Why Dieting Could be Bad for Your Waistline

The whole purpose of going on a diet is to lose weight and reduce your waistline. You may decide to follow a radically different diet from the one you usually have and this results in weight loss. However, eventually you fall back into old habits and any weight you lost soon makes a return, which tends to leave you feeling extremely frustrated. Instead of considering where you went wrong, you simply jump right back into dieting, this time choosing a different diet. The results are always the same, though; initially, you lose weight rapidly, but it doesn’t take long to regain the weight.

Consequently, dieting may not be the best way to go if you are serious about losing weight. Although you may be able to follow a rigid diet for a short period of time, this just isn’t possible in the long run. When you go on a diet you know that you are going to lose weight quickly, which helps to keep you motivated to stick to the diet plan. When it comes to maintaining a healthier weight, though, you simply don’t have the tools to achieve this aim, which makes it more likely you will pile on the pounds once again.

When you are on a diet you don’t really have to think for yourself about what to eat, since it is all laid down in the plan. All you have to do is follow it and you will achieve weight loss. That is because most diets are designed to be very low in calories. To lose weight you obviously have to build up a calorie deficit, but you don’t want to consume so few calories that you are not getting all the nutrients you need. If you don’t eat enough your energy levels will plummet, you will become more susceptible to illness and it will be difficult to remain positive.

You may lose a lot of weight by going on a restrictive diet, but your body will not like being starved of calories. Thus, when you abandon your diet and go back to eating normally, which probably means consuming too many calories, your body is going to desperately hold on to those calories. Not only will you start to regain the weight you lost; you could also find that it becomes more difficult to lose weight in the future, having treated your body so poorly in the past. If your weight is constantly yo-yoing up and down, this won’t be doing your health any favours or your waistline, either.

Indeed, you could find yourself significantly heavier than when you began your weight loss journey, which is not what you expect when you decide to go on a diet and begin to take dieting seriously. That is why you really have to embrace small, sensible changes in your life to lose weight, rather than taking drastic measures that will enable rapid weight loss, but which you won’t be able to stick to in the long run.