If you need to lose weight, you're probably trying to work out more. And you're almost surely following some kind of low-calorie eating plan. While you know that this diet is good for you, I bet the thought of going without your favorite foods from now on is not a pleasant one. Luckily, there's hope. It turns out that occasionally cheating on your diet isn't a problem. In fact, cheating may be a key to succeeding on your diet. That probably sounds strange, but it's true. The rest of this article explains why cheating is good when you're trying to get fit at last.
When you're want to lose significant weight, you need to work out more, but you also need to reduce the number of calories you devour. To get into really good shape, you will have to start eating fewer calories than necessary to maintain your current weight. And your body isn't going to like that.
A key reason that any kind of diet doesn't work well is because your body adapts. If you regularly consume fewer calories than you need to maintain your current weight, your body may take this as a sign that there isn't enough food. In short, your body can start to behave as if you are in danger of starving.
When your body is in starvation mode, it behaves differently. It starts storing every calorie it can as fat, since it thinks there isn't enough food to go around. It dials down your metabolic rate, leaving you with less energy. It puts less effort into maintaining and repairing your joints and muscles, since the top priority is to survive until there's more food. If the "famine" last too long, it starts burning your muscle tissue as fuel while preserving the fat for an even more dire emergency.
As you can imagine, the results are ugly. You end up listless, with little energy to work out. If you do manage to work out, your workout will be low quality. You tend to get hurt quickly, and it takes a long time to recover. Any food you do eat seems to instantly turn into belly fat. Your muscles start to fade away. Not the best conditions for working out really hard and getting truly fit. This is where cheating comes in.
Missing a single meal, or even going without food for a few days won't cause your body to go into starvation mode. It takes a sustained reduction in calories for that to happen. If you don't stay a low calorie levels for too long at a stretch, your body will stay in its normal mode and your diet will remain effective. You'll get all the benefits of your diet program without the nasty side effects of your body switching to starvation mode.
So, to get the best results if you go on a strict diet, you need to go off the plan once in a while. Every so often, you need to eat significantly more than you otherwise would, to prevent your body from thinking you are starving. And there's another benefit. If you eat your favorite foods on thedays when you break the diet, it is much easier to stay on your diet the rest of the time. After all, there's a big difference between giving up your favorite foods altogether, and still eating them on your cheating days.
The easiest way to do this is to eat anything you want about once a week. But this approach isn't necessarily the most efficient way to go. If you want to get the best fat loss results possible, without the negative effects of starvation mode, you should get expert advice on all aspects of the way you eat, including whether and how to cheat based on your specific diet, body type and so on.
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