This is the most common hurdle in weight loss. It is so frustrating that it makes most people give up. They don’t put much effort into any diet, because in the back of their mind they know all the progress will be reversed and all the effort will be for nothing. Fortunately, this phenomena is not something that is unavoidable. In fact, it is simply a result of following an ineffective diet! A diet program that is effective avoids this rubber band effect, by taking advantage of a hormone called leptin and by not restricting your calories too fast.
How Eating Less Makes You Gain Weight
As soon as your body ‘realizes’ you have stopped eating and started starving, it kills your leptin levels and puts the brakes on your metabolism. This is especially true for women, whose metabolism slows down even further as soon as their body thinks that they can starve. This is a simple evolutionary mechanism that is there to help you – it’s how we survived back in the day when food was scarce and there weren’t supermarkets on every street corner. When your body thinks its starving, it aims to preserve every last calorie your consume and decreases the amount of calories it burns though your metabolism.
What do I mean by “through your metabolism”? Well, your body does not burn calories only during physical exertion. If you were to lie down and watch TV, you would still burn between 50 and 100 calories each hour. People with fast metabolism burn more calories through their metabolism, regardless of how much they exercise. Of course, this is only a part of the ‘trick’, as burning calories does not necessarily mean you are burning body fat.
Don’t Restrict Your Calories Too Fast
As soon as you start to limit your calories quickly, your body will think you are in danger of starving to death and will shut down your metabolism. As long as you are in a caloric deficit, you will lose weight, although your progress will be extremely slow if you rely solely on the caloric equation. The problem comes when you start eating more at some point – then your metabolism will be much slower and your body will put on even more excess fat. Unless you plan on being on a caloric deficit for the rest of your life, this won’t work.
Instead, Focus on Eating Healthier at First.
Do limit your calories, but not by much. Eat slightly below your caloric expenditure or don’t even focus on calories at all, eat whenever you want. However, eat healthier food. Aim for natural food. What do I mean by natural? I’ve said it before – if a food contains an ingredient that a 4-year old doesn’t recognize, it probably isn’t natural. Keep eating like this while slowly decreasing your calories. That way, you will avoid putting on re-bound weight. By eating healthier food, you will also start to cleanse your liver, which will start getting rid of visceral fat – the worst fat for your health and the most difficult fat to get rid of through exercise.
The Secret – High-protein boosts Your Metabolism By Boosting Leptin
Leptin is a fat-burning hormone, especially important for women. A high-protein breakfast, containing 20-30g of protein can multiply your weight loss results as much as 10-fold. A high-carbohydrate, low-protein breakfast is a major reason for slow or nonexistent weight loss.
Most importantly, protein prevents your body from thinking it’s starving! Think about it – back in the day, high-protein foods were the most nutritious foods to eat. Pretty much, the only high-protein foods that existed were meat and nuts. If you had access to any of those, it usually means you are set for at least a few days and are not going to starve. Your body hasn’t changed much during modern society – it still has those basic mechanisms that prevent it from starving. If you are a vegetarian, you can still think of high-protein foods – nut protein and whole nuts are very good and so are lentils and beans.
Let me say it again: The more protein you consume, the more you can limit your calories and still keep your metabolism burning.
As basic and simple as this sounds, it’s probably the most important weight loss ‘secret’, so keep it in mind.
An Easy Diet Strategy That Gets Rid of Unwanted Fat, While Speeding Up Your Metabolism Even More
This video shows you a quick and easy to follow diet that rapidly gets rid of unwanted fat without causing any hunger pangs or plateaus. If you don’t have a lot of weight to lose or you are not in a rush, you can do it simply by using the principles above – slowly decrease your calories, while increasing your protein intake. You’d be surprised at how well this works – you can limit your calories a a lot without feeling hungry at all, provided that you keep your protein intake high. Consider that most people do the opposite – they quickly decrease their caloric intake and often eliminate meat, cheese and eggs from their diet, as those foods are high in calorie. What you are left with is a carbohydrate-heavy and low-protein diet that makes you hungry, kills your energy levels and leads to slow weight loss, that will be quickly reversed as soon as you stop ‘dieting’.
Posted by Angelina on March 17th 2014