Weight Control Diets

Weight control diets can be both beneficial and dangerous, depending on your diet and exercise regimen. The problem is that many weight control diets force you to severely curtail your caloric intake to less than 1,000 calories per day. But your body views such diets as starvation and activates its famine response pathways. Consequently, the body stores more calories as fat to protect itself from future starvation. Anytime you "cheat" on your diet or resume eating a normal one, you body gains weight more easily and it stops losing fat. This is the reason that most weight control diets are not successful. It is easy to gain back weight that was lost, and you typically end up weighing even more than ever before.

As you can see, your body does not react well to severe caloric restrictions, so it is much better that your weight control diet creates a small caloric deficit than an enormous one. To accomplish this, you must first determine the number of calories your body requires daily to stay at its current weight. You can calculate your daily caloric requirement using one of two formulae, The Harris-Benedict Formula and the Katch-McArdle formula;

Harris Benedict Formula

• First calculate your BMR (Basal Metablic Rate) HERE
• Then, to determine your total daily calorie needs, multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows: If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
• If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
• If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
• If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
• If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

After you calculate your caloric maintenance level, you just need to lower that figure by 15-20% to determine how many calories you need to consume to lose fat. A small caloric deficit will not activate the body's starvation safeguards, so that you will not end up gaining back any weight that is lost.

There are some crash weight control diets based on eating just a handful of foods such as the "cabbage soup diet" or the "celery and cream cheese diet". These weight control diets suggest that you can consume a limitless amount of these foods as long as you do not include any other foods in your diet.

It doesn't take a biologist to see that these weight control diets cannot work. While it is possible that you will shed some pounds initially, you deprive your body of nutrition when you undertake these types of weight control diets. Therefore, your body is forced to activate its starvation safeguards, resulting in you being able to gain the weight back more quickly, and probably more of it.

The best weight control diets are based on having sufficient exercise and a healthy nutritional plan. It is this healthy combination that makes them such great weight control diets. Exercise elevates your metabolism and your body will burn calories more quickly and efficiently.

Category: Exercise, Fitness, Weight Loss