It is a fact that losing weight was on the list for every New Year resolution. Nonetheless, every year countless people repeat the accessibility design mistakes in the vain hope of getting better outcomes.
That, unfortunately, is because most weight-loss strategies are ineffective long-term and some can make the situation even worse or be downright dangerous.
Below is a list of 5 common methods which, more often than not, never work, followed by suggestions of what may well.
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Calorie Counting
Counting calories may work in the short run but in the end, it usually spells frustration and failure. The biggest one is the fact that counting calories correctly is really hard.
Packaged foods and certain restaurant menus offer calorie information, but it is not 100% accurate.
In addition, caloric information for most homemade foods is missing. These types of foods are hard to calculate calories for, even with the help of apps, because so many variables and cooking methods can play a role, and it can become very time-consuming to meticulously count all the calories in real food.
Worse choosing meals solely based on calorie count makes the meals feel like the equivalent of homework, and an unhealthy path with food can begin.
And this preoccupation may cause us to lose sight of the most important things: the nutrient density and fullness of our foods.
Safe to say jelly beans and nuts benefit respectively – where a serving of jelly beans carries a lesser calorie content than a serving of nuts, the latter serving is more weight friendly (in moderation) in that nuts provide a level of satiety that can keep the frequent hunger check hence no blood sugar spikes/crashes.
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Exercise
Most types of exercise burn very little calories. Thirty minutes of daily walking, for example – the gold standard dose for general health – can yield little if any weight loss, several studies suggest.
Substantial weight loss requires the sort of intense and prolonged workouts that few people are prepared to make.
Even if it were possible to increase the intensity at which people exercise, the body compensates at some level by increasing hunger, which is the primary limiter for weight loss.
When exercise is only predicated on weight loss, it is subject to goals set up for failure and is the first thing to be abandoned when the expectations are not met.
It changes fitness into punishment, a necessary evil that people are predisposed to skip.
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Eliminating Food Categories
If this child version of me is running the show when it comes to achieving health goals, zero carbs, only meat, and water are completely fine as a temporary weight-loss strategy, but they are not sustainable practices in the long term.
Many head-to-head studies of popular weight loss diets have shown that reining in carbs or fat results in similar weight loss after one year.
Most of our favorite foods, but in eliminating them I believe that creates a feeling of unease, hunger, even desperation… which could lead to binge eating.
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“Fat-Burning” Foods
The Paleo diet and the raw food movement cover this space, as does the swathe of marketing surrounding ‘superfoods’/avocados/apple cider vinegar/magical fat-burning secret of the Maasai/etc. This is that so-called Promised Land that no one wants to go to.
Nevertheless, the underlying science of these ‘superfoods‘ is frequently early and sometimes subsidized by entities as to what something to offer.
Although a few foods can re-vitalize metabolism and help fill you up, there is no proof that any works in significant weight loss.
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