Five Reasons to Stop Dieting

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

24 Apr 2006 11:30 AM

So what are the five best reasons to stop the dieting roller-coaster ride?

Simply put:

• Diets Reduce Your Metabolism - That's right - dieting makes you conserve energy, which forces your body to slow down its own systems in order to lower the energy output.
• Dieting Drain Energy - When you cut back on food and begin to starve the body, that means there is just not enough energy to do other things.
• Some diets are just not healthy - The cycling of rapid weight loss to weight gain can lead to stripping away lean tissue and calcium from your bones as well as causing a reduction of essential minerals and vitamins
• Diets make food your enemy - This is a critical problem of many diets. Food provides us sustenance and nourishment. A diet can make you afraid of what you eat and it can make eating a punishment rather than a pleasure.
• Dieting Cheats Your Confidence - When you diet and you fail or you cycle from weight loss to weight gain to weight loss - your self-esteem and your self-confidence suffer.

Ultimately, for any diet to be truly effective you need to have a healthy, balanced eating habit combined with regular physical activity. While these are less than glamorous than the idea of just melting the pounds away, you will get better, longer-term results from diets that use these solutions than you will from any crash and burn diet.

One of the best ways to diet may be to add some extra exercise and one less fatty type meal per week. Gradually work your way towards plans that include a lifelong commitment to drinking more water, eating fruits and vegetables, and eating less of foods that contain high amounts of bad fats.

When you are checking out different diet plans or weight loss regimes, the first question you need to ask yourself is if you think you can stick to that routine for life?

If you cannot answer yes, then that diet is really not the one for you. The best guidelines for judging a good diet and weight loss regimen is to verify that it has the following components:

• Enjoyable exercise to be performed regularly
• A minimum of 1200 calories a day
• A menu that contains a variety of foods
• A regular enough menu that helps you avoid feeling hungry all the time
• The flexibility to cope with social occasions and treats
• Realistic goals for the weight loss

Diets that offer anything other than these components are less than honest and less likely to be successful.

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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