people either do not lose weight or if they lose weight, they are not able to keep it off and most of them gain the weight back.

Recently, a survey was conducted for the purpose of determining whether any commercial diet program could provide long -term success and not a single program could do so. There are so many of these programs that are making false claims that it has caused the FDA to get involved and they have started to clamp down on them.

There are many diseases and health problems that are associated with being excessively overweight and obese and it has been determined that when calorie intake is excessive, some of this excess is saturated fat.

One of the biggest myths today is that people get heavy by consuming too many calories and the truth is that while calories are important, they do not cause obesity. Americans are actually eating fewer calories today than they did at the beginning of the century. Overall, we are heavier than we have ever been. Part of the reason is that we sit around too much and do not get any exercise and the other part of the equation is that the fat content of the American diet has changed dramatically.

If people are going to go on a diet, than they must also exercise and if they don’t, they usually end up getting fatter over time even though they are on a diet. They may lose some weight at the beginning of their diet, but this weight consists mostly of water and muscle and when this weight returns, it comes back as fat. This can be prevented by engaging in some form of physical exercise.

Try to choose an exercise program that you will be comfortable with and have fun doing. Do not look at it as a chore that you must do. Walking is by far one of the best choices for a lot of people including myself as it promotes good blood circulation along with strong bones and it helps you to control your weight and tone your muscles.

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