How to Manage Your Weight with a Personalized Meal Plan

Dieting approaches nutrition and weight loss as temporary states, whereas maintaining a healthier lifestyle promotes wellness as a lifelong journey. This is why going a low-carb diet for two months and then stopping is doomed to failure for most dieters. For at least a couple hundred years, the concept of dieting has been synonymous with mustering white-knuckled willpower and suffering through the hunger while denying yourself the dietary indulgences that you love. Scientists are learning that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to your diet plan. What helps one person lose weight may actually make another dieter gain weight.

Psychological, social and societal factors play a major role in diet sabotage, including these common diet setbacks:

• FOLLOWING A FAD DIET - Meals that contain lean protein, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates offer longer satiety to curb your appetite. On the other hand, if you unduly restrict macronutrient composition, the diet plan will not be sustainable.
• CAN'T HAVE IT SO YOU WANT IT - A major problem that dieters face when following a restrictive food diet is the deprivation that the dieter feels. Simply stated, it makes sense that any time we deny our food cravings we will want to eat more than ever.
• OVEREATING TRIGGERS - Some people develop bad eating habits over time and find them to be difficult to break. If you start your day with good intentions but overeat in the evening, your problem may be giving in to food triggers like the double chocolate muffin you had at work.
• LOW N.E.A.T. BURN - Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) are the calories your body burns when you're not working out but walking, standing, climbing, doing housework and generally being an active person. Getting up and moving every day limits sedentary behavior.
• MISGUIDED STRATEGIES - People who don't deny that they believe in healthy eating often adopt misguided weight loss strategies like, "I really want to lose weight fast, so I'll follow one of these crash diets and then come up with a more sensible plan for that whole healthy eating thing".
• WRONG MOTIVATION - If your objective is to hit a number on a scale, your motivation will likely wane once you've lost the weight making it difficult to keep it off. Find your inner motivation and let wanting to live longer drive your health goals.

Over the past few decades, medical researchers of mixed backgrounds have tested a variety of diet in individual trials that support a differing approach. Although diets can be shown to work better in particular situations, current research does not support any one weight loss plan over another.

Weight Loss Is About Much More Than a Number on a Scale

Take a positive approach to dieting and start with a personalized menu plan. To determine if a diet will support your weight loss efforts, you first need to identify the foods that your body needs you to eat and pick foods that taste good to help regulate satiety. Hormone tests and a genetic panel can usually provide insight into the way your body burns and stores fat. Dietary change is not the only component of a diet plan for long-term weight management. Increased physical activity, mindful eating, following your hunger cues and managing stress without relying on comfort foods make a difference in maintaining a weight-reduced state.

Contact the Metabolic Research Center nearest you for a one-on-one weight loss consultation to discuss your need for a personalized diet.