Diet : 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.