Lose Weight Faster Without Putting Your Body Into Starvation Mode

Lose Weight Faster Without Putting Your Body Into Starvation Mode

Starving your body on a low-calorie diet to try to lose weight is a fool's game. When you drastically cut calories the body goes into "starvation mode," slowing metabolic functioning to conserve calories, insuring it will have enough energy reserves to continue vital operations, such as organ function. Because of reduced metabolism rates, once the diet is ended weight gain increases.

The secret to losing weight is not to go on a diet, but rather to change your diet. Buy changing what you eat, and the way you eat it, you will lose weight naturally and never go hungry.
Fad Diets

Low-carbohydrate diets are a misnomer, as all vegetables are primarily carbohydrates with trace amounts of fat and protein, generally less than 1 gram of each. What the low-carb diet is designed to accomplish is reduce the consumption of bad carbohydrates, which make you gain weight.

High protein diets only work for a short time, as they trick the body into burning off stored fat. However, the body adapts to whatever you thrown at it, and soon the high-protein diet is no longer effective.

Focus on Foods Low on the Glycemic Index

The glycemic index is essentially a scale of how quickly foods are digested. Foods high on the glycemic index are composed predominately of simple carbohydrates, also referred to as "bad" or "fast" carbs. These are foods like white bread that the body digests quickly and leaves you feeling hungry again in an hour. Complex carbohydrates, also known as "slow" or "good" carbs, are foods like whole-grain bread that takes the body longer to digest, keeping you feeling full longer.

Thermic Effect of Food

By eating smaller meals more often a greater percentage of the calories in each meal is used for digestion, known as the thermic effect of food. This means you can eat the same amount of food each day, but by eating more frequently in smaller quantities, the body will burn off more of the calories.

Fiber

Foods high in fiber leave you feeling full and fall into four categories:

•Fruits and Vegetables
•Whole grains
•Beans and legumes
•Nuts and seeds

Fat

Fat in the diet is not the bugaboo many people believe, and while saturated animal fats should be avoid like the plague, healthy fats, such as Omega-3 fats found in fish and coconuts, will help control hunger.

Exercise

Resistance exercise is critical when trying to lose weight. Weight bearing exercise builds muscle, which increases metabolism to help burn calories, even while at rest.