Why Diet Fail?

diet fail

Diets at their core are designed to deprive our bodies of calories. Conventional thinking says that over-eating, or too many calories are what makes us fat and/or unhealthy in the first place. We just addressed the root causes of being unhealthy and overweight, so already you can begin to see that just cutting calories is not the solution. Your body is a giant battery and has fat stores in it. When you deprive it of the food energy it needs, yes, it will begin to burn fat for energy. The fat is converted to glucose (blood sugars) and then burned as the energy you need. However, this is a short-term fix.

The second you cheat or break your diet (eat more calories) your body reacts by storing even more fat. You have confused it into thinking that you may starve yourself again and so the reaction is to put on even more weight to prepare for this possibility. You have probably heard this referred to as the “yo-yo effect.”

That brings us to the next reason diets fail. They are temporary! No “diet” I have ever heard of can last forever. Additionally, we are hard wired to want variety. Boredom is a real human emotion and it relates to our food as well. Unless we grew up eating a very limited diet, and have never deviated from it, our senses desire variety. Given that, in any calorie cutting diet, there is not enough variety to keep us from cheating. Even if you have enough will power to make it to your “weight loss goal” most people go back to eating that diet, tasty with variety (and unhealthy foods) and just put the weight back on for the previously talked about reasons.

If you are always worried about what you can and can’t eat, that makes the diet harder to stick to. Education is the key to any kind of progress in life. That’s why this book is going to make it simple to know what you should and shouldn’t eat, and make it easy to have those foods around at all times! I would like to take a moment to address nutrition education. This is often why many other “diet” plans fail. The participant is none the wiser to how their body works. They are just following a specific plan of caloric deficiency with no idea how it’s actually affecting them inside. You may have heard or read horror stories of people going vegetarian or vegan and getting really sick or their teeth falling out etc...

Some of these stories may be true, BUT the fact is that you don’t get sick and your teeth certainly don’t fall out if you are getting the proper nutrients. With other diets, you’re hungry, your breath stinks, you get constipated etc...

The
Winter Wellness Diet is different because it addresses all of your body’s nutrient needs. This allows your body to detoxify, repair and have tons of energy in the long run. Diets in the conventional sense are expensive. Buying specific food, drinks and supplements at the start often has a big impact on a budget. I did a review of the new Zone 1-2-3 diet last year and products ran upwards of $700 per month! That’s in addition to the regular food you buy at the store (or farmer’s market if you’re going
green). $700 is either enough to keep most people away from dieting, cause them to quit sooner, or get really mad when they “yo-yo” back to their original weight or more and feel like they wasted their money.

Now, I can honestly say that I have never experienced this feeling because of my weight, but depression can be a big deterrent to starting a diet. (25) First of all on a physiological level, if your body is deprived of the correct nutrients, depression can be a predictable result. (22) There are many nutrition therapies for depression as it has been found that many causes of depression come from hormonal imbalances in the body.

Basically, the brain doesn’t get enough nutrients to operate properly and ends up not producing the correct hormones in the correct amounts. (3) CBS reported on this in 2004 and nutrition therapy for depression gets more popular every year. Depression can absolutely be a huge obstacle. Maybe you think that if people find out you’re on a diet they will judge you. Well, I’ve got news for you, if you are unhealthy, overweight or both people are judging you anyway. But I say, WHO CARES! Even if the world thinks there is no way you’ll succeed with this diet, this time, all you have to do is prove them wrong once. Am I right? You’re not making this choice to lose weight or get healthy for anyone else but yourself. Let’s do this, you and I, together.

The Winter Wellness Diet: How to use the cold to fire up your metabolism and melt the fat away! by Russ Marchewka

Does Your Weight Have Emotional Control Over You?

Emotional effect wight

Psychologists are aware of the emotional effect weight can have on self esteem but the remaining medical world is just starting to wake up to this fact. Find out if weight gain has an emotional effect on you. Some brief questions.

