Weight Watchers is a great diet as diets go however, any diet doesn't work. NINETY FIVE PERCENT OF DIETERS gain their weight back - here's why:
1. Moderately or Severely restricting calories puts your body in starvation mode - your body burns the muscle to reduce your metabolism so your body can survive on less food. Unfortunately, it also means you can not eat as much without gaining as you could before the diet. When you get off the diet, your metabolism still remains challenged.
2. Dieting causes the Leptin levels in the body to be raised. This is the chemical which makes you hungry. These levels stay high in people who have been off their diets for several months. This is your body's way of telling you to EAT A LOT when there is food available. This, in part, accounts for the affinity to 'binge' after a diet. It is beginning to be called 'diet related bingeing'.
3. Since your body burns so much muscle and organ tissue on a diet, you only lose less than 40 percent fat. But when you gain back, you gain all fat. So if you lose 5 and gain 5, you end up 'fatter' than you were before the diet. The burning of the organ tissue can compromise your gall bladder and kidneys and if continued long enough, your heart as well. Your body needs a certain amount of calories each day in varied nutrients. Fat supplies the least nutrients so it must search elsewhere to obtain the nutritional foods it needs. Guess where it goes... right to your organs and muscle tissue.
***** You can be sure you will not read about this information outside of the medical field because the diet industry is a 40 BILLION DOLLAR industry. What you see on TV are not the 40 and 50 year olds. You see women in their 20's who have started out genetically blessed. (If it wasn't a rare talent, why do the models get paid so much?). Additionally, most of them have been to the plastic surgeon as well. And they show us these women and tell us if we follow their plan, take their pills or use their equipment, we will look like that.
I saw a woman in her 40's in the bike store who had obviously gone after the waif look for many years. On her skinny no-muscle stick legs, she had all kinds of cellulite which wiggled horribly when she even moved a bit. She looked AWFUL. That is the diet look and not the genetically blessed, surgically altered women we see on TV.
I discovered a whole bunch of other things. If you eat food that is low in fat, your appestat works i.e. you stop when you are full. There are two reasons for this:
1. Food with fat in it is highly tasty and very seductive.
We tend to want to eat it just for fun and ignore the fact
that we no longer are hungry.
2. Food with fat in it is low in volume and high in calories
so we get far too many calories long before we feel full.
For instance, if I eat a piece of bread with butter on it,
I'll eat a whole loaf. If I don't take butter on it, I'll
eat and enjoy one piece and stop there.
Fat is an acquired taste. If you really lay off of it for a while (about a year or so), it's like quitting smoking... it no longer tastes good to you. Now when I eat cake, I eat one piece and cut the icing off and I used to be the person who said "Cake is a vehicle for the icing". I used to eat the icing plain without the cake. Now it tastes icky and greasy to me
I come from a fat family. I was a fat kid and a fat adult. My mother weighed over 300 lbs most of her life. My father was not as fat as my mother but plenty fat. Believe me, there IS a strong genetic factor going about how you gain weight and how much you gain.
But I'm here to tell you that there IS a way you can not feel hungry, get all your nutrients, eat most foods and still get and stay lean and that is the Susan Powter low fat program. Easy. Under 20 percent fat in your nutritional program. Exercise at least 40 minutes daily.
It's not only easy, it's the only SANE way you will find of losing weight and keeping it off. But first you need to change a few attitudes:
1. Unless you go to the plastic surgeon, are genetically
blessed and eat under 1800 calories a day, you will not look
like a super model. Do you even want to? Did you realize
that they wanted the models so thin to model underwear and
swimsuits because then, they didn't look sexy and therefore
would not deter people from seeing the clothing? Hello?
2. Any body type is cool. Most of us have thunder thighs or
stomachs or something else. The average size a woman is
12-14 and not size 6! We all can look nice even if we don't
starve, and visit the plastic surgeon. Accept yourself for
what God gave you. If you are quite fat, chances are that's
what your genetics are. You can control your weight but
don't expect to be a size 5 - that's not a reasonable goal.
My hip bones are too wide for a 12!
3. Eating and exercising is about good health and living
long and fully. Don't get confused by trying to be
stylishly thin. More exercise programs end up in the gutter
because people have the wrong motivation. Make a commitment
today to exercise daily for the rest of your life and then,
keep it religiously. Yes, it's possible. I exercised even
with a cast on my leg (could do health rider and stationary
bike for 30 minutes a day).
If you can get to the above attitudes and make a commitment, you will never have a 'weight problem' again. You can throw out your scale. You will be like normal people and can eat when you want and how much you want (just watching the one restriction in fat content). You will know when you are full and will stop eating. You will never feel 'bloated' again.
After living nearly 40 years of life half dieting, in guilt and anxiety, these last five years have been awesome. I want you all to get there. IT's worth it.
Written by Sue Widemark of The Reading Place
