There are so many diets available today. Walk into any bookstore, pick up any magazine or turn on the TV, and you’re bound to hear about some new diet like Medifast, Nutrisystem or Weight Watchers that promises new information, special secrets to weight loss and faster results. The truth is, some of these diets are sound and most are not. In many cases, these diets are just a retelling of nutritional and weight loss information we’ve always had. The diets that work are those that are based on scientific fact and make it easy for dieters to follow them. If it’s so easy to find a good diet, why do most dieters go through so many failures? There are four reasons why most diets fail and they’re easily avoided.
The Diet Is Based On Faulty Science
Diets that sound too good to be true usually are. If a diet promises miraculous results, pay careful attention to the science it uses, if any. There are a lot of outlandish claims being made, with no reliable research or known scientific facts to back them up. Other diets bend the science to suit their needs and sell their books or supplements. The Adkins Diet created a huge sensation because so many people lost so much weight using the plan. However, many of those people became very ill on the diet. The principle of ketosis was real; the safety of eating a diet so high in unhealthy fats and low in carbohydrates was not. Be careful of any diet whose science is unsupported or seems distorted. You’re more likely to lose your health than your weight.
The Diet Is Too Restrictive
Many diets, like the Adkins Diet, cut out whole groups of foods or require you to cut your calories too low. Some require you to measure every morsel, write down every fat gram or stick to a rigid menu of foods you never heard of. The reason these diets fail is that no one can stick to them for very long. No matter how sound the diet itself may be, it won’t work if you’re not actually on it. Stick with diets that allow you to eat from all of the food groups, give you a wide variety of well-liked food to choose from and allow you to choose your own recipes and menus. You’ll be much more likely to stick with the diet until you reach your weight loss goal.
The Diet Takes Too Much Time to Follow
Again, some diets have an awful lot of rules and a lot of administrative duties involved. If keeping up with the diet takes too much work, it won’t work for you. If you have to measure every portion, weigh every ounce, write down every gram, you’ll get frustrated very quickly. Very few people have the time or patience to follow this kind of diet for long. It’s just too much work. The best diets are those that can be followed simply and naturally.
The Diet Is Too Short Term
You may think that a short-term diet sounds like a good thing. However, permanent weight loss comes from making permanent changes in your eating habits and lifestyle. Not all of these changes have to be monumental; many of the best changes are very small. However, going on a diet that is meant to be a short-term way to weight loss will leave you hanging after you reach your goal. Once you’re off the diet, you’ll most likely go back to your old ways of eating and the weight will come back. In this case, the diet didn’t actually fail, it just failed to be a permanent answer.
Photo Credit: fireflythegreat
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