Extreme Diets Are Not The Way To Start Off Your New Year!

When the new year finally comes around, a lot of us choose to go on extreme diets as a way to make up for the over-indulgence of the holiday season. Although many celebrities may be claiming that they were able to lose pounds and pounds in just a few weeks, the truth is that it rarely ever works out like that!

What's Wrong With Extreme Diets?

There are so many things wrong with extreme diets that it's difficult to know where to start. Most of these crash diets label a certain type of food as “bad”. As such, we cut this food out from our diet, despite the fact that our bodies really do need a balanced diet to stay healthy. We deprive ourselves of certain nutrients and suffer the consequences in the form of side effects such as tiredness, constipation and increased weight gain once the diet is over!

Some of the other negative effects of extreme diets including headaches, bad breath, body odor, wind, weakness, difficulty concentrating and more serious damage to the kidneys, heart, liver and muscles. You should always contact your doctor before starting an extreme diet, even if you only plan to go on it for a period of days.

Diets that are even more extreme often advocate lowering calories so drastically that our bodies will literally think they are starving. When you send your body into “starvation mode” this will, in fact, do more harm than good. Our body does everything it can to hold onto its fat stores as if it weren't going to be fed again, and we don't lose weight like we would have expected.

So How Should We Be Losing Weight?

Although many people don't want to hear it, the best way to lose weight is to think long term and keep everything balanced. You need to keep track of how many calories you're taking in each day, and reduce the number very slightly in order to see a gradual weight loss.

However, you shouldn't focus only on calories. What you eat is also extremely important. For example, eating foods that are high in fiber will actually make you feel more full and help to keep those unhealthy cravings at bay. If you feel like snacking, make sure you have plenty of healthy fruits and vegetables on hand.

The good thing about following this kind of weight loss plan, as opposed to extreme diets, is that it'll be much longer lasting. It'll set you up for being healthy for life, and you'll feel more happy and energized as a result.