Allow Yourself to Live Healthy and Be Happy

A positive outlook about your weight loss journey can help eliminate any preoccupation with thinness and stop you from forming a negative relationship with your body image and self-concept. Your outlook is critical for how you see yourself. For example, being overweight does not mean you are unhealthy, just like being thin does not mean you are healthy. So, quit dieting, stop binge eating and focus on improving your metabolism. A different outlook on weight loss would be to look at how your body stores fat after you eat certain foods rather than looking at weight gain as merely a matter of how many calories you consume, which does not account for your body's hormonal balance. With the right outlook, you can avoid becoming obsessed with quick fixes and enjoy sustainable weight loss with numerous benefits to your overall health.

Fad Diets Lead to Weight Loss Failure

Buying into the latest fad diet and setting unrealistic exercise goals are the shortcuts to weight loss failure. When you follow a crash diet you are at risk for added weight gain because:

• crash diets not sustainable for weight loss
• fad dieting disrupts normal body processes
• fad diets lead to chaotic eating patterns
• fad diets cause your body to defend itself
• calorie restrictions reduce metabolic rate

Negative health consequences of weight cycling are not limited to obese adults but affects the metabolic rate of people of normal weight, especially young women who did not need to shed pounds.

Healthy Menus Support a Healthy Metabolism

Experts agree that very few people can maintain the restrictive eating that is often the foundation of fad diets aimed at rapid weight loss. Moreover, the person's obsession with food can cause them to become disconnected from hormonal cues for hunger and fullness. Because dieting has become so common in the United States and the likelihood of weight relapse is so high, weight cycling is being deemed a health risk to the general population. That is not to say a healthy diet is not good for you but failed attempts at dieting can be. Yo-yo dieting may not only lead to fat accumulation and an increase in visceral fat stores, but it may change the fatty acid composition of the fat deposits. Studies have also reported increases in blood pressure, blood sugar and hypertension during the regain phase.