DO CRASH DIETS WORK?

DO CRASH DIETS WORK?

If the holidays have found you weighing a bit more than you did this time last month, you’re not alone.  Many people are struggling to lose those five to ten pounds that seem to find their way onto the hips, belly and thighs from the end of November until the New Year begins!  But if you are considering a crash diet, don’t.  In general, crash diets do not work, and even if you do see some semblance of results, they are really, really unhealthy for you!

DIETING LIKE THE CAVE MAN?

For those who are not familiar with the term ‘crash dieting’, a crash diet is where you eat next to nothing in order to lose weight.  Some folks experience amazingly quick weight loss when going on a crash diet, but they regain the weight quickly as soon as they start eating again.  Research has also shown that crash diets can actually make you fatter.  Yep, seems our bodies have innate triggers in them that have survived throughout the ages – these triggers existed all the way back when we had to store away food in order to survive the winter.  When winter came, our ancestors often went without food for many days or weeks at a time. Their bodies adapted to this by slowing down their metabolism.  We modern day humans have that same trigger.  Deprive your body of food, and it will go into survival mode, your metabolism will lower and you won’t be able to burn fat effectively.  What you do eat will be converted to fat cells to last you until the “winter” subsides.  Makes sense, huh?  Thus, avoid crash diets. You don’t want to trick your body into believing you are going into hibernation – we all know what this does to the bear’s waistline!

A BETTER IDEA……

A better idea is to avoid crash dieting and eat a healthy, balanced diet.  Don’t bother counting carbs or fat grams.  Don’t even count calories. Most healthy people can reduce the number of calories that they eat each day in order to lose weight by eating slowly.  This will make sense later Fewer calories going in, more “fuel” being burnt in the form of exercise equals a slimmer you.  Crash diets are unhealthy, ineffective, and can be dangerous.  Lose weight naturally by controlling how you eat (more on that below) and staying active instead!

USE COMMON SENSE:

One of the most comprehensive studies on diets found that dieting doesn’t work for the majority of people. Dieting over and over again actually leads to an increased risk of several diseases. What to do instead?

Ultimately, losing weight is about controlling how you eat and not what you eat. Many studies have shown that eating slower results in eating less (just type: eating less study in Google and you’ll find all sorts of studies proving this).

Another thing is exercise…but it doesn’t have to be an exercise you hate. Try different types of exercises and see which ones you like. Even WALKING more is a sort of exercise!

Try these simple things for a month or two and you should notice you losing weight. That’s what I did!

LET’S HEAR YOUR OPINION:

So, what do you think? Do you think diets work? Do you think it’s more about how we eat than what we eat? Feel free to leave your own opinion by commenting below.

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This is a guest post by Darren who has been writing about dieting for the past year. He helps people find a long-lost friend online. If you’re trying to do that, start by looking at this free people search article containing 25 online people search engines.

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