Hallelujah! Now you can say good bye to all those whacky fad diets that had you eating fewer carbs, more carbs, less fat; on a 7-day plan, 30-day plan or 90-day plan; to lose 8 pounds, 20 pounds or more. It’s all over, you never have to go on a fad diet again. Why? Because dieting, especially fad, crash diets, doesn’t work for the vast majority of us. Depending on which research study you look at, only about 3% to 5% of us keep off the weight lost in a weight loss diet for longer than a few years following the end of the diet. Not only does that mean that 97% of us put back on the lost weight in less than three years, many people end up putting on more weight than they lost. Here’s why diets don’t work:

1. The Are Often “Unbalanced”

Whether it’s a calorie reduced diet, or one that focuses on a nutritional category, like carbohydrates, most diets put your eating out of balance. To maintain optimal health, you must get your calories from a balanced proportion of macronutrients – fats, carbohydrates and proteins.

Health Canada recommends that you get your daily nutrition from the following proportion of macronutrients (for adults 19 years old and older):

a. Carbohydrates – 45% - 65%

b. Protein – 10% - 35%

c. Fats – 20% - 35%

2. They Focus on Numbers

By forcing you to target a certain weight, your attention goes from achieving a healthier weight to reaching a certain numeric value. That’s not how to lose weight – at least not for the long haul.

3. They Can Damage Your Health

The easy equation is the fewer calories you eat, the less weight you’ll put on and, eventually you’ll start losing weight. But to stay healthy, you must consume a certain number of calories every day. For women that’s approximately 2000 calories and for men, it’s about 2500 calories. When you deprive it of a minimum number of calories, your body can react in a number of ways. One of them is to slow down your metabolism to conserve your energy. That means, while you might be eating fewer than your recommended daily calories, you could still gain weight because your body has automatically reduced its caloric requirements.

 

The Only Diet That Will Lead to a Healthier Weight

A balanced diet of healthy, nutritious foods is the basis on which healthy, and permanent, weight loss is built. The beauty of a heathier diet is that you get so many more advantages, from fewer illnesses to healthier skin, including less cellulite, better colour and a softer feel.