Many fad diets swear that losing weight is as easy as drinking lemonade and eating cookies, but as most of us know it is not that simple. One in 3 or 97 million Americans struggle to shed unwanted pounds. There is no shortage of diets, yet most of them fail to provide significant results because they lack the indispensable ingredients of flexibility, healthiness, maintainability, and satisfaction.
To entice dieters, many diets short-shortsightedly focus on losing mega amounts of weight at lightning speeds. While this seems idyllic to most dieters there obviously is a catch. To promote significant weight loss many fad diets require a stringent restriction of food. This is one route to the Promised Land, but it leaves much to be desired. With strict non-deviation plans, dieters aren’t provided with much of an alternative-either eat the minuscule morsel portioned by the plan or abandon the diet. Diets that narrowly focus on one form of sustenance deprive the body of a variety of desperately needed nutrients. Failing to provide the body with adequate nutrients may not only impede weight loss, but may cause health complications.
Folly falls on even the best laid plans-that is why flexibility is such a critical component to successful diets. Limited choices force dieters’ choices to abandon their diet to forgo the agony of deep hunger pangs. A diet must adapt to life’s changes while meeting the needs of the dieter.
Achieving weight loss success takes time and commitment. To help dieters remain committed to their diet plan, it must be easily maintainable. When a diet is too difficult to follow, dieters may seek an escape route in search of the fastest and easiest solution, which is often found in convenient, yet non-nutritive food selections like fast food and vending machines.
Uncontrollable urges to eat come on for good reason-the body is a self-preserving creature. Even though dieters want to lose weight, it does not mean they want to be hungry. The body requires a steady source of food with nutrients to thrive. Strict diets often limit the quantity and quality of food available to dieters; therefore, the brain may take control and dump the diet to go on.
Diets fail because they are not livable-their expectations and requirements are too unrealistic and do not mesh well into dieters’ lives. The average dieter just can’t withstand the bondage of diets, despite their desires to lose weight. Before wasting another second on a dead end diet, evaluate it. Determine if it will meet all of your needs. Will it be flexible, healthy, maintainable, and satisfactory? If it won’t, consider finding one that will.
To learn more about achieving real weight loss read How to Lose Weight in the Real World: Why Other Diets Suck and You’re Not Losing Weight written by Dr. Jessica deValentino available on amazon.com and select bookstores.