Most people believe that calories are the “enemy”. After all, eating excess calories leads to excess fat, right? That’s why most people believe that the fastest way to lose weight is to cut way back on calories each day.
It sounds logical. If a dieter is eating 2,500 calories per day and they decide to cut back to 1,500 calories per day, then obviously those 1,000 fewer calories have to result in weight loss, right?
But it’s not true!
The truth is that if you cut your calories too much by starving yourself and skipping meals then you’ll quickly reach a dieting “plateau” (a point where the scale refuses to drop any lower no matter how little your are eating).
Firstly, let’s talk about how the average person begins a new diet…
Motivation and Anger
One day you look in the mirror and see that your clothes are fitting tighter than normal, and you look more overweight than normal. You get mad at yourself and you don’t like what you see in the mirror. So you decide that you’re going to lose weight no matter what it takes.
That day, you’re filled with motivation and anger. You’re determined to do whatever it takes to get slimmer.
So what’s the first thing you do?
Cutting Back On Calories
You begin skipping meals and cutting way back on calories in an attempt to starve yourself thinner, since you’re convinced that calories are the enemy.
Thus you begin your “starvation diet”.
But it’s not a great way to start.
On the first day of dieting you feel so motivated to lose weight that you skip breakfast entirely.
The motivation doesn’t last for long, however, because after a few hours your hunger makes you feel weak — because your body is not accustomed to skipping meals! Your body isn’t used to being without calories for that long.
By the time lunch arrives you’re so weak and hungry that you’re absolutely miserable but you don’t care — you want to prove to yourself that you can handle the diet.
So maybe you have a piece of fruit for lunch so you can continue starving yourself in order to lose weight.
A few hours later you’re even more miserable and hungry and you have a major headache because your blood sugar is so low. At this point you realize that starving yourself by drastically cutting back on calories isn’t a good idea after all. But you stick with it. Maybe things will get better.
So you continue starving yourself for a few days. You don’t want to be labeled a quitter, after all. And your body needs a few days to lose weight, right?
But the result is always the same — you won’t get any thinner!
Even after two weeks of starving your body, you won’t lose any real weight. You’ll still look the same in the mirror.
Why is this true?
Most of the weight lost during a “starvation” diet is just water weight, and not real fat loss.
Any water weight lost during a starvation diet will be gained back immediately when you stop dieting and start eating normally again.
Slowing Your Metabolism
Also, whenever you starve yourself you cause a “hidden” factor to come into play…
You see, whenever you starve yourself your body will begin burning fewer calories each day.
For instance, let’s say that you normally eat about 3,000 calories per day. You cut back and now you’re only eating 1,000 calories per day.
Guess what happens?
Even though you’re eating 2,000 fewer calories per day, after a short while your body will require 2,000 fewer calories per day — so in reality your weight will remain the same even though you’re eating 2,000 fewer calories per day.
When this happens the scale will stop going down regardless of how little you are eating each day, and this is known as a weight loss “plateau”.
This is why most starvation dieters cannot make the scale go down anymore after just two weeks of dieting. They all hit a point where the scale just refuses to go down any further, no matter how little they are eating each day.
Now you know why you’ve always failed when trying to starve yourself in the past, since it’s just not possible to lose weight by starving yourself.
The truth is that “serious†weight loss can never be achieved by starvation dieting.
Serious Weight Loss Requires Calorie Shifting
Serious weight loss can only be achieved by giving your body the right types of calories at the correct times each day, which is something that we talk about below…
Your body is actually like a big “engine” — and the truth is that your body needs all 3 types of calories (protein, carbs, and fat) to some degree. You can’t leave any of them out of your diet if you want to stay healthy. But you can control when you eat them — a concept called calorie shifting.
To begin losing weight fast we recommend using the Idiot Proof Diet Plan from Fat Loss 4 Idiots. It doesn’t require any calorie counting, just calorie shifting. In fact, it’s one of the only diets in the world which forces fast weight loss without the need to count calories. And calorie shifting is incredibly easy with The Fat Loss For Idiots on-line diet generator.
Click here to learn more about the FL4I weight loss system
The Idiot-Proof Diet Plan uses the CALORIE SHIFTING technique to burn fat and lose weight quickly and safely.