insideKENT Magazine Issue 46 - January 2016 | Page 71

Statistics tell us that for every diet that doesn’t
work (around two thirds of them), the dieter
themselves will gain 11 pounds by the time
they give it up for good. And to make matters
worse, that’s 11 pounds of pure fat. If anything
has been lost, it will be muscle first, and then
fat, so you won’t have done yourself any
favours. To top everything off, a crash diet
actually slows your metabolism, so it’s even
harder to lose weight again afterwards, and
you’ll need fewer calories each day to maintain
a steady weight. Gaining weight will be
something that happens even when you don’t
eat much at all. So what’s the point in trying?
There’s a lot of point in losing weight. A ‘diet’
may just not be the way to do it. There are,
however, ways to lose weight and keep the
weight off for good.
Diets fail because they are tantamount to
shocking your body into survival mode. It will
think you are starving, and will begin storing
fat like there’s no tomorrow. It’s an excellent
self-preservation method, and it is automatic
when little or no food – or even reduced
amounts of food and calories – are consumed.
Your hunger levels will spike, making you feel
unwell and will drive you to search out food.
You might even find yourself binging. Your
cravings for certain foods will kick in. It’s all to
do with our clever brains and bodies trying to
keep us alive, but for those trying to lose weight
it’s a built-in self-destruct button.

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Obviously if we want to lose weight we need
to eat better food (not necessarily less food)
and exercise more, but our appetites tend to
get in the way. So the key here is to eat until
you are no longer hungry – don’t just eat a
small amount and hope that those hunger
pangs will go away because they won’t.
However, there is a big difference between
eating good food and eating bad food. Eating
fresh, healthy food in large amounts will give
you more energy, make you feel better, and
stop your body from thinking it’s dying.

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