Why Low Calorie Diets Don't Work

There is rising evidence that the American obsession with weight loss is becoming unhealthy. Concerns with weight can lead to obsessions about diet, weight control, dysfunctional lifestyles and eating disorders.

Conventional weight loss programs focus on severly reducing calories without proper nutrition. While most people can lose weight for 2-3 weeks on a low calorie diet, they will plateau after this point. This plateau signifies a lowering of your metabolic rate because your body thinks think it's in starvation mode.

Lowering your metabolic rate promotes fat storage to promote health. Our bodies perceive a state of starvation or low calorie diet as dangerous and the metabolism slows down and holds on to body fat.

Low calorie diets without proper nutrition will cause you to gain fat, and lose both muscle and water. The key to keeping your metabolic rate up is to select a moderately low calorie diet with proper nutrients. Then add some weightlifting or interval training which significantly builds lean muscle mass and raises metabolic rate.

Even a program of both diet and exercise requires you to change up your workouts every 3-4 weeks. Your body adapts to a particular type of exercise and your metabolic rate will again start to lower. Regularly changing your workout will overcome this.

Losing weight is all about playing the metabolic game. Low calories will lower your metabolic rates in 2-3 weeks. Thus you need to eat moderately and more nutritiously. Change your exercise details every 3-4 weeks and you have the perfect combination you let your metabolic fires burn.

DR. Lanny Schaffer is an Exercise Physiologist and the President of The International Fitness Academy. For more savvy weightloss and fitness ideas go to http://www.aerobics-exercise-coach.com