WHY DIETING DOESN'T WORKI have never met anyone who just went on a diet once, lost the weight they wanted to lose, and then went back to living a normal life. Everyone I know who has ever been on a diet has been on more than one. There are fad diets and the fad of "being on a diet." What people usually mean when they say they are on a diet is that they are on a weight-loss program. What is amazing to me is the number of people who are continually on a diet but never lose their weight. They are not really on a weight-loss program. They are just constantly on a diet. Chapter 2 gives you vital information on long-term or chronic dieting, which means a significant reduction in daily caloric intake over an extended period of time ranging from several days to several weeks or even months. On page 11 I explain why the weight loss industry and chronic dieting is responsible for a 95 percent failure rate because when dieters stop dieting they regain the pounds they lost. These diets are not designed to fail on purpose. Although designed with good intentions, I discuss the two major reasons that diets fail. Chapter 2 also discusses why people can't stay on whatever diet plan it is they are trying and how your subconscious mind may defeat your conscious efforts to lose weight. You may have decided to lose 20 pounds before summer so you will feel comfortable being seen in your bathing suit. You go on a diet and gain ten pounds! Of course! You don't deserve to look good in your bathing suit! You didn't really expect to anyway. The diet didn't have a chance. It was an innocent victim on the way to some sandy beach. Eating is also fun. Going out to eat is often combined with being social. It not only satisfies your hunger and nutritional requirements, but provides many other benefits as well. Unfortunately, most of these benefits come at a price and too often it is added weight that you did not really want. Once your hunger has been satisfied, the primary purpose of food is as a psychological tonic. When you're worried, you eat. When you're bored, you eat. When you're depressed, you eat. Eating makes people feel good. In Chapter 4 I show you techniques to make social eating a time of pleasure that does not have to be followed by feelings of guilt. Chapter 2 also discusses how using food to satisfy psychological needs results in some new habit patterns. Frequent visits to the refrigerator become a habit pattern. Stopping for coffee and donuts or a latte and muffin is a habit. Drinking pop that has ten teaspoons of sugar is a habit. In almost every case, these habits are more beneficial to your psychological state of mind than they are to the well-being and weight status of your body. Habits are formed over time, are more complex than we ever imagined, and are very hard to break. The same is true for the habit of eating. When you realize that most diets are asking you to give up something that is fun, satisfies many of your deepest psychological needs, and is one of your strongest habits, you can understand why continual dieting doesn't work! With Action Step 1 - Quit Dieting and Eat Normally, you will discover how to set yourself free to be normal again.
METABOLISM AND WEIGHT LOSSChapter 2 also discusses the affect of continual dieting on metabolism. Each of us is truly unique and that is reflected in our metabolism. We all know of instances where an overweight person gains weight on a weight-loss program while someone thin can eat to their palate's delight and not gain a pound. The reason for this kind of difference has to do with the unique metabolic rate that each of us has.Chapter 4 explains what metabolism is and why returning to normal eating helps in achieving permanent weight loss. Your metabolism can be altered by your behavior. If you are sedentary and tend to be inactive, a prolonged decrease in your caloric intake will result in a slower metabolic rate. Even though you have reduced calories, the drop in metabolism will result in a slower rate of burning calories, especially fats, and defeat any effort to lose weight. Chapters 4 and 5 show you how normal eating combined with the right kind of exercise will increase your metabolic rate. The charts on page 26 graphically portray the affect of both dieting and normal eating on metabolic rate and thermogenesis. When calories are reduced for longer than just two days, your body begins to draw upon other energy sources. The common conception is that the body begins to use excess stores of fat. That is not the case. In Chapter 2 you will learn how your body turns instead to its most immediate energy source and turns it into glucose, or sugar, to supply energy to the body. The result of these chemical actions is that the first weight you lose through continual dieting is not fat, but carbohydrates and water from your muscle tissue. Chapter 2 also shows you that when you reduce calories and remain inactive, both fat and muscle are lost. However, when you quit dieting, your body begins to replace the fat that has been lost faster than it adds back lost muscle. EverTrim shows you how yo-yo dieting results in a vicious cycle that continually weakens the body, makes it more difficult to reduce overall body weight, and actually contributes to the problem of being overweight! Chapters 2 and 4 show you how to break this cycle.
LIVING TO EAT vs EATING TO LIVE
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