If you've ever gone on a diet,you've learned two things: dieting is no fun. And even if you lose some weight,you usually gain it back. But why is that?
There is plenty of medical evidence to prove that dieting actually can make you fat. And that happens because your body goes to war with any weight loss diet. They aren't natural and the body craves only a natural state of being. So as you struggle to find a weight loss diet that works, your body makes it tougher and tougher for that unnatural state to persist, which results in the negative effects of yo yo dieting: weight gain.
In this article, we examine the physical reasons why your body sabotages your efforts to diet. We'll also look at ways to overcome them so your weight loss diet has a better chance of working.
Defense Mechanisms Overview
Our bodies have defense mechanisms that evolved in us throughout history. In early times, food shortages required the body to accumulate fat stores to protect against the lean times. And to this day,our bodies are still programmed this way, even though it's no longer needed.
So when we go on a diet, the body thinks hard times are here so it goes into fat-storage mode to protect us. The more dieting you do, the more your body thinks it has to store fat. Your task,if you want to lose weight, is to outsmart the following defense mechanisms.
Metabolism
We often use the word metabolism - "I have a slow metabolism", "I have a fast metabolism." But what does it really mean in terms of a weight loss diet?
Metabolism refers to all the processes occurring in the body that are responsible for life: your heartbeat, your body temperature, breathing, and the burning of calories to create energy. Your metabolism determines how many calories your body burns to do its job. That's how your metabolism can be influenced by any weight loss diet that restricts calories.
Repeated diets cause your body to slow down its metabolism in order to become more efficient and continue running on fewer calories.But when you end your diet and return to a normal caloric intake, your body isn't used to burning all those calories, so it stores the leftover ones as fat. So to prevent that, you now have to eat much less than before just to maintain your new weight. In other words: your diet can never end in order to be successful. And a diet without end is a dire prospect for most of us.
Fat-Storing Enzymes
LPL enzymes store fat. That's their job. When you diet, the LPL become more active and grow in number. The problem is, when you finish your diet, the LPL levels don't return to normal until you regain most of the weight you lost.Another way your body makes weight loss dieting very difficult. (Don't worry, we'll provide some sensible weight loss diet suggestions that DO work at the end of this article.)
Calorie Absorption
When you diet, your intestines get super efficient at absorbing calories. They go into overdrive, trying to fully stock the body with nutrients by getting as many calories out of the food you eat as possible, not letting any pass out of the body. So the result is logical: dieting makes your intestines very good at absorbing and storing up calories. Exactly what you don't want when you're on a weight loss diet to lose pounds.
The Body Fat Dilemma
Poor dieting can make you fatter than you were before. That's because when you lose the weight, it often comes from water and muscles. But when you gain it back, it returns in the form of fat. So you wind up with a higher proportion of fat to lean muscle than you had before.
Hormonal Disruptions
Low cal weight loss diets make your thyroid gland produce less of the hormone that regulates metabolism. And that can reduce your calorie burning ability by up to 15%. Not helpful for anyone trying to lose weight.
Skipping Breakfast
Missing meals may be the worst kind of weight loss diet because calories taken early in the day are burned off faster than those eaten at night. So skipping breakfast and eating more in the evening actually contributes to the weight problem. In fact, eating all your daily calories for breakfast can lead to weight loss, eating them all at night leads to weight gain.
Training Your Stomach
Overeating at meal time stretches out the stomach.That trains it to want more food in order to get that full feeling. But people who eat small meals more often need and want less food. The stomach can be trained over time to adapt to smaller meals and snacks taken throughout the day. When the stomach is smaller, it will fill faster and demand less food.
Beating Your Body's Defense Mechanisms
As promised, here are some ways to override your body's defenses and create a sensible, effective weight loss diet that really works:
1. Don't yo-yo diet. Come up with a healthy weight loss diet plan and see it through until you get results.
2. Don't drop calorie intake below 1,000 a day. The body sees this as a threat. Instead, eat enough calories that contain the right balance of nutrients like proteins and carbs while reducing fats.
3. Include fiber in any weight loss diet plan. It helps food and fats pass through the intestines quickly, rather than getting absorbed in the form of calories.
4. Avoid simple carbs like sugars: they are quickly absorbed by the body as blood sugar which increases insulin - the enemy of weight loss diets.
5. Drink caffeine in moderation for the same reason. It stimulates insulin secretion.
6. Never go hungry. Eating regular meals and snacks will help eliminate those dangerous cravings and keep your body's defense mechanisms from going into starvation mode.
7. Eat more of your daily calories early in the day and less of them later.
8. Be content with slow weight loss. This prevents the body from going on defense and allows the weight loss to continue gradually.
9. Keep the weight off with exercise.
One More Thing
Even following these guidelines, some people who are obese or very overweight find it difficult to lose weight. For them, medication may help to support their weight loss diet.
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