Why Diets Do (or Do Not Work)
Daniel Andrade
January 08, 2008
Pick up any popular woman's magazine and chances are there is at least one article dedicated to some new diet that will help you lose weight. Most of these article writers have put together a diet idea that seems plausible in order to sell their idea for a magazine. The magazines themselves, understanding their audience and justifying their need to sell Ad space are more than willing to run these articles and pay the author their market rates for them. Sometimes there is legitimate science behind the magazine diets, but most of the time their is not.
It seems odd that there should be such a proliferation of diets, especially since the amount of foods we actually do eat is limited, but most magazines can run for several years without repeating themselves. When one one of these diets you will lose weight, but typically not for the reasons the diet of the author says you will. Regular listeners to the Dr. Dean Adell talk radio program know that diets work simply because you eat less than you normally do.
Weight gain is caused by taking in more calories than your body actually needs to sustain itself on a daily basis. What you do not eat gets stored as fat. In times when food is less scarce, the body uses the fat it has stored as an energy source. People who go on a diet are forcing the body to use its stored energy reserve.
This all works well up to a point, but the problem occurs when you go off the diet. If you resume your normal habits as most people do, not only will you gain the weight back, but the body, responding to the fasting mode stores more fat than it did previously causing even more weight gain. This trend is called yo-yo dieting and should be avoided at all costs.
Thus diets work while you are on them be fail afterwards and cause more weight gain. Making changes to your lifestyle and how you eat are the best ways to maintain a healthy weight. While it may seem strange, many doctors and fitness gurus have stopped using the word diet for the images it conveys and instead simply prefer to use phrases like proper nutrition and exercise to help set people who have a weight loss goal on the right track. Remember to consult a medical professional before beginning any weight loss program.
It seems odd that there should be such a proliferation of diets, especially since the amount of foods we actually do eat is limited, but most magazines can run for several years without repeating themselves. When one one of these diets you will lose weight, but typically not for the reasons the diet of the author says you will. Regular listeners to the Dr. Dean Adell talk radio program know that diets work simply because you eat less than you normally do.
Weight gain is caused by taking in more calories than your body actually needs to sustain itself on a daily basis. What you do not eat gets stored as fat. In times when food is less scarce, the body uses the fat it has stored as an energy source. People who go on a diet are forcing the body to use its stored energy reserve.
This all works well up to a point, but the problem occurs when you go off the diet. If you resume your normal habits as most people do, not only will you gain the weight back, but the body, responding to the fasting mode stores more fat than it did previously causing even more weight gain. This trend is called yo-yo dieting and should be avoided at all costs.
Thus diets work while you are on them be fail afterwards and cause more weight gain. Making changes to your lifestyle and how you eat are the best ways to maintain a healthy weight. While it may seem strange, many doctors and fitness gurus have stopped using the word diet for the images it conveys and instead simply prefer to use phrases like proper nutrition and exercise to help set people who have a weight loss goal on the right track. Remember to consult a medical professional before beginning any weight loss program.
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