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Most people don’t really thing about what the word “diet” means but at Cheetahfit we carefully weigh the cost and outcomes of our new clients past dieting habits. For most people dieting means following healthier eating habits with some calorie restriction. But the word “diet” simply refers to what you eat. Most people think of a diet as a temporary plan to lose weight and feel better. Some diets give you percentages of macronutrients such as proteins, fat and carbohydrates you should consume in each meal, some assign points to specific foods, some eliminate certain foods or food groups altogether. Some diets are dangerous, such as long term cleanses or diets which are extremely low in calories and essential nutrients.

There are many reasons why diets often don’t work such as they may not produce sustainable results, you may gain more weight than you lost, they can decrease your metabolism and increase hunger, metabolism can end up slowing down and this metabolic adaptation persists over time. Diets can require unsustainable time and energy, produce counterproductive psychological consequences such as distractibility, dysphoria, increased eating in absence of hunger, bingeing. Finally diets may increase cravings, guilt, and overeating.

Many popular diets are too low in fat and therefore we still feel hungry after we eat. Fat in food slows down stomach emptying, which helps increase the feeling of satisfaction and fullness. So any low-fat diets don’t work because you eventually compensate and overeat. On the other hand, diets which are very low in carbohydrates aren’t successful either, because our bodies need a certain amount of carbohydrates to function properly and store adequate glycogen in our muscles. Diets that are too low in carbohydrates may leave you feeling moody and fatigued. This happens because your body’s preferred fuel for immediate energy (mainly for the nervous system) are carbohydrates. Carbohydrates also stimulate the production of the neurotransmitter called serotonin, which helps to boost mood.

Another reason some diets don’t work is because they are too low in calories. Your brain, heart, lungs, muscles, digestive, cardiovascular and nervous system all require certain amount of calories to work properly. If you drastically cut calories – your body thinks it’s starving and it down regulates to smaller amount of calories needed to conserve energy. Also when you lose weight by severely cutting calories, you are likely losing lean muscle mass instead of fat.

Diets miss the point and don’t really address the reasons why most people overeat in the first place. The main problem with diets is that many simply don’t work long-term. People find that they can’t stick with a diet for a long period of time. When the diet is over, the underlying triggers for eating haven’t changed and your muscle mass has decreased without sufficient calories to sustain it so you gain the weight back and sometimes even more.

So rather than going on a temporary diet, you should think about more healthy and balanced diet with plenty of exercise. Make achievable, realistic changes which you can sustain for a lifetime. At Cheetahfit, we advocate and teach how to eat for life based on effective muscle metabolism and neurologically balancing principles that work.

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