Popular media promotes numerous fad diets endorsed by celebrities and backed with success stories. However, following the changing diet trends can do more harm than good. As you opt for crash diets, your metabolism gets affected, and you lose energy and vitality. Pushing your body to such limits may have severe consequences. And to prevent that from happening, your weight loss program should be developed scientifically. This way, you will be able to restore the damage unhealthy diet patterns have caused to the body, and you can gain long-term and sustainable results. To know more about how your approach should be as you aim to reduce body weight, read the following section.
Focus on the long-term
Most fad diets you come across are challenging to maintain for the long term. While you may be able to witness quick results, as you resume your everyday lifestyle, you may start gaining weight again. The reason is losing weight is not much of a challenge but continuing it in the long term is difficult.
When you have a long-term approach to losing weight, you improve your relationship with food, boost your metabolism, increase your desire to work out, and get adequate sleep. By opting for a scientifically proven weight loss approach, you can prevent weight regain resulting from diets. Also, you can see vast improvements in your energy levels and work towards increasing your strength.
Refrain from drastic weight loss
Dieting can cause a lot of harm to your body as it needs to lower the metabolic rate by responding to periods of semi-starvation. As you lose weight rapidly, you lose muscle and fat. And, after reaching your target weight, when you stop dieting and continue with your usual habits, your body burns fewer calories than before. The reason is that the relative amount of your muscle has decreased, and metabolism has become slower.
This kind of change in eating patterns can increase the risks of heart diseases irrespective of body fat levels. As you focus on healthy eating patterns, you can remain consistent in the weight loss journey.
Emphasize small and achievable changes
There are several misconceptions about reducing weight. However, to make sure you lose weight consistently and prevent gaining more weight, you must introduce small and achievable changes to your lifestyle. For example, increasing your physical activity or changing your eating patterns sustainably can be an excellent way to lose weight. Also, you must make sure that your energy intake is equal to the energy used by your body. This way, you will be able to maintain a stable body weight.
Reflect on eating patterns
You must focus on what you eat when you eat and why you eat. Maintaining a diary can also help you identify patterns in your food habits. It is best that they are recorded at the time of the meals. Make sure you note down everything you eat and drink, how you feel, and your hunger levels at the time of the meals. Your diary may effectively recognize unhealthy eating habits like emotional eating or night eating that may be the reason for your weight gain.
The right diet modifications may help you achieve calorie deficit and lose weight. Combined with diet, some physical activity can help sustain the results. Also, it may reduce the risks of heart diseases, improve mental health, and build muscle. Hence, changing diet patterns and incorporating exercise can help you optimize your health and improve your quality of life.
