Diets- Good or Bad
Updated: Mar 27, 2020
The truth behind FAD diets in the ever trending fitness world. Are they helpful? Do they work? Should you do one? Here it is...
Why are these strategies like the the Keto, Adkins, South Beach, and intermittent fasting diets (just to name a few) so popular? Simple answer its because they work. Any diet strategy that you use that will put you in a caloric deficit will work to help you lose weight. By all means if you are looking for a place to start and have no direction what so ever, start here. Most any trendy diet will work or it wouldn't be trendy.
Now the real question is are any one of these diet strategies maintainable? In most cases the answer is absolutely not. This is where the "yo-yo dieting" comes into play. If your not familiar with the phase this is how it works...
You are super motivated to lose that weight, you know that weight that has been hanging around for who knows how long. You have tried to get rid of it in the past but every time you try it always seems to come back. You heard about this new diet called the Keto diet that Sally down the street did and she has lost 30 lbs. Wow, right that is a lot. If Sally can do it so can I. So you get super motivated and you do it. Its all going well your losing weight your now down 20 lbs so you think i deserve a cheat meal. a cheat meal turns into a cheat day, a cheat day turns into a cheat week and all the sudden your back to where you started. So you get remotivated and you start over. You do that a couple times over and it gets extremely tiring. This is yo-yo dieting.
So what is the solution. How do you lose weight and keep it off for good? If you want to lose weight for good you have to change your lifestyle for good. Honestly this is not done by following an unsustainable diet.
Its done with these 3 simple steps:
1. Small choice become HUGE gains
-Make a series of small choices of eating healthier than you normally would. For example, choosing fresh fruit (2 cups halved = 98 calories), instead of 2 chocolate chips cookies (420 calories) for desert. If you simply made that decision on a daily basis over a year you would be losing 33lbs in that year.
2. Know what you are putting into your body.
-Simply being conscious of what you are putting into your body goes a long way. I cannot tell you how many people come into my gym and tell me that they eat healthy but they aren't losing weight. I tell them to track exactly what the eat in a simple to use app called Myfitnesspal which records all of their calories and macro nutrients consumed for the day. 99 times out of 100 they are eating WAY more calories than they think they are. When you actually see what you are eating it will change the way you think about food for the better.
3. Exercise
- Not only will exercise curb your sugar cravings but it will also increase your metabolism! The more you exercise the more calories you burn and the more fat you lose. When you include resistance training you will build muscle which is where the metabolism boost can come into play. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn doing nothing at all.
So, if you have any kind of fitness goal whether that be weight loss, muscle gain or what ever it may be, your nutritional lifestyle, (NOT fad diets) will be at the center of any changes that you can or will make. Its through:
-Your small daily choices
-Knowing exactly what you are putting in your body
-An exercise regiment based on resistance training
If you can simply be conscious of your nutritional decisions it will carry you a long way if not all the way to your health and fitness goals.
If you are ready to make a change and don't know where to start, that's where we can help you. We have an awesome program designed to take you from your current level of fitness to your end goal. Many times we are able to do this in as little as 12 weeks! We have structured a fail safe program and tailor it specifically to your goals.
If your ready to make that change schedule an appointment with us and lets talk about how to get you from A-Z.
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