Are you conscious of your physical appearance when you are out in public?
Are you comfortable with looking at yourself in the mirror or do you avoid it?
Are you concerned with what others think of your body?
Do you feel that the only way you can truly be happy is to change the physical things you don’t like about yourself?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then it’s possible that your weight has an emotional influence over you. Your appearance shouldn’t keep you unhappy. Your appearance really should be the icing on the cake to the person you are within. You have the power to do something about it. You can either continue to live with it or do something about it.

The fact that you are here says a lot about you and proves that you are willing to take action. I congratulate you for that and know you will find answers here. Just remember this book aims to re-educate you and unlearn all of the bad habits you may have picked up over the years. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. You are about to experience some life changing truths so just stay with it and absorb as much as you can.

by Susan Jones

Stress Can Give You Fat Belly

fat belly fact

Your metabolism functions best when your body is in homeostasis (internal stability). But during times of stress and survival situations, your metabolism shifts to a different setting. The changes in metabolism during stress are essential to your survival. However, if these changes are maintained for a prolonged period of time, your metabolism can be negatively affected.

In times when you are stressed, adrenal gland hormones are produced in high amounts. The stress could be anything; stress from a family situation, stress in rush hour traffic or stress from financial pressure. All stress has the same physiological effect on the body. These high levels of adrenal hormones cause shifts in your body. Your memory functions are enhanced. You have a lowered sensitivity to pain. You feel a burst of energy. And your immune system gets a super charge of energy.

These are good changes in certain situations, but only if they are short lived. The longer that your stress hormone (cortisol) level is high, the more damaging it is to your health and the more fat your body could end up storing. Excess cortisol secretion can suppress thyroid function, increase abdominal fat, raise blood pressure, lower immunity, promote higher blood sugar levels and decrease your bone density and muscle mass.

Speaking of muscle, it is a very critical factor in fat burning. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. In other words, muscle burns calories and it burns more calories than fat does. The last thing you want is a situation where you are losing muscle mass.

Tip: Pay attention to your stress levels. Do activities that help to relax and d -stress you.

by David Cassell

5 Fitness Myths That Are Responsible For Thousands of Fitness Failures

Fitness myths

Unfortunately, many people are misinformed and are also misled by the many promises of the weight loss industry. Everywhere you look, you see or hear of people promising “Dramatic Weight Loss” with products such as “The Fat Trapper”, or “Exercise in a Bottle”.

Then you also have the hundreds of diets out there such as “The Zone”, “Sugar Busters” or “The Atkins Diet”. I’m sure you have heard of many of these yourself. You might have even tried some of them. Unfortunately, these products and diets are not the quick fix, or the miracles they are portrayed as. They are also usually very dangerous.

Below are some common misconceptions among people with regard to exercise and nutrition.
1. You need to exercise to burn fat.
The truth is you don’t gain body fat because of a lack of exercise. You gain it because your blood sugar levels exceed what you are using. Basically, you are eating too many calories at one time.

2. Your metabolism slows down once you hit 30.
WRONG! Actually, hundreds of research studies have shown that the slow down in metabolism is due to a loss of muscle tissue. And the loss of muscle tissue is directly related to a lack of hard physical activity!

3. Pasta and bread are fattening.
Anything is fattening! Lettuce can be stored as fat! Any food or drink, which contains calories, can be stored as body fat if it causes your blood sugar levels to exceed what the body needs at that time. Bread and pasta are actually great sources of complex carbohydrate! The key is how much you eat and when you eat it.

4. Eating after 7pm will make you fat.
Absolutely false! It all depends on whether or not the body needs that amount of calories at that time. Keep in mind your body is constantly burning calories, 24 hours per day, just the amount varies.

5. Strength training will make you bulk up.
Another NO! It seems as if mostly women are concerned with this one. Muscle size is primarily affected by genetics and hormone production;  therefore, most women don’t have the potential to build very large muscles. Muscle burns calories, so the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn which makes easier to burn fat and harder to gain it!

By no means is this a complete list! There are so many I could write a whole book just about them. The key is in education, but not by reading fitness magazines!

written by Darren O'Connell