Losing weight after Xmas

[shazza]

I have a friend who insists that losing weight after overeating in Xmas is easy - she simply eats only fruit for a few weeks and the weight just drops off. However, I've tried such 'diets' before, but for me they didn't work.

Shaz

[phillips-fit]

The "2 week fruit diet" your friend does is just basically a crash diet, (unless she was eating about 10 bananas and 15 apples every day!) i.e. a very low calorie diet that will get instant results but with no real long term benefit.

The instant weight loss affect a crash diet will have on your body will be a combination of water loss, muscle loss, glycogen loss, loss of substance in the colon and a small amount of fat loss. When you resume your usual eating habits your total body water will increase, substance in the colon and gastrointestinal tract will increase, glycogen stores will replenish and you will generally find yourself back to the weight you started off at!

The only problem now is that the small amount of muscle you have lost will not replenish straight away (and never will unless you perform regular resistance training exercises) so your body will be burning less energy per day to tick over (for every 1lb of muscle you lose you will reduce your resting metabolic rate by about 50 Kcal per day). Because you have slowed down your metabolism (your body needs less calories to survive now) you might find that you gain weight even quicker than before! So then you'd go on a diet again and the same thing would happen. This whole process is known as "crash dieting" or "yoyo dieting"

Over the years and with the natural slowing down of your metabolism every year as you age (you lose approx 1/2lb of muscle and gain about 1-2lb of fat every year if inactive) your body fat as a percentage will be rising!

If you just followed a healthy balanced eating pattern controlling your calorie intake and reducing or preferably removing refined carbs such as sugar, wheat based pasta and bread and cut out the caffeine and alcohol, eat lots and lots of fresh veg and small to moderate amounts of sweet potatoes and brown rice with plenty of fresh lean meats and oily fish then you'd not only lose the Xmas pounds but would have a long term eating strategy to maintain a healthy body fat level indefinitely.
Ryan :D

[sheila]

I always think women take way too much notice of what the scales say. Forget weight and take a look in the mirror. If the scales say 11 stone but you look a million dollars naked, through the scales out and buy more mirrors!!

[Heart Ace]

hehe..nice one sheila! :)