If you’ve been on every diet in the world, well maybe not EVERY diet but a good number of them, and you’ve lost weight and then gained it back plus a few pounds – also known as the yo-yo effect – here’s why.
The “Lose Weight In A Short Time” diets are structured to do two things: lose water and lose protein. The body requires a steady input of protein throughout the day in order to build new cell walls as they age and break down as well as to perform other cell functions. Deprive it of protein in your food, and it looks for a new source of protein. The most convenient source of available protein is yourself. That’s right. When you are on fad diets that deprive your body of protein your body literally cannibalizes itself. Of course the body isn’t stupid. It takes its protein from the most expendable source it can find. The heart is not expendable, your internal organs aren’t expendable, and your brain – which is running the show – wouldn’t knowingly do anything to damage itself, so your body chooses to take protein from something that won’t immediately kill you – your lean muscle mass.
Nasty weight loss behaviors like bulimia and anorexia also introduce problems like mineral imbalance and are apt to kill you from potassium deprivation before it fully cannibalizes itself, but let’s just stick with the major problem of losing lean muscle mass.
Lean muscle mass actually burns calories. It burns fat while you sleep. It is your body’s single greatest calorie burner and very important in weight loss. That’s why good diets suggest muscle building weighted exercise along with aerobics (which doesn’t build muscle as its primary objective). Losing lean muscle mass literally means that you are undermining your body’s ability to burn calories every time you go on a fad diet. This makes it increasingly difficult to lose weight and easier and faster to gain weight. The pattern is to lose weight fast, lose muscle mass, gain weight back, go on another fast diet, lose more muscle mass, gain weight back faster, and on and on and on. Every time you to on a fad diet you lessen your ability to lose weight easily and heighten you ability to gain it back faster.
The answer is: avoid fad diets like the plague. One of the reasons teenagers are struggling with weight right now is – not only because they’re eating too much junk food but because they’ve started yo-yo dieting. Once on the yo-yo, it’s hard to get off. A good rule, if your teenager will cooperate, is to have them bring a healthy lunch to school. They will feel better through the day and – quite frankly – you don’t want your children eating school lunches EVER.
To lose weight, you want to change your lifestyle so that you eat three good meals a day and, if you get hungry between meals, drink water and have a very small protein rich snack. The rule for protein is: eat an amount of protein equal to the size of the palm of your hand three times a day. Drink 8-10 8 ounce glasses of water through the day, one on rising, one half hour before each meal and the rest mostly between meals. Eat all the raw or steamed green vegetables you want at meals, eat 6-8 almonds or a piece of string cheese between meals and eat that kind of a snack and drink a glass of water half an hour before attending a cocktail or dinner party so you don’t drink alcohol from thirst, or eat things your normally wouldn’t touch from hunger.
This diet is outlined in Suzy Prudden's Itty Bitty Weight Loss Book which is the smallest, fastest to read, lifestyle changing and best diet ever written.
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