Are You One Of Those Who Think Crash Diets Help You Lose Body Fat?
For many women, dieting is the same as fasting. How many times have you teased someone who is not eating and say they are on a diet? The truth is, dieting or fasting does not get rid of your body fat. Quite the opposite, if you don’t eat, your body will go into survival mode and start storing fat. You need to eat if you want to lose your body fat, and here is the really bad news – you need to ensure you lose body fat by increasing your physical activity.
What happens when you skip a meal is that you get rid of your bloat, and the water in your body. It makes you look good in dress, especially important when you have a dinner or a party to attend. Starve yourself long enough and you will lose body fat, along with muscles and pretty soon, you won’t look very good. Which is as close to anorexia as you would want to be.
The most effective way to lose body fat is to eat the right kind of food. Food should look good, taste great and be easy to prepare. You are not just feeding your body, you are also feeding your brain. Fruits provide fuel for your body and is the primarily source of energy for your brain. An added bonus of eating fruits is the vitamins and other nutrients found in fruits, as well as anti-oxidants in what are termed superfruits.
By providing your body with the right food, combined with an active lifestyle, you will not only look good, you will feeling great too!
The Right Food To Help You Lose Body Fat
Choosing the right food for your body is not as hard as it looks. All the basic food lessons you have learn is what you need. Start the day with a bowl of fruits and fruit juice is an ideal way to start the day. Fruits provide energy for your body and wakes up your brain. Snacking on a bowl of milk and cereal, toast or sandwich later in the morning provides more energy for your body and stops you from going hungry.
For lunch, eat more vegetables or have a salad. Vegetables are a good replacement for fruits and provides the same goodness. Have a serving of meat or fish for lunch, as long as it isn’t junk food. Too much starch and potatoes will tend to make you sleepy during the day. You can keep track of what you eat and see how well you perform later in the day. There is a connection between what you eat and how well you perform.
For dinner, you can eat whatever you want just so long as you keep to your portion control and there isn’t too much fried food. A healthy serving of vegetables, along with a desert of fresh fruits is good for your body.
By removing junk food, fried and oily food, watching your calories you are setting yourself up for success. Keep up your physical activities and you will start to lose body fat. Continue to watch what you eat and pretty soon you will find yourself feeling energetic.
Mistaking Water Loss For Body Fat Loss
Many desperate people turn to crash diets hoping they will lose the most weight in the shortest time that way. Perhaps they have had past experiences of losing weight successfully with this type of plan, or they have read about a new diet that some celebrity has followed to lose weight fast. So what is wrong with crash diets? Is there any reason why they have such a bad reputation?
The most obvious problem with crash diets is that the weight loss is almost always temporary. If you suddenly change to a restricted diet, your body will respond by storing less water. You will lose weight and be less bloated, thinner, but you will not necessarily lose any fat. When you end the diet that weight will go right back on.
Of course, you may lose some fat too, depending on the diet and how long you follow it. However, the body often goes into starvation mode during these diets. It thinks a famine has hit, and it should slow down the metabolism and store as much fat as possible to guard against the hard times ahead. When you increase your food consumption, even if you do it in a healthy way, that famine metabolism can persist and lead your body to gain some or all of the weight back.
Added to that is the psychological effect of breaking a crash diet. Whether this happens at the end of the planned diet or in the middle out of desperation, it tends involve overeating. For this reason alone, many people who follow crash diets find that a month later, they are heavier than they were before the diet.
In addition, there are some significant health issues with crash diets. First, diets that focus on losing weight fast are usually very restrictive in the types of foods that you can eat. Many foods (and sometimes whole food groups) will be cut out. This is not something you could do in the long term without suffering from deficiencies. It is not good for the body in the short term either.
On many crash diets you will not be getting the nutrients that the body needs. It is true that you can take supplements, but many supplements rely on substances in whole foods to make them work most effectively. Nutrient deficiencies lead to cravings, making it harder to stick to the diet and more likely that you will break out in a binge. At the same time, you may be getting more of some nutrients than is healthy.
To summarize, crash diets can only ever be a temporary solution, for example for a situation where you need to lose a little weight for a particular event, and you do not mind if you gain it back – and more – afterward. The healthiest option for losing weight is to make changes that will allow you to lose weight slowly on a healthy eating plan that does not ban any foods completely, but allows you to incorporate occasional treats. In the long term, people who follow crash diets are likely to gain weight, not lose it.
This article was originally published on HerbalSabah.com in 2012.
