Real Diets For Real People - No Gimmicks, Just Results

Real Diets For Real People - No Gimmicks, Just Results

"Lose 10 pounds in 10 hours!" "Shed four dress sizes in one week!" "Eat nothing but grapefruit and you will become a size zero!" Americans have been endlessly burned by the weight-loss gimmicks that have been common in the "diet" industry for years. 

Thankfully, the newest diets are primarily based on the studies of research scientists, geared toward providing long-term results without all the hype and gimmicks. The recommendations to be found amid the new wave of diets are not boring or overly restrictive. Instead, they offer deeper insight into the ways that we gain and keep excess weight. What follows are some of the newest ideas shaping weight control today. 

Weight Loss: The Mind and Body Connection

Possibly the most important realization in dietary science is the idea that people do not simply overeat because they love food and feel physically compelled to eat it. Rather, it is a complex combination of physical instinct and emotional need that leads to overeating. One of the main reasons so many Americans are overweight is because we turn to food to help fill an emotional void inside. Stress, money worries, and relationship problems are just a few of the things that lead us to consume food for comfort.

Psychologist Judith Beck, the founder of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, has taken an approach to helping dieters lose weight by reshaping the way they think about food.

Author of The Beck Diet Plan, Dr. Beck sets out to help overweight patients begin "thinking" like thin people. The diet plan allows patients to continue to eat their favorite foods while losing weight because the cognitive changes the dieter makes prevents him or her from overeating. The diet helps people learn to use positive "self-talk" to overcome emotional eating habits. By offering people practical cognitive ways to avoid eating based on emotional need or stress, Beck helps reshape the landscape of dieting.

Understanding the Role of Instinct in Eating

Susan Roberts and Betty Kelly Sargent have written an instructive weight-control book called The Instinct Diet: Use Your Five Food Instincts to Lose Weight and Keep it Off.  Roberts and Sargent explain that our bodies are programmed with various eating instincts to help keep us alive. These instincts are shaped by the foods available, caloric potential, familiarity of foods, as well as diversity of choices. Though this instinct system worked well during pre-historic times, the changes in our environment and in the types of foods most readily available have made it difficult to maintain our weight.

The diet attempts to re-program people with healthier instincts. It requires a high intake of fiber, a commitment to eating three meals a day, and consumption of non-caloric beverages. The diet lasts eight weeks. Though the initial two weeks of the diet are a bit rigid, the remainder of the diet is easier and offers many food choices. The end result is a changed approach to eating and a slimmer person.

Losing weight - and keeping the extra pounds off permanently - requires much more than fad diet restricting your diet to only meat or grapefruit. Instead, by fully understanding your instinctual, emotional, and psychological triggers to eating, you can alter your consumption habits to enjoy a healthier weight and life.