Every time you turn around there is another commercial selling you the only diet that will ever work, until you see the next commercial.
In order to understand how to lose weight and keep it off one must look at the scientific reasoning for gaining weight. The food that we eat is supposed to be eaten to fuel our bodies. To fuel our bodies with the energy and nutrients we need to survive and stay healthy. Each of our bodies requires a specific amount of nutrients: vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates, fats, and water.
In our society, however, we consume so many excess calories and especially in the form of empty calories, that one gains weight. Generally speaking one needs about 1200-1800 calories per day; that number depends on one's activity level. However if a person is sedentary and not burning any excess calories, then however many calories that person consumes in a day is going to either be used or if there is excess it will be stored in the form of fat. People who exercise can take in a bit more calories to sustain their energy level, however even an active person does not need to take in too many extra calories. Just think about it like this: it takes 3500 calories to burn one pound of fat. If you think about it in those terms that is a lot of time to spend on a treadmill!
We can also look at these fad diets that help you lose 10 pounds in one week. If it takes 3500 calories to burn one pound of fat, then it would take 35,000 calories to burn 10 pounds of fat. That number is huge. So how then is this possible? Well, quite frankly it's not. When people go on these yo-yo diets and lose a lot of weight really fast the weight that they are losing is not necessarily fat, but rather lean muscle and water weight. This is why it is so easy to put the weight back on. Let’s think about it like this - does it take a person one week to gain 30-50 extra pounds? The answer is no, so then it would only make sense that one could not lose it that fast either.
There is no magic pill or diet out there that is going to allow a person to lose all of his extra weight overnight. The diet that works is first the one that a person will stick to. That means a person has to have moderation and balance in his diet as in life. One does not have to give up eating everything that he likes and enjoys eating. However, in order to lose weight one must not take in extra calories that are not going to be utilized and one must not indulge in bad foods everyday. In order to lose weight in a healthy way one must make it an entire lifestyle change.
Nothing about dieting is easy; it’s hard to get started and even harder to maintain a diet. It is not until we start to see the adverse effects that things such as poor diets cause, that we start to change. The best method of treatment is prevention, so in saying that we as a society are seeing the negative affects poor diets are having on us, we as a society should start educating and becoming role models for the next generations.
