Where diets go wrong
The
first reaction of most people who discover that they’ve
put some weight on is to eat less food. It sounds simple
enough and reasonable. Since food is what got us into trouble
it follows that eating less of it will make everything right
again. Nearly every diet or eating plan in the magazines
or on the Internet says pretty much the same thing: eat
less food. Therefore the answer to this problem is very
simple and handy. Sure, going with less food than usual
is a challenge, but it also carries with it a sort of expiation
feeling.
Unfortunately for those who hope that lowering the food
intake would help them lose weight, this doesn’t work.
Over the thousands of years of evolution the human body
had to face starvation many times and had to find ways of
surviving. We are the offsprings of those who managed to
survive periods of starvation by coping with the lack of
food. Therefore, a simple decrease in the volume of food
is not going to make a big difference because the body will
simply compensate for it by lowering the amount of energy
produced and limiting the capacity for effort.
The best way to reach your weight loss goal is to work
around this defense system by eating smart instead
of eating less. Overweight people and thin people
eat roughly the same number of calories per day because
they share the same required amount of food. However, overweight
people eat far more fat than thin people, who seem to prefer
complex carbohydrates that are easily broken down and metabolized
by the body. This is the biggest difference between the
two groups and the best point to start when considering
what and how to change in your eating patterns.
Good dieting always takes time. The excess
weight was not accumulated over night and will never go
away in a single day. Every year hundreds of thousands of
people are searching the Internet and reading magazines
in order to get dieting tips and to find the modern Holy
Grail: a pill that can make fat disappear in an instant.
Well, maybe this is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
You have probably encountered by now a lot of advertisements
promising such amazing results with the help of some quasi
magic ingredient or other. And you probably know that losing
weight doesn’t work like that.
The only way to lose weight for good is to avoid
eating foods that are rich in fat and to exercises
on a regular basis. Dieting without exercising is
pointless because all the weight lost by eating
less food will come right back in the following months.
The sedentary lifestyle most of us lead is one of the causes
behind the recent increase in the number of overweight people
around the world. Cars, office jobs and foods rich in fat
have brought us an unforeseen problem because the easy modern
life has a price tag, just like everything else.
