Do Diets Work for Weight Loss, Long Term?

If you weigh more than you would like and/or you want to be slimmer, the first thing that comes to mind is to go on a diet. Everyone knows someone who has been on a diet at least once in their life. A diet is essentially a term used to describe a plan of eating that is designed to help you to lose weight – and there are countless to choose from. You’ve probably heard of many of them, even if you haven’t followed them yourself. Atkins, Keto, Weight Watchers, Slimming World, South Beach, Paleo, and the Cabbage Soup Diet being some of the most well-known. Some people simply eat less or control what they eat and say that they are on a diet.

 

There is no doubt that body image fuels the weight loss industry, but with so many diets to choose from, how do you know which ones will work, if any? And do diets really work for long-term weight loss? Let’s find out.

 

A Diet is a Temporary State

The very nature of a diet means that the vast majority are very strict in terms of what you are allowed to eat and how much of the foods you like you are allowed to enjoy. Unless you want to maintain such stringent eating habits forever, a diet really is just a temporary change in the foods that you consume. Research suggests that as many as 60% of people who diet gain back more weight than they originally lost, before starting the process again. This is known as yo-yo dieting and is extremely common. The reason for this is that while eating less in the short-term is very likely to help you to lose weight, it’s normally impossible to sustain for months or years.

 

Depriving Yourself Makes You Crave Bad Foods More

Unsurprisingly, one of the biggest stumbling blocks of dieting is that being told that you can’t eat certain foods only makes you want them more. Many strict diets dictate that things like chocolate, alcohol, and takeaway are not allowed, but this sort of psychological deprivation can make it harder to stick to a diet. If we do give in to our cravings, we are more likely to fall off the wagon completely and binge on unhealthy foods. This is because we think that if we have already ‘written off’ the day of dieting, we may as well continue. This unhealthy mindset can completely hamper your dieting efforts on other days where you have stuck to plan.

 

Dieting Makes You Hungrier – Yes, Really!

Weight loss through dieting causes the hormones that are responsible for helping you to feel full to drop. And if that wasn’t inconvenient enough, the hormones that make you feel hungry actually increase. This is natural and not something that we have any control over. It happens because your body goes into survival mode, worrying that food is scarce and making you feel hungry so that you eat again. Basically, our bodies don’t want us to diet!

 

Dieting Can Cause Us to Form Unhealthy Relationships with Food

Although many people who are overweight and dieting already have an unhealthy relationship with food, dieting can make it even worse. When we are dieting, we are perpetually stuck between wanting to eat the food we enjoy and not being able to. This push-pull effect is a common trigger in many eating disorders where people either avoid food entirely or they binge and then regret their behavior.

 

Dieting Slows Down Our Metabolism

Metabolism plays an important role in successful dieting. Metabolism is the rate at which our bodies burn calories. We have a resting metabolic rate, which is how fast our bodies burn calories when we are completely at rest, and a basal metabolic rate, which refers to the calories burn when we are active. Dieting has been shown to slow down our metabolism, reducing the number of calories we each day and making it harder to lose weight.

 

How Treatments at Sarasota Laser Lipo Can Help with Long-Term Weight Loss

Red light therapy is a very good alternative to conventional weight loss. Red light therapy helps patients to lose weight by boosting their body’s energy production at a cellular level. This has been shown to reduce the level of oxidative stress in the patient’s body – a common factor in people who experience long-term problems with their weight. Secondly, red light therapy actually breaks down fat cells. The fat within the cell is liquified so that it passes out of the cells and is metabolized by the body. The fat cell then shrinks right down, reducing the patient’s body size as well as their weight.

 

Red light therapy is usually performed over a number of sessions. Our team would be happy to give you an assessment and create a treatment plan tailored to your specific needs.

 

Learn more about red light therapy for weightloss, contact Sarasota Laser Lipo in Sarasota, FL at 941-241-0500 to schedule an appointment.