{ "id": 8058, "date": "2018-11-02T08:32:47", "date_gmt": "2018-11-02T08:32:47", "guid": { "rendered": "https:\/\/uk.inbody.com\/?p=8058" }, "modified": "2021-05-12T08:11:09", "modified_gmt": "2021-05-12T07:11:09", "slug": "how-to-not-hate-dieting", "status": "publish", "type": "post", "link": "https:\/\/ro.inbody.com\/en\/how-to-not-hate-dieting\/", "title": { "rendered": "How To Not Hate Dieting" }, "content": { "rendered": "
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If you\u2019re here, you probably hate dieting. For many people, simply the word \u201cdiet\u201d brings feelings of misery.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A \u201cdiet\u201d for a lot of people means: \u201cI\u2019m going to develop the self-control of a monk, start eating low-calorie, healthy foods that I don\u2019t like, cut out unhealthy foods that I do like, and starve myself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

No wonder so many people fail! But it doesn\u2019t have to be this way.<\/span><\/p>\n

If your goal is to make long-term changes to your body composition, then yes, you need to accept the principle that unless you have some type of medical condition affecting your metabolism, you need to use more calories than you get from your food. This is called a caloric deficit. It\u2019s real, it works, and science <\/span>has backed it up<\/span><\/a> forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

\""How<\/p>\n

But losing body fat doesn\u2019t have to be severe dietary restrictions and starvation. If you make smart nutritional choices, adopt healthy eating habits, and incorporate enough exercise, you can still eat the foods you like, and make long-term improvements to your body composition.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Seriously. Let\u2019s take a look.<\/span><\/p>\n

You Really Don\u2019t Need To Starve Yourself<\/h2>\n

\"extreme<\/span><\/p>\n

Going on a diet usually means eating less than you usually do, but losing the unwanted fat you gained over time doesn\u2019t mean you have to stop eating, skip meals, or starve yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

To illustrate, let\u2019s take a look at what happened to a group of people who actually were starved: the participants of Ancel Keys\u2019 famous <\/span>Minnesota Starvation Experiment<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re unfamiliar, here\u2019s a brief history lesson: In the 1940s, the Allied powers were pretty sure they were going to defeat Hitler in Europe, and they needed to know how to deal with a starving European continent once the war was won. In order to do that, they needed data on what happens when people starve and are later re-fed.<\/span><\/p>\n

36 healthy volunteers were selected to go on a yearlong starvation experiment that consisted of 3 months overfeeding, 6 months near-starvation, and 3 months refeeding\/recovery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did they lose weight? You better believe they did: roughly 25% of their body weight, gone in 6 months.<\/span><\/p>\n

What happened here? How did they lose so much body weight so quickly? The same way everyone loses body weight: by being in a caloric deficit.<\/strong> However, the deficit the experiment participants experienced was very extreme.<\/span><\/p>\n

After adjusting their bodies to 3 months of a 3,200-calorie\/day meal plan, their diets were uniformly slashed to 1,570 calories a day, a reduction of about 1,630 calories. But they weren\u2019t allowed to just sit around; the participants were further required to walk 22 miles a week AND expend 3,009 calories a day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\""How<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll do the math for you: that\u2019s a caloric deficit of nearly 1,500 calories a day, or 10,000 calories a week.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s about triple the caloric deficit required to <\/span>lose a pound of fat per week<\/span><\/a>, which is an achievable goal.  The starvation diet<\/a> in the Minnesota study was anything but healthy and came with the following starvation-related side effects:<\/span><\/p>\n