Diet - Why Most Diets Fail Articles | Food

By: Leisa St Ledger

Why a diet fails: How many times have you failed at a diet? If you are anything similar to the average American man or woman, you must have failed at least 3 times at dieting, at various times in your life. And you blame yourself for it, right? Lack of willpower, determination, discipline... you know the works!

Well, here is the scoop. If you failed at a diet, it really is not your fault because most diets are inherently designed to FAIL!!

Let me give four of the most obvious reasons why any diet fails:

The truth about crash diets: There is a lot of negativity surrounding the word 'crash diet'. Basically diets crash because they ignore the needs of the body. They advocate severe calorie cuts. But the important thing to remember is that food contains more than just calories. Your food also contains all the nutrients your body needs. Your body needs all vital nutrients, in their right proportions. Any diet that ignores or drastically cuts out one or more of these nutrients is heading for failure. Another reason is that crash diets recommend such low intakes of food that it is tough to remain on a crash diet for long. The moment you stop dieting and start eating normally, your body begins to store fat so that it has resources to fall back on when the next diet hits it. So, you see, crash diets are an open guarantee to rebound weight gain. Besides, crash diets take a heavy toll on your endurance, emotions and self-esteem. All around, crash diets are an unhappy and unfulfilled experience. Little wonder that they are also unfruitful!

Diet regimes that are too tough: You may have heard of a number of diets that boast of their power to make you lose weight fast. What do you need to do? O, not much! Just follow their complicated instructions to make lunch or dinner match their calorie specs perfectly. Can you imagine yourself doing this regularly, over any length of time? I know I would not slog over the perfect cabbage soup or lemon diet when I have to run for work in the morning and come back dead beat at night, ready to flop into bed. A diet plan with simple meal plans is the only one that will work, in the long run!

Exotic diets and what they mean: Ever come across a diet that tells you to eat something that is not locally available? I have come across many of them. While I am happy to receive the exotic stuff one or two times, I do not have the patience or the money to keep splurging. So, such a diet soon dies a quiet death. Your regular diet should be based on foods that you have easy access to.

Fad diets have no future: Fad diets are like a flash in the plan. One fine morning, everyone is talking about them. The internet is full of their praises and every celebrity you read of is going gung-ho about the diet. 6 months or a year later, the diet is nowhere to be seen. Fad diets are something of a fashion trend. They come and go in regular cycles. They promise lots but deliver little. In the long run, they are only successful in earning their makers a good amount of money, at your expense.

I could go on and give you more reasons why diets like the above fail. But, you get the drift, don't you?

Now that you know what kinds of diet fail, what are the characteristics of diets that are successful? What strategies do people who successfully lose weight adopt? What makes them succeed?