Myths and Facts About Caloric Restriction

Caloric restriction is both a potentially helpful tool for weight loss and diet management, as well as a risky behavior to perpetuate. This term refers to the intentional monitoring of calories to ensure that fewer calories than normal are ingested. When you eat fewer calories, you tend to lose weight overall or to slow your rate of weight gain. While these are beneficial results for many people, it's important to understand the various myths and facts about this practice before you engage in it as an effective dieting technique.

Facts about Caloric Restriction

Caloric restriction will help you to lose weight. The reason for this is that your body's weight is a direct result of the amount of calories that you bring in through food and drink as compared with the amount of calories that you burn off through daily activity and exercise. By lowering the amount of calories you put into your body, you change this balance to skew toward weight loss. While this doesn't necessarily mean that you'll lose weight, as you may still be eating more calories than you burn off, it will slow your weight gain.

Caloric restriction can be performed in a healthy and safe manner. Generally speaking, any type of dieting is caloric restriction. You're controlling the amount of food that you put into your body, and thereby restricting and monitoring the calories that you consume.

Caloric restriction diet plans should always be performed for only a short period of time. Severe caloric restriction will not only disrupt your body's short term metabolism and activities, but it can provide harmful effects on your body for weeks, months or even years to come. Generally, more moderate caloric restriction plans are better over the long term for maintaining substantial weight loss.

Myths about Caloric Restriction

Contrary to popular belief, the type of calories that you do eat while maintaining a restricted diet are very important. While it's true that you may be able to lose weight by eating a small number of calories based entirely off of junk food, you're not providing your body with the proper nutrients that it requires. This can not only slow down the weight loss process, but also cause a variety of other potential health concerns.

Caloric restriction is not for everyone. This type of dieting and weight control generally works best for people who have consulted with doctors about their eating. It's dangerous and potentially harmful to engage in caloric restriction without working with a doctor or an experienced nutrition expert.

Restricting the calories that you eat can be a good way of losing weight. However, restricting calories too severely can lead to dangerous health conditions like anorexia. These conditions are very serious and may result in permanent bodily damage or even death if not treated appropriately.

1. Prev:Is Taking a Nap during the Day Good or Bad for Your Health?
2. Next:The Importance of Patience in Permanent Weight Loss