By Gerry Magee

FOLLOWING on from last week’s article on simple fat loss tips I’m going to take a look why you should avoid the latest celebrity diet.

Continually dieting for rapid weight loss is harmful to your overall health and wellbeing.

As well as that it usually results in more weight gain afterwards, leaving you heavier and unhappier than when you started.

  • There’s no secret bullet, pill or potion all diets come down to restricting calories in some way. Wether it’s drinking two shakes a day then having a ‘real’ meal in the evening or starving yourself two days a week so that you ‘don’t have to diet’ on the other five. It’s all about getting you to eat less and by their products, don’t fall for it.
  • Drastically restricting calories forces your body to do several things. Firstly it sheds as much water as possible, this is why you’ll tend to lose so much weight in the first one or two weeks.The restriction in both calories and carbs causes this effect, it’s both unhealthy and unsustainable.
  • Next the weight loss will stall or grind to a complete halt. The lack of calories causes your metabolism to slow to a snails pace, your thyroid goes into hibernation and your body hangs on to fat for dear life as it thinks starvation has kicked in. Which basically, it has.
  • Inevitably you’re going to ‘fall off the wagon’ and eat normally again in which case your body gets woken up and kicks into overdrive, causing you to overeat and store more fat than you had lost in the first place.
  • This is the definition of yo-yo dieting and it has a devastating impact on your thyroid health and insulin sensitivity. Meaning the next time you try to lose weight it’ll be even more difficult, making you more frustrated and likely to look for the next quick fix. The cycle starts over again. Worse still, there is continuing evidence that this way of dieting may contribute to developing type II diabetes.

I’ll keep on saying it as it bears repeating. Eat real food that you’ve cooked yourself and make things slowly.

If you lost just 1lb a week for a year you would recognise yourself by the end of it.

Please don’t juice diet to kick start fat loss or have a detox, there really is no need as your liver does that for you.

Break the cycle, don’t fall for the latest marketing hype and above all give your body a chance to become healthy again.

You can get involved by Tweeting your diet and fitness questions @GM_Fit, following GM FIT Personal Training Glasgow on Facebook or picking up a copy of Average Joe’s Old School Strength & Fat Loss on Amazon.

Eat.

Sleep.

Lift.