Quick Weight Loss Programs or How Not To Diet

Posted by Quick Weight Loss Coach on May 1st, 2008 at 08:33am

The reason I am explaining how not to diet is that most people who have being following some form of quick weight loss program have been going about losing weight in the wrong way for years. I am firmly of the opinion that to lose weight successfully you need to understand why previous diets have failed – this way you are better equipped to make sure you are able to reach your weight loss goals.

Most Diets Don’t Work

Studies have shown that less than 5 per cent of people are successful in permanently losing weight on a diet. To put this another way, 95 per cent of dieters fail to lose weight for any significant period of time - most eventually gaining more weight than they had before they started to diet.

As all of these people have a real desire to be slimmer, they try another diet, and another one, and so it goes on. And as all of them are serious dieters, a billion-dollar industry develops to service their needs, which is self-sustaining as 95 per cent of the diets fail.

This is not intended as a criticism of the diet industry; on the contrary, being slimmer is undoubtedly healthier for most individuals (apart from those with an unrealistic self-image) and therefore a slimmer, healthier body is definitely to be encouraged.

Where most diets go wrong

The problem with the majority of diets and quick weight loss programs is that, without superhuman willpower, the dieter cannot sustain the regime. This is down to a variety of reasons:

Hunger

A constant aggravating hunger, with the usual mood swings and irritability caused by low blood sugar, is enough to drive anyone to the nearest fast-food outlet.

Preparation time

Hours to prepare - diet fails! How many times have you read ‘Preparation time 15 minutes’, and two hours later you’re still chopping the broccoli?

Cost

Dietary ingredients often cost a small fortune. Little wonder that so many people opt for the frozen pizza: nutritionally disastrous but cheap.

Boring repetition

There are only so many ways to prepare a lettuce leaf.

Cardboard taste

A rice cake tastes like a rice cake no matter how many times you try to convince yourself otherwise.

And when (not if) the diet fails, we are convinced it must be our fault, because, after all, it can’t take much willpower to achieve, as we have constant reminders in slimming magazines of “ordinary” (usually grossly overweight) people who apparently slimmed down from 250 pounds to 140 pounds without any difficulty at all. So now not only are we unhappy about our weight and appearance, but we are also guilty about our abject failure to lose the fat.

So, we need to find a healthy diet plan that we can stick to, and ignore all the media gossip about which celebrity is using which quick weight loss program. Throw in some simple and exercise programs and go for it. Throw out your bathroom scales and get a tape measure instead. Fat loss is all about how you look and feel – not how much you weigh.

Tags: fat loss, how not to diet, weight loss diets