Dieting Make You Fat...So Eat More to Lose Weight

This is a monthly e-zine that will cut through the hype, fads and gimmicks to give you the low down on the really important information you need to successfully lose weight and keep it off.

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And so to this month's e-zine...

She told me that she was on a diet...another one. She's always on a diet!

Anyway, I diplomatically asked her what diet she was on and how much weight she wanted to lose.

She told me she was just "cutting back" as the family were going away for a week at half term and she wanted to get back into her favourite bikini.

She was looking to lose a stone - 14lbs - in around 2 weeks.

And what was she doing to lose all that weight so quickly...?

Have a guess -- eating next to nothing at all!

I've lost count of how many times I've heard that story from so many different people.

The thinking goes along the lines of - eating food makes you fat, the more food you eat the fatter you get, therefore the less food I eat the more weight I'll lose and the quicker I'll lose it.

I call this the 'diet mentality'.

Now dieting done properly can work and yes, as long as you learn some new eating habits and attitudes to food and life in general along the way, you can lose weight and keep it off for life.

Generally though, dieting doesn't work.

Sure you may lose some weight but it will come back sooner rather than later.

I'd even go further... dieting is partly responsible for the obesity epidemic we're in.

In fact...dieting makes you fat!

Why...?

Don't worry, this is all very simple!

For most of human history food has been scarce.

Humans are hunter gatherers, roaming far and wide to hunt and forage for food.

It's only very recently in human evolution that food has become abundant, available on pretty much every street corner - well, in the developed world at least.

Because of this, we've developed a range of survival mechanisms, one of which is the starvation response.

It works like this...

Your body is designed to store fat. Fat is your principal energy store and your body doesn't want to deplete it unless it absolutely has to.

So when food is in short supply your metabolism switches to fat storing mode.

Your body wants to conserve energy and hang on to its body fat stores. So your metabolism slows down and you get by on less energy.

As muscle tissue is responsible for most of the calories that you expend each day, your body takes muscle protein, deaminates it and burns the carbon shell.

The muscle supplies energy rather than consuming energy and as you have progressively less muscle, your metabolic rate is lower, again conserving energy.

Essentially, your body equates dieting with starvation. The longer you diet the less effective it becomes.

After a few weeks or months, the weight loss slows down or stops...the dreaded plateau!

At this point, most people figure that they need to eat less to get the weight dropping off again.

The problem is, the more severe the diet becomes the more pronounced the starvation response until you end up eating next to nothing at all and still have some fat to lose!

Oh, and there's another problem that repeated dieting causes...

The Yo-yo Effect...

Each time you diet - starve - it recognises the signs and the starvation response kicks in more quickly.

Yo-yo dieters go on diet after diet, each becoming less and less effective as their body gets better at protecting them from yet another bout of starvation.

Repeated dieting teaches your body to become a better fat storer, to become much more energy efficient.

The long term results of repeated dieting are a slower metabolism, less muscle tissue and a higher percentage of body fat than when you started. You often weigh more, too.

Hence, the term 'dieting makes you fat.'

So How Can You Lose Weight and Keep it Off...?

The safe rate at which you can lose weight is 1-2lbs a week. That doesn't sound a lot but equates to 52-104lbs a year!

Any more than that and you're losing muscle tissue.

Think about it this way. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat.

To lose 1lb a week you need to eat 500 calories less each day, or burn 500 calories more than you eat through exercise or being more physically active day to day.

For a woman who requires 2,000 calories a day, that would mean eating 1,500 calories a day to lose a pound a week.

Ignore diets that claim you'll lose more than 1-2lbs a week.

There's one diet that promises 18lbs of weight loss in 4 days - nonsense!

To lose 18lbs of body fat you'd need to burn 63,000 calories of body fat in 4 days, or 15,750 calories a day.

You only burn around 2,600 calories running a marathon!

Quick weight loss diets don't work.

Instead, design your own healthy weight loss plan.

Or if you want a more formal diet, choose from the best weight loss plans.

Build some exercise into your daily routine and concentrate on developing and adopting the long term eating and exercise habits that will ensure permanent weight loss.

A Final Thought...

They're depressing stasistics and it really needn't be that way.

Abandon the diet mentality, eat a healthy balanced diet and do some regular exercise.

There is no short cut to successful and lasting weight loss. Do it properly and you'll get the job done...and will never have to diet again!

Wishing you all the best in your weight loss endeavours and we'll chat again next month!

Best wishes,

Marcus and Lisa