First, low calorie diets are focused on just minimizing the total daily calorie levels, regardless of anything else. Low calorie diet can be anything from just eating less regular food or eating those commercially prepared meals that are dangerously low in calorie level and are meant to replace meals. Keep in mind, these replacement meals are probably the worst you can do. Now, initially, you definitely will lose weight and it will be mostly body fat, which is a good thing. But this is not a normal response or even a normal method of losing weight.

By reducing the calorie levels, you are essentially throwing your body into starvation mode, which is the only reason you are losing body fat. During starvation mode, since you are not eating enough calories, your body automatically uses the fat stored in your body to burn as energy. Your body cannot sustain this for very long because those stores of body fat are created through eating healthy. Once those are gone, your body will naturally begin to use muscle mass as energy. This is completely self-defeating if you are genuinely intent on losing weight.

So really, what these low calorie diets are doing is effectively making you weaker by taking away your muscle mass through starving yourself. This is completely the same as shooting yourself in the foot because you need the muscle mass to keep your metabolism as effective and efficient as possible to help you lose weight healthfully. Now if you do not care about being healthy, then yes, you can use those replacement meals and see where they take you. But for those of you who want to live a full, healthy life, avoid replacement meals.

And here is the other way these low calorie diets suck: once you lose the weight, it is normal to think that you can go back to eating regular food and at the regular amounts you used to. Well, the problem is that, yes you are increasing the calorie levels to a normal, healthy level but you will not lose weight. In fact, you will actually gain weight because during that little binge with low calorie meals, you probably significantly lowered your metabolism rate. Ah, you see now, right? Once you lower your metabolism rate, your body does not and will not burn fat as readily as before. So when you bump up the calorie levels per day, you are eating more but your body is burning less and storing more fat, which automatically equals weight GAIN!

So all that time and money spent on trying to lose weight through low calorie diets has now gone down the drain! You are back to where you were when you started. Actually, you are probably in a worse state since you have lost some level of your metabolism! So now you are at a disadvantage.

Then what do you do at this point? Well, if you have not learned that the low calorie diets are the cause, then you might just end up going back to the low calorie diets since they seemed, emphasis on seemed, to work when you were on them. So after you have gained back the weight, you end up going on the low calorie diet again and lose the weight. And now you have started the horrible cycle of weight gain and weight loss, affectionately called the Yo Yo Diet.

So how do you avoid the Yo Yo Diet? Simple, you have to eat healthy, normal calorie-level foods in roughly 5-6 small meals per day and you must exercise. It is really that simple; the only question is your determination. This method will give you great results that are actually permanent, no back and forth going on. The best part, healthy eating and exercise is about the only way to keep the weight off for good with no negative side effects. So what are you waiting for? Lose those replacement meals and get yourself on a healthy weight loss plan that works!