“My dieting plan fell apart at that Christmas party. I saw those chocolates, I started early, and I couldn’t stop.” Does this sound familiar to you?
Fibre keeps you fuller longer and helps you manage your sugar cravings.
Remember, your deprivation is one of the causes of certain food cravings. While you go on a diet that totally stop rich, high-calorie, often-favourite foods, you will have overwhelming desires for these foods. Thus, when these foods are presented to you, you are unable to resist. You will succumb to your cravings and more often than not, you will overindulge.
According to Susan Robers from Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Centre on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University, in a study involving 32 overweight women, 94 per cent of the participants reported cravings after six months of dieting. This study reconfirms that dieting will not help in weight loss - you are worse off if you over restrict yourself. |
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Additionally, when you “overstarve” yourself, your body becomes super efficient at utilising the most of the calories that it gets from foods and drinks. This is to keep your body at its daily optimal function. Your body first uses up your energy reserves found in tissues and lean muscle to provide the required energy while it reserves the fat stored in the body for future use. As a result, your body losses its muscle which in turn slows your metabolic rate.
When your body has a lower metabolic rate, your body becomes less efficient in utilising the calories. Once you revert to your daily normal diet, the calories you consume will be in excess of your needs and get stored as fat. So each time you overstarve yourself in order to lose weight, this means your metabolic rate will drop. Research also shows that people tend to binge, if they’ve been restricted1.
1 Elizabeth Markley, Dr. P.H., R.D., assistant professor at the
University of Connecticut. |
