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Article
Archives 2005 » Weight Loss Success Stories |
| Why Diets Lead
to Failure
Ever thought of, known someone, or gone on a diet? You
probably have. The word diet seems like a common word
for someone who is unsatisfied with their current physical
condition. The problem is that most diets usually end
up failing…in the long run. Going on a "diet"
usually refers to eating a lot less food, in the hope
that it will make us lose those unwanted pounds of fat.
Although there are different types of diets, 90% of
them stress a strong reduction in calories one way or
another.
Everyone has a certain amount of calories that they
require per day to keep themselves alive and to perform
bodily processes. This requirement of calories is known
as Resting Metabolic Rate or RMR for short. For the
purpose of this article, we will use my body as an example.
My RMR is about 2500 calories/day. I will eat about
2500 calories to just keep myself alive. Note: You can
calculate your RMR.
On another note, our bodies adapt to the stimuli that
they are exposed to. For instance, when one lifts weights
their body adapts by growing muscle, when one runs long
distances their bodies adapt by building more capillaries
to enhance blood flow, when one is exposed to cold temperatures
their body begins to shiver in an attempt to create
heat through muscle contractions, etc. The point is
our bodies adapt to essentially everything that they
are exposed to, including how many calories we eat per
day.
So, when our bodies are exposed to a calorie deficit
(a lower number
of calories than our RMR) they must adapt. Let's
say that I want to go on a diet and I begin to eat 1000
calories a day instead of the normal 2500 (Actually,
I eat more than 2500 calories because I exercise and
perform daily activities. 2500 only accounts for the
calories needed to keep my body alive. Although for
the sake of simplicity, we are only using the RMR. If
the message within these parentheses confused you, simply
ignore it.) One of the first ways my body is going to
adapt is by using up my fat stores to make up for the
lack of calories. This is why most diets seem to work
in the beginning. The thing is, the body does not want
to keep using its precious fat stores for energy. The
human body does not see fat as a bad thing; it is a
backup mechanism for when a calorie deficit is introduced.
Now here's the kicker. Since my body is not going to
want to keep using up its fat stores, it is going to
adapt by lowering how many calories my body needs per
day to keep itself running (RMR). One of the main ways
it accomplishes this is by eating away at it's own muscle.
Instead of requiring 2500 calories a day to keep my
body running, my body will eventually adapt over a period
of time and only require 1000 calories to keep running.
Back when our ancestors lived they needed this calorie
adaptation to survive when food was short and they were
starving. The trouble is, the body cannot tell the difference
between starvation and dieting.
Now that my body's RMR has adjusted to the new number
of calories that I'm are eating, it no longer needs
to use its emergency fat stores to keep itself alive.
This is when your fat loss stops from a diet. In addition
to this, if I decide that I want to go off of my 1000
calories a day diet and begin to eat 2500 calories a
day again then there is a calorie surplus. The body
does not need these extra calories so it will store
them as fat. The exception to storing them as fat is
when the body needs to build muscle because it has been
exposed to some type of exercise or weight lifting,
and even then all of the calories are not used for muscle
growth.
Now that I have changed my RMR to 1000 calories per
day, I have really wrecked my metabolism and it's going
to be harder to get to my goal of actually losing fat.
That is, unless of course If I want to stay on my diet
forever.
Reference:- Weight Loss Programs
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