Not losing weight? Or worse, you worked like hell to lose it and now the pounds are back, and then some? If you're on a diet, or if you've spent much of your life dieting, you've undoubtedly worked very, very hard to achieve results. And quite probably you've experienced the devastating shame or disappointment of having the weight creep back on. Whether you've been working against 10 pounds or 200, losing weight and keeping it off can be one of the toughest challenges, and I bow to you for the efforts you've made. Losing weight may have been hard thus far, but it doesn't have to be. Let's look at three of the reasons your diet has probably not been working, and then I'll show you how to change things up.
The Three Reasons Your Diet Isn't Working:
The weight loss from a HPLC diet also comes from eating fewer calories, because you are knocking out so much of what you normally would consume -- because these days, eliminating carbs means doing away with calorie-dense, highly processed foods, most of which contain high-fructose corn sweetener. Of course you lose weight when you give up cookies and cakes and doughnuts, which erroneously get lumped together with good carbs like those from brown rice and quinoa.
But eating a HPLC doesn't work long-term. Your body needs GOOD carbs, and will crave them voraciously if you don't pony up a steady, healthy supply of them. Whole grains like brown rice and quinoa, and beans like lentils, chickpeas, and black beans supply the body with the much-needed slow and steady supply of glucose. Glucose is not a bad thing; it's the source of fuel for the brain and body and it's not negotiable that we get it. Which is why the cravings for carbs become so irresistible that you end up caving: it's your brilliant body telling you to stop starving yourself of what you need!
The trick, of course, is to stick with the good carbs (whole grains, beans), not the bad, refined, junky carbs (white bread, chips, cakes, cookies).
Whole foods like grains and beans release their sugar very, very slowly because of the fiber in them, and they don't give you a sugar rush. They feed your cells as needed, and as a result, you have loads of stable energy that powers you through the day. Not so with meat, dairy and eggs (they have no fiber in them, but more on that soon), which are the centerpiece of the HPLC diet.
And why else is your HPLC diet not working? Let's not forget the obvious: Meat and dairy are concentrated sources of fat and calories. Fat and calories make you fat. Period. Even a lean breast of skinless chicken -- certainly the leanest of all the meats -- has 20 percent of its calories in fat, 29 percent of which is saturated. So, that's a problem when it comes to weight loss and health.
So now you know why your diet probably wasn't working. Now here's what you do to change things:
Upgrade
You can still have that beloved burger or pizza or pasta; just make them healthier by opting for a veggie burger, or pizza with nondairy cheese and soy sausage, or pasta that's made from brown rice rather than white flour. Have all the foods you grew up loving, but just have better versions of them. Eventually, lean even further toward simple nutrient-dense plant-based foods like whole grains, legumes, nuts, veggies and fruits.
Add in Good Stuff
Fill up on some good stuff by incorporating new little habits into your daily routine. Things like adding two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds to a soup or smoothie, or adding in an apple a day to pump up your fiber intake will go far in changing your body's chemistry. You can do something as simple as drinking two cups of water before a meal to fill your belly a bit so that you don't overeat, or change up your cheese from dairy to nondairy.
When you ADD things in to your daily routine rather than parsing out calories and counting grams of protein, you don't feel deprived or hungry. It's called "crowding out," and it's a whole different approach to the old "cutting out" method of dieting. You won't be white-knuckling your way through some crazy deprivation diet that makes you miserable. You don't need to stick to tough rules or overnight changes; you need not rely on hardcore discipline that makes you hate your life. You need only focus on progress, not perfection. Lean in to the process of losing weight, and it will happen easily. And it will last. At last!
For more tips and a simple 30 day plan for losing weight and keeping it off, please check out The Lean!
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Dr. Melina Jampolis: 7 Tips for Permanent Weight Loss
Exercise.
That's it.
How this author can, in one and the same article, tell us that our diets will fail if we eliminate carbs because our body is craving them and then to tell us to substitute soy for meat and dairy when we crave them is illogical.
The Atkins diet is CONTROLLED CARB, not low carb. The Atkins diet is not high protein.
You lose FAT from KETOSIS on the Atkins diet, not water weight.
ATKINS WORKS. PERIOD.
In reality, the body first burns glycogen because it is most readily available (already in the blood stream). However a body that is well adapted, with steady blood sugar levels, will switch to fat quickly for long term, more efficient energy because less glucose is stored.
Glycogen regulates blood sugar levels and is produced by the liver in adequate supply for those few parts of the body that require it for fuel.
As someone who is completely keto-adapted, I can vouch for the validity of your statement - I get by quite well on under 20 grams of carbohydrate a day in the form of non-starchy veggies and a few high-fat nuts, such as macadamias.
My apologies, that was of poor taste. ;)
Instead of dieting, eat what you need to maintain the weight you want to be - and once you get there, keep it up.
If you want to lose weight, perhaps eating 3 small reasonable meals a day should be sufficient. If not, they losing weight is a losing proposition IMO.
By digressing, the newer generations are getting fat. We had a regular mid afternoon snack as kids, usually French bread (no fat or sugar involved), sometimes buttered, sometimes with jam (often homemade) or sometimes a few chocolate squares (not candy bars). Dessert is a piece of fruit or yogurt, the natural kind, pastries are a (not regular) treat.
This said, the acceptable weight is extremely low in the US (we do not go by size as there is too much vanity sizing in US brands) and we are not trying to reach that absolute skinniness that some think is the norm. Our acceptable body weight range from thin to sturdy, within the medical guidelines. Start dieting and each time you gain everything plus a lb or 2 back.
Don't tell the folks at Laduree...