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To
diet successfully, it is important to suppress insulin output. The best way to do this is to eat 5
small meals spaced evenly throughout the day; breakfast, morning snack,
lunch, afternoon snack and dinner.
The most successful diets are fast
and effective but should not be psychologically traumatic experiences.
There should be a decrease in portions, fats and sugars, but not result
in a constant feeling of hunger. This will make the diet more pleasurable
and successful, and that much easier to maintain. Far too many people who
force themselves on a diet wind up suffering, give up, and regain the
lost weight by binges on once prohibited foods.
It is a normal cycle in dieting to
initially lose weight and then stabilize for a while. Don’t get
discouraged and run the risk giving up when the weight loss seems to slow
down. A healthy rate of weight loss is between 20-25 pounds over a
three-month period. The difference in eating habits between these periods
of weight loss and stabilization must be understood so that a diet can be
truly effective. The results of a diet should be as rapid as the body
will adapt to the change in caloric intake. In extreme cases, the body is
able to live with very few calories per day - as in the case of famines
or periods of extreme starvation.
If the body becomes accustomed to
800 calories per day, it will begin to increase insulin production and
start stocking fats as soon as you increase your intake to above 800
calories. How fast people adapt probably increase with age. Even when
dealing with obesity, the diet needs to be interspersed with periods of
stabilization. This adaptation to reduced caloric intake explains why
when a diet is stopped and the person goes back to a ‘normal’ eating
rate, there will be a subsequent rapid weight gain.
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