Why Personal Trainers help you more than fad diets
There are no shortcuts to losing weight and maintaining progress
One thing that almost all fad diets have in common is that they reduce the number of calories that you digest. Since fat is made up of stored calories and then burned as energy, it makes sense that lowering the calories you eat will have an effect on your weight. Here’s the problem: not all such diets are sustainable.
When the average person starts on their dieting quest, they reduce their food intake which results in quick fat loss and the shedding of water. The sudden drop in calories means that there is less stored energy, and fat is replaced at a slower rate, meaning that the reading on the scales will go down.
The reduction of salt and carbohydrates means that water passes more easily through your system, and this only serves to increase your weight loss further. It’s all great at the start of any diet because even the simplest tweaks can be beneficial to your body composition… but what happens a few weeks down the line?
As your body gets used to a new eating regime, it makes changes to get the most out of every calorie consumed. This may even include the natural slowing down of your metabolism so that calories are used efficiently. Now that you’ve got rid of all that excess bloat and water, the weight loss will begin to slow and may even plateau. At this stage the average person’s inner voice kicks in and says “diets just don’t work for me”, and they slip back into their old overeating ways. Worse still: some studies suggest that the weight comes back quicker than it left!
The following study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.21538 showed that metabolic adaptations within the body work against our weight loss efforts. Contestants on US reality series ‘The Biggest Loser’ regained a substantial amount of weight in the years following the show. The study concluded that “long-term weight loss requires vigilant combat against persistent metabolic adaptation”. And that’s why short-term fad diets fail.
There are no shortcuts to losing weight on a long-term basis. You must embrace health and fitness and adopt it as a lifestyle. Whether you are a student in Tunbridge Wells or a parent in Sevenoaks, the essential key to losing weight is all about starting good sustainable habits, like appointing a Personal Trainer.
A good PT can help teach you the lessons needed to lose weight and maintain it. They will also change things up to keep your body guessing so that you don’t plateau.
Leading Personal Trainers is your resource for changing your life for the better… today.
