The 3 Worst Things to NEVER Do While Dieting

1.  Heavily restrict your calorie intake.  Sure, it may make logical sense that if you only eat a cup of salad a day, you'll be losing fat like melting butter.  Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that.  The truth is, your body hates heavy calorie restriction and crash diets...they almost instantly send your body in to "starvation mode", decreasing metabolism and causing your body to hold on to your fat stores as a starvation protection mechanism. Moderate, not severe, calorie restriction is the way to go for consistent, week-to-week fat loss...but even that can become problematic.  Bringing us to our next worst thing to NEVER do while dieting:

2.  Restrict calories for more than 1 week.  No matter how moderate your calorie restriction, it won't take the body long to figure out that you're eating fewer calories than it's used to getting on a daily basis.  The result?  Slowed fat loss and the dreaded fat loss plateau.  Not only do fat loss plateaus suck from a results standpoint, but they're incredibly disheartening psychologically and cause many people to give up on diets from the lack of progress. I mean, who wants to sacrifice for no reward?  Not me.

Research has shown that it takes just under a week for important fat burning hormones to drop off due to calorie restriction, so it's best that calorie restriction be limited to 1 week at a time.  So what do you do to "reset" your metabolism after a week of dieting?  Well, that brings us to our next worst thing to NEVER do while dieting:

3.  Deprive yourself of your favorite foods.  Do you like ice cream?  Yeah, me too.  How about pizza?  Love it.  Shame that these delectable favorites aren't on the "approved" foods list of very many "diets", and that brings up several problems:

A) You're GOING to cheat.  Yes, even you with the supersonic will power.  And when you do, you're going to feel guilty and defeated...but you don't have to, and you shouldn't feel that way.

B) Depriving yourself of your favorite foods for weeks at a time will actually detract from your results due to the reasons shared in #2.

******Bottom line, your favorite foods should be strategically implemented in to your fat loss program at least once a week*******