Any diet will help you lose weight, there is no arguing that. I have several personal friends who have lost significant weight on the new low carb diets. Whether you can lose weight on a diet has never been the issue. I worked for Nutri-System several years ago and saw some people lose tons of weight. The issue has been and always will be whether a person keeps the weight off. Research has always shown that within 5 years, anywhere between 85 and 90 percent of people will put the weight back on after stopping a diet.
The key here is after "stopping a diet". Very few of the fad diets, or the diets where you buy special food, can or will be followed permanently. This is precisely why they don't work. There is also evidence that so-called yo-yo dieting is worse for your health than being moderately overweight. Most people I know with a weight problem have lost and gained at least 3 or 4 times in their lifetime.
The key then is to find a way to develop a lifestyle of eating and exercise that you will implement permanently. Human nature will not tolerate deprivation well, so you must be able to have some of you want, and the luxury to not do what you have to some of the time. You must eat the things you like once in while, and be able to say I don't want to exercise once in while, or you give in and give up.
For most people, making some very subtle adjustments to their lifestyle can help immediately. Things like cutting down your meal portions by one third, and eating slower, can make a big difference. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator. These little things can make a difference, and most people can implement and maintain them without too much grief.
You have to give your body a chance to adjust over the long term. The cells in our body reproduce themselves once or twice a year, and when they do, they carry the memory of their environment with them. Therefore you must provide them with a new environment for at least that long before your body stops fighting you.
Also remember that if you starve your body, or even just lose a lot of weight quickly, your body is going to strive to regain it's original weight, and store what you take in. Again you must give it time to adjust and fight the impulses that it sends you. The experts know that a good rate of weight loss for keeping it off is about 2 to 5 pounds per month. This allows the body to gradually adjust. You can lose more than that, but expect your body to react more.
For a full proven program to keep your weight off, click here.
Article written by Sean Harder, founder of WholeLifeGym
