Why you need to say NO to dieting!

Are you a person who jumps from diet to diet, depending on what’s trending? And do you find that you are constantly in this vicious cycle of losing weight and then putting it back on after a few weeks? This is most likely due to the fact that you are placing yourself in to a caloric deficit for this period of time which will almost ALWAYS result in weight or fat loss. However, there are a number of negative responses to such things. That is, when you finish your ‘diet’ you immediately go back to eating as you were, or even worse, before the ‘diet. This is turn can also have detrimental effects to your metabolism and then weight gain becomes easier when you diminish your exercise consistency and start eating ‘normally’ again.

So then when you get to a weight or level of fitness you are once again unhappy with, you will move on to the next fad and complete a similar cycle. And this goes on and on and on. BUT, there is a way that you can actually avoid this.

How?

By stop looking at weight loss and fat loss as a quick process, and approach it in a more careful way that is extended over a few months to start with.

Now I know that this isn’t what many people want to hear, but if you do this now, your body and your body weight will love you in long run! By adopting such an approach and pairing it with strength training, which will in turn increase your muscle retention; you may well in fact improve your metabolic rate! Therefore, when you do have a blow out or go for a period of not training, you may not do as much ‘damage’ as you would if your metabolism was worse for wear. I can provide you with a perfect example of such a situation. In 2016, after 18 months of following a flexible approach to dieting, strength training on average 5/6 days a week, I went on a 3 week holiday to South America.

On this trip, I pretty much drank everyday, was mindful of my food but not too strict on what I allowed myself and I didn’t go to a gym once. YEP! I felt so guilty for doing this on the plane ride home and I was DREADING stepping on to the scale, but I was honestly seriously surprised. I may have lost some muscle, but I had only gained 1kg or so. That’s it!

Three weeks of living a ‘partying’ lifestyle I did not ruin my body! I didn’t gain 4 kilos or lose a large amount of strength. I was honest to god stunned and shocked, and then my coach elicited to the fact that I have pretty much ‘re-programmed’ my metabolism to not gain weight in excess if it was put in to shock essentially. And the time it took to get back to where I left off was not time at all!

So if you don’t want to keep dieting that isn’t a ‘crash’ or ‘fad’ diet to get and maintain a body that you want be prepared to adapt to a lifestyle change :)