Topics discussed:
00:19 – “why have I lost weight?”
00:37 – what it is you’re losing
01:21 – much more likely you’re going to lose muscle rather than fat
01:38 – your body will crave to get back
02:06 – metabolism decreases
Hi. This is Stephen from TheDVCC.com and today I’m going to be talking about diets and why you can often lose a lot of weight from diets.
The Myth of Losing More Weight On Diets
I get asked this a lot but why is it when I do or I have done Weight Watchers or LighterLife or any different sort of calorie-restricted diet, “why have I lost weight?” Actually it seems like I have lost weight easier than when I eat very, very healthily and exercise well even though I know the best way for me and the healthiest way for me to lose fat is to eat well and to exercise.
You’re Actually Losing Muscle, Not Fat!
Now the answer to this question is that you are not actually aware of what it is you are losing when you lose weight. So the number of times I have had women, men even come to me, and say, ‘I had lost… I was 2 stone lighter, however, people started saying I looked gaunt.’ Now when that’s the case, that’s always a great example that you have most probably lost muscle rather than fat. So when you are on a calorie-restrictive or restrictive diet, often the thing that your body allows you to lose is muscle.
Your Body Won’t Let You Lose Fat
Now when I say allows you, because your body is very smart…It is a very smart thing that won’t let you lose fat if it’s worried about where the amount of nutrition you are getting. So it is much more likely that you are going to lose muscle rather than fat. So your body is going to actually keep the same amount of fat but lose the muscle so you will go down on a scale, yes, however, that really cause a problem later on as your metabolism dips and things like that and your body will strive and really crave to get back to the weight it was. So that’s why whenever I’ve spoken to someone about losing weight through diets and things, they have always, 99% at the time, have put the weight back on if not putting it on more and they always think that that is because they lapsed into their old eating patterns but obviously dieting doesn’t actually take into consideration any psychological impact of food, but it also really, really encourages you to put that weight back on because your metabolism doesn’t actually improve, it actually decreases. So you are much more likely to put the weight back on.
The More Diet You Do, The Harder For You To Lose Weight
So that’s the real reason that doing diets will actually make you lose weight. Obviously there’s diminishing returns, so the more diets you do, the harder it is to lose weight and you actually weren’t losing it as effectively but that is why you do lose weight using diets.
This is Stephen from TheDVCC.com
