Gaining
Weight on a Diet
Everyone and their mommas have at least one point in
their life tried dieting. Like most people who tried going on a diet get sick of
it within days or in my case a few meals in. However, this year I made my resolution
to dedicate myself to health and fitness and be strict with my diet. Now after
all the meal prepping, half meal portion eating, and time wasted counting
calories and carbs, we’re told you actually gain weight.
Dr. Higginson of the
University of Exeter stated that over time the average weight gain for people
who go on diets will be greater than those who don’t diet at all, now you
understand my frustration. The brain is a very complex organ; it can infer our
diets as short famines, and forces our bodies to store the little food that we
eat as fat for future food shortages. In
comparison to animals such as birds they tend to “overeat” when they suspect a
food shortage to occur as do our bodies. This is why most dieters tend to
overeat after completing a diet resulting in a lack of weight loss. It’s evolution!
Humans have evolved in a world where there can be plenty of food available, to having none at all. People who rarely diet; their bodies adapt to the idea that food supply is reliable so there is no need for the body store fat unnecessarily. According to different researchers; the urge to eat increases intensely as diets go on. But fail to realize their body is gaining weight because the brain is convinced there is a famine in place. Thus the dieters gain even more weight (because of their desire to overeat) after the diet under idea that they lost weight.
The best way to approach weight loss, at least in the eyes of doctor is to eat less and too eat frequently while continuing a daily workout regimen. But to be honest, this is the greatest news to hear! Eat more lose weight, what’s not to love?
Humans have evolved in a world where there can be plenty of food available, to having none at all. People who rarely diet; their bodies adapt to the idea that food supply is reliable so there is no need for the body store fat unnecessarily. According to different researchers; the urge to eat increases intensely as diets go on. But fail to realize their body is gaining weight because the brain is convinced there is a famine in place. Thus the dieters gain even more weight (because of their desire to overeat) after the diet under idea that they lost weight.
The best way to approach weight loss, at least in the eyes of doctor is to eat less and too eat frequently while continuing a daily workout regimen. But to be honest, this is the greatest news to hear! Eat more lose weight, what’s not to love?
Images: https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/3-reasons-to-reconsider-stepping-on-the-scale-this-morning/
Posted
by: Givenchy Humes (2)
I think that a lot of people would be surprised that going on a diet actually makes you gain weight. It is interesting to know that our bodies react to dieting like there has been a shortage in food. So the body stores the food that is consumed as fat for the future. This is kind of similar in terms of evolution to how chipmunks or hamsters store food in the pockets of their cheeks for later just in case no more food is available. You always hear that people may gain a lot of weight after intense dieting or have a lot of weight fluctuations and learning about the biology behind that is very interesting.
ReplyDeletePosted by Leah DeLorenzo (group A)
From my personal experience, I've found that going on a strict diet isn't usually helpful because first, I usually end up giving up after a week, and second, I do agree that eventually it can cause you to gain weight rather than lose it. I think that you need just the right balance between daily exercise and a healthy, satisfying diet to keep yourself fit and to help you lose weight. I read a very similar article that argued that starving yourself puts your body into panic mode, so when you do eventually eat, you end up storing most of the food as fat, since your body will assume that at some point you're going to "starve" again, so it wants to be prepared in case that happens. In any case, if you're telling me to eat more, I'm not going to say no..
ReplyDeletePosted by Peter Makhoul
Dieting is definitely an uphill battle, especially when you’re first starting! It was really interesting to learn that your body actually compensates for the lack of food that you’re eating by storing it for later use. This reminds me of an article that I read in a fitness magazine that was talking about the importance of eating breakfast. If you don’t eat breakfast your body actually slows down it’s metabolism and so when you eat a lot later, it results in storing the food as fat. It’s really fascinating to know that this all comes from an evolutionary standpoint as I never thought about it that way!
ReplyDeletePosted by Kate Masterson
I think it's important that more people understand that this is how their body works when they diet! I've read this in so many different places but I still feel like a lot of people haven't. The body is a complex thing and simply cutting out food isn't going to do it any good. Dieting in an unhealthy way effects so many other things in the body as well, from hormone production to metabolic rates. It is so important to understand how your body works and to pay attention to what it needs because intense dieting and malnutrition can cause a lot of long term effects.
ReplyDeletePosted by Jordan Milone
It is very easy to accidentally go into "starvation mode" while dieting. Like you said, the body perceives the lowered calorie intake as a sort of famine. This is because early humans did not have such easy access to food and had to hunt/gather. It was in the body's best interest to hold onto any calories it could by storing the energy as fat. I agree that eating frequent small meals (every few hours or so) is a good way to keep your metabolism up and running at an efficient rate.
ReplyDeletePosted by Sierra Tyrol
Sierra, isn't that just crazy to fathom. It's so hard to maintain the diet of a rabbit eating lettuce every damn day. What I found to be so factual is the over eating that tends to occur after dieting, I literally eat everything that's dead and deep fried. But competing helps me discipline my diet by cutting carbs, and portioning my meals are really helping. Thank you for your comment.
DeleteReply by Givenchy Humes
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThere's a mythos around dieting that these studies try to dispel, with varying degrees of success (evidenced by the fact that despite this information being public, millions of people struggle with dieting properly). It always seems like those who apply the findings of these studies do so in a vacuum. For example, there are countless articles out there with titles like "Your Diet Isn't Working. Here's Why." and then some anonymous guru will take a break from saying 'namaste' incorrectly, to preach the "well, actually, you should be eating five or six small meals a day. It helps with metabolism"*. That's all well and good, but I don't know anybody who actually has the time to do this. If we weren't all working 40 hour work weeks and had jobs that paid high enough to afford this kind of diet, I'm sure we all would, but these studies always seem to be extrapolated into a really unrealistic context. Also, there comes a point where dieting in such a manner becomes obsessive and, speaking from experience, can have pretty severe affects both mentally and physically.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, I'm not attacking the study itself, just how the findings are applied, which I think is a really important point of discussion, since popular science journalism is rife with intentional ambiguity, willful omissions, etc. in order to rake in the clicks. And since these sites are the middle-man between scientists and laymen, they hold a lot of power.
*[Also, can we address how carelessly the word metabolism is thrown around by armchair nutritionists?]
Posted by Owen Mulledy
This article relates to me soo much because I have personally always tried dieting and gone about it the wrong way. Most of the time I could manage to lose a few pounds but not keep it off for long. It was all based on limiting my food and eating less but also fewer times in the day. This clearly wasn't a good idea and I think next time I should approach dieting differently and eat frequently as suggested but smaller portions. Obviously it's easier said than done but I enjoyed reading this post.
ReplyDeletePosted by Ana Carolina Nepomuceno
Ana, thank you for your feedback. Being Dominican and Black you can imagine how hard it is to get away from arroz y frijoles and chicken! If only it was as easy as it sounds to limit portion sizes and to eat frequently. I'm currently trying to cut weight right now and the best solution for me thus far is cutting my carbs totally at night. But I found a lot of truths in that article, and I'm glad I can find some to relate.
DeleteReply by Givenchy Humes