The diet
does not result in a negative energy balance.
Eating habits and diets are very personal things
and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to weight loss. Many dieters
overestimate the amount of calories they burn during exercise or incidental
activity and underestimate the amount they are consuming in certain
foods. This can mean that even if the diet is followed correctly, weight
loss may not occur and in fact you may gain a little.
It is also common for dieters to choose a diet
program seen in a magazine or on the internet that provides a certain amount of
calories. Whilst this may cause weight loss in some people, there is no
guarantee it is the right number of calories for everyone to lose weight.
To avoid this trap, see a dietician who can work out an appropriate weight loss
diet for you based on your weight, physical activity level and current diet.
Energy
requirements change as you lose weight.
Many dieters make the mistake of continuing on
the same diet and calorie intake even after they have lost some weight.
This can easily stop weight loss and may even cause regain of the lost
weight. When the body weighs less it requires less calories to maintain
this weight. Thus it may be appropriate to reduce calories further after
you have lost some weight.
Very strict
diets can change your metabolism
Very low calorie diets can cause your body to go
into starvation mode, conserving every calorie that it receives as it is unsure
when it will receive more energy. These results in your metabolism
slowing down, which means if you slip up and consume more calories or you stop
dieting and go back to your original way of eating, weight gain is likely to
result.
In general it is wise to aim for a small
weight loss per week which can be achieved by a calorie deficit of about
500 to 1000 calories per day, rather than an extremely low calorie diet that is
impossible to maintain and may end up causing weight gain in the long term.
Overcompensating
for exercise
Many dieters also use exercise as a tool to burn
more calories and lose weight. This can be very successful; however it is
common for exercisers to overestimate the amount of calories they are burning
during physical activity.
If exercise is seen as an excuse to eat more this
can result in weight gain. Remember that just because you have gone to
the gym, it is not an excuse to come home and eat a tub of ice cream. A
balance between intake and exercise needs to be found in order to achieve
weight loss.
Excess
consumption of healthy or low fat foods
Many dieters choose what they perceive to be
healthier options when watching their weight. This can lead to weight
gain for two reasons, the first being that products that appear to be
healthier, such as low fat yogurt, are not always lower in calories than the
original product.
Low fat products often contain more sugar than
other products to maintain the taste and may even have more calories than the
original because of this. Similarly, ‘healthy’ choices on menus such as
salads are often laden in dressing or fried croutons meaning they have more
calories than a dish that may seem unhealthier.
The second reason healthy food intake can cause
weight gain is that when people perceive a food to be healthy they feel they
can eat more of it. Remember that if too much of any food, no matter how
healthy and nutritious is eaten, it will result in weight gain.
To combat these issues learn to read food
labels to determine the true healthiest products and exercise portion
control even when eating healthy foods.
Diet foods
may cause cravings
Many diet foods contain artificial
sweeteners to replace sugar and reduce the calorie content. There
has been some suggestion that consuming sweeteners may lead to cravings for
sweet foods, as the body expects a sugar hit when something sweet is eaten.
This in turn can lead to increased cravings for
sweet or carbohydrate based foods and makes it harder to follow a diet and can
result in weight gain if these cravings are given in to.
Erratic
eating patterns
Following a restrictive diet can set people up to
develop erratic eating patterns that may lead to weight gain. Many
dieters skip meals and don’t eat at regular intervals in order to reduce
calories; however this can play havoc with the hunger control hormones in the
body and lead to overeating due to extreme hunger later on.
It has been suggested that those who eat regular
meals tend to lose more weight than those who eat erratically or graze
throughout the day.
Setting short term goals
Short term goals set by dieters such as losing
weight for a special event can often lead to weight gain in the long
term. Generally these people are so focussed on the one event that they
do not look to develop lifelong healthy eating habits, but instead go for a
quick fix solution that is unsustainable in the long term.
People who follow these short term crash type
diets generally gain all the weight back and usually a little extra to go with
it.
Food as a
reward
Many dieters use food as a reward for sticking to
their diet, which is fine if it is an occasional treat, but can lead to weight
gain if indulged in too often. It is a much better idea to reward
yourself in non food related ways, such as a shopping trip or long hot bath,
rather than risk undoing all your hard work and developing food habits that can
lead to long term weight gain.
Kredit: caloriesecrets.net
