Why Fad Diets are an Ineffective Way to Lose Weight

April 28, 2010 By Mark

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This is a guest post by Lisa Roberts.

Usually the first thing people do when they decide to lose weight is pick a faddy diet to go on. This usually means having to eat foods that we are not too crazy about. It often requires you to have to learn a new way of cooking and preparing meals, which can be quite challenging. It’s no wonder so many people fail at losing weight.

Firstly, for the most part, many diets do not give you the tools you need to be successful in losing weight. They simply do not supply you with strategies you need to help you lose weight quickly and safely in different types of environments. Whether it’s learning how to cook low fat or knowing what to order when you eat out. Many of them fail to supply this information and often these diet plans include unrealistic expectations, which are unhealthy for us in the long-run.

Secondly, they also do not teach us efficient ways to exercise. Often the exercise routine is not even included in a weight loss plan.

Thirdly, they don’t give us the information we need to learn how to fight our cravings. This is a big part of being able to lose weight and keep it off. Without this necessary tool, we will keep making the same mistakes repeatedly.

Fourthly, when you go on a diet you may go for the all or nothing approach. You reduce calories so much, that it actually hinders our ability to lose weight. When the body is starving, it will actually begin to hold onto fat within the body. This makes it even more challenging to drop weight. Your metabolism will be affected because once you decide to get off this diet; your metabolism is so slow it will cause you to put on weight.

You become exhausted from making so many difficult changes to your lifestyle that they eventually give in. This usually ends up with them putting back on the weight you had lost.

When you decide to go back on a diet, it actually becomes even more difficult to lose weight. This is because you lose patience, become frustrated with yourself and may even become depressed. This is when you begin telling yourself that your attempts will not work and that you will fail.

Back in 2007, researchers at UCLA did a meta-analysis, a study of 31 other studies, and found that most dieters gain the weight back and more in the long term. A further four-year study of 19,000 healthy older men found that “the single biggest predictor of weight gain was if a man had been on a diet at some point in the past”.

People are often quick to blame themselves for not having the perseverance needed to be successful at losing weight. You need to consider designing a weight loss plan that suits your own personal needs and lifestyle. You need to choose to lead a lifestyle that will help you lose weight and reach a healthy weight, and then enable you to stay at a healthy weight for the remainder of your life.

What you can do is take control of your life and find your own solution to the problem. Since exercise is essential for weight loss, you can incorporate exercise into your daily routine. This can be any physical activity you enjoy doing. Maybe you enjoy swimming, or playing tennis. The point here is to make sure to include activities that you will stick to doing.

Now that the exercise part of the weight loss plan is incorporated, you can begin making subtle changes to your diet. Maybe you can cut out all beverages with high amounts of sugar. You can also eat smaller portions and drink a lot of water to help curb cravings.