Dieting Makes You Fat

Right now, across the United States, approximately 25% of all men and 50% of all women are on some kind of diet. Chances are this isn't their first diet either. This, of course, begs the question - If so many people are on diets, why are so many people fat? It's because dieting to lose weight just doesn't work. In fact, this practically guarantees that you'll have even more fat in your body after dieting than when you began.

To best understand why, it takes a little understanding about how our bodies work. The human body is really an amazing organism. It's first and foremost function is survival, keeping itself alive. In order to live, the human body requires fuel to carry out the various operations - circulatory, respiratory, neurological, and endocrine - which it must perform on a constant basis.

The first fuel resource that the body turns to create the energy it needs to keep itself healthy and fit is fat. The body gets its fat content from the foods it ingests. Usually (and too often unfortunately) the body has no trouble getting enough fat to function through the food we eat on a daily basis. How much it needs depends on our level of physical activity and the rate at which we metabolize (burn up) the fat we have.

Now, picture, if you will the body just humming along, burning up fat which seems to be in plentiful supply, when all of a sudden, you decide to cut back on the amount of fat you provide the body by going on the latest dieting craze because you want to lose weight. What happens? The body goes into survival mode. It begins, at first to burn the fat is has stored up for an emergency just like this, a little slower to conserve supplies.

This means that in the early stages of diet you might see some significant weight loss and actually may notice slimming down in areas where there was the highest concentration of fat. However, that won't last long because the body knows it needs fat and will do everything to keep its storehouses full. So like a passenger in a sinking ship, it begins to get rid of other items, tossing out water weight from all the parts of the body where it has been stored, like ankles and other joints. To you and your scale, this makes you think you're losing fat. You're not.

Then, as you continue with your diet and withhold fat, the body begins to look for other sources from which it can create fat. The first place it goes is your lean muscle tissue, and herein lies the key reason you'll get fatter. Not only has your body discovered a new source of fat, it has "cannibalized" the primary source that burns the most fat... muscle.

The real effect of any diet is a lowered metabolism, a new source of fat for the body, and less muscle to burn the fat you have. Then to top it all off, once you stop your diet, your body, which won't be fooled again, finds ways to store even more fat than before for the next emergency. Body smart... dieting stupid!

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