Why Most Diets Don't Work.

It’s easy to see why some diets don’t make the cut. For example the Wednesday menu for the “Cabbage Soup Diet” requires eating 8 bananas with a bowl of cabbage soup. I’m sure I’d look forward to Wednesdays if I were a monkey.

One problem with many dieters is the desire for a quick fix to undo the damage that has been years in the making. “I need to lose 20 pounds by the time of my high school reunion.” It’s nice to lose 20 pounds but it’s not so much fun when we find that those pounds have come back home to roost...and bring a few friends along.

My eleven plus years of experience in the health and wellness profession has demonstrated time and again the difficulty of making weight loss stick.

It's with some regret that I recall that until the fall of 2001 we supported the low fat approach to losing weight.

"The fat you eat is the fat you wear" seemed to make sense at the time and it wasn't until I studied the research that I was converted to the "controlled carbohydrate approach of the Atkins and South Beach Diets.

We've found that the conventional low fat, calorie restricted diets recommended by the American Heart Association and most doctors have two problems.

· Dieters are hungry most of the time

· They feel deprived of the foods they love.

It's no wonder that 90% of the people that go on these diets gain the weight back…and usually with interest.

What happens with "starvation" diets

A high percentage of what is lost is water, muscle, bone and connective tissue. Believe me, you don't want to lose these important parts of your body.

The faster you lose the higher proportion that isn’t fat. The wrong diet can lower your metabolism up to 30%.

Extreme calorie restriction sends a message to your body that it is starving and it responds by hanging on to every ounce of fat to keep you alive.

To make things even worse when you lose muscle you become weaker and have less energy.

Naturally you quit. Who wants to live like this?

But there is an easier, healthier way. No it's not a quick fix but the results are well worth the wait.

We need to choose changes in our lifestyle that we can live with over the long haul.

One of the primary reasons people give up on their diets is because they involve changing our habits.

Habits die hard… especially when they concern food.

Eating right and exercising have two things in common. The real work goes on in the brain. If we take a hit or miss approach our old habits jump in and resume control.

What we eat, or in some cases don’t eat, can dramatically affect our health, energy level and longevity in addition to our waistline.

Gene