The Yo-Yo Diet

What is the most popular diet plan in use today. In reality it is becoming a multitude of different weight loss plans. How can that be? Simply it is becoming a lifestyle in itself. Most people do not even realize that they are on the yo-yo diet plan.

This diet plan is a variety of diets you choose. How many times have you gone on a diet and lost weight initially and then lost interest, got bored or hit a wall, sometimes you may even have hit your goals and decided to quit the diet. After a period of time you gradually start gaining the weight back because your eating habits have not changed. Now you need to go on another diet. So instead of going on the same diet or may be you do you start to lose weight again and the cycle starts all over.

That is the yo-yo diet and if you are overweight and have tried to go on a diet you may have experienced this weight loss and then weight gain. Not only is it not healthy it is no fun. In many cases you will gain more weight on the rebound and gradually up the amount of weight you need to lose on the next diet.

Your body will naturally fight a diet unless you fool it. The starvation response is one of the responses that the body uses to defend itself and it is relentless and one of the most powerful human drives you have outside of survival. This response is what kept our ancestors alive in tough times. The response will start to shut down all bodily functions that are not necessary. You will feel lethargic and hungry. Your body then starts to hoard it's fat and uses it very sparingly.

Shortly after you start your hunger pangs your body starts using it's muscle as energy and starts breaking it down. The body also starts to increase the amount of chemicals in the body and these increase the hunger pangs forcing you to react. The body will do everything it can to save energy and fat because it does not know when you will be feeding.

How do you avoid this response? The response will start if the body does not receive food every few hours. You need to keep the body thinking it is getting food when it is not. Simple things like drinking lots of water, your stomach does not know the difference between water and food and will send the message to the brain on when it is filled. This will start to shut down the response. A simple diet with more than three meals or low calorie snack will also keep the response at bay.

When you go on a diet you need to overcome this response or your diet or it will be a failure. This is why all good diets will tell you not to skip meals and this response is what will cause you to binge eat or break the diet. You will need to eat 4-6 meals a day. These meals should be small and be careful not to overload any one meal. By having a meal every few hour or 3 meals a day and a couple of well thought out snacks it will never allow this response to hurt your diet.

Whatever diet you choose you will need to have a solid plan in place. You will need to be able to plan your daily diet with the starvation response in mind. You do not want to get on the yo-yo diet if at all possible. This is where knowing how your body reacts to food and its surroundings. This response was needed at a time when man had to live off the land and provide the food daily. They were physically active and needed all their energy most times just to survive. So now that you understand what starts the yo-yo diet and how to help combat it, plan your meals and exercise routines around sound scientific practices of weight loss and dieting.

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