Five mistakes that make diets fail

Textual data provided by Dr Ruben Salcedo (MP: 17 181), Associate Medical Director in Diquecito Sanatorium

"Due to the rapid growth in rates of overweight and obesity in our country, a magic formula have increased in recent years, that aim to immediate reduce weight and with minimal effort. This multiplicity of options has caused confusion to many people about healthier eating practices implemented to ensure effective results."

"This confusion has led to thousands of people to build homemade diets and many of them unscientific, which eventually lead to frustration for not showing results in the short term."

"However, it is important the implementation of certain habits and the elimination of unfavorable feeding practices for weight loss. In other words, regardless of the name of the diet that is done, there are very specific things that we should do when starting a weight loss process."

Five false paradigms that lead to failure

In this context, there are at least five common paradigms that are enemies of the diet, as they can lead a person to frustration for lack of results, and the consequent failure to prosecute. These are:

Error 1: Base the diet in long periods without food

"One of the most common mistakes of dieting is trying to spend all day without eating, thinking that this will help you lose weight. It is a classic case of the person who barely had breakfast, just something for lunch, no dinner. We must understand that in nutritional medicine there are two very different sensations that occur in relation to the desire to eat: one is the hunger and the other is appetite. The hunger is unstoppable, the appetite is evident, however, the person can separate what is going to eat and what not. When one spends more than four hours without eating, the appetite starts to become hunger. That is why we insist so much on the importance of not spending more than four hours without eating.

Error 2: Thinking that physical activity is enough to lose weight

"Another common mistake is to believe that being active is enough to lose weight. There are people who exercise an hour or two a day and at the end eat a bunch of French fries. Of course physical activity plays a major role in any process of weight loss, but for this to happen, it must always be accompanied by a meal plan accordingly."

Error 3: Misinformation about food and energy intake

"Another common mistake is to have misinformation about calorie intake. It is very common when starting a diet to avoid eating bread, for example, and eat cookies instead, when they have many more calories. The truth is that French bread has 270 calories per 100 gr. while the same amount of “diet” cookies has 400.”

Error 4: Believing that the "light" food will help inevitably to lose weight

"Another common mistake is to abuse of dietary foods, ignoring their calorie level. It is common, for example, to replace a common yogurt for three low-fat yogurt in the day. The low-fat has 40 to 50 percent fewer calories than the average, but by abusing the amount we are adding more calories. If we consume dietary food instead of the common, we will save the calories, but if we increase the quantity, then we will be eating more. The mayonnaise is another very typical: 100 grams of regular mayonnaise has 730 calories, while the same amount of a low-calorie mayonnaise has between 360 and 400.”

Error 5: To lose weight it is important the food quality, not quantity

"It is common for patients to go to a consultant and say “doctor, give me a diet to lose weight but that allows me to eat much”. Unfortunately this is not possible because, leaving water a side, everything else has a greater or lesser proportion of their calories. To illustrate this, we may refer to the case of patients who are vegetarians but they cannot lose weight. It happens that, even though vegetables have very few calories, the consumption is exaggerated. Look what happens to the cows (with the exception of the digestive system which has its differences), they only eat vegetables but get very fat.

The risks of unsupervised diet

"The diet without professional supervision can have an extremely negative effect on the body because, as mentioned above, in general, people have the wrong paradigm about eating healthy. For example, it is believed that the famous Diet without carbohydrates (no bread, no pasta, no dessert and no potatoes) is effective. However, this is a completely wrong diet because, for example, potatoes are a dietary food if consumed properly. The boiled potato has 80 calories per 100 grams while the same amount of beef, which is believed less calorie, has up to 120 calories." 

"In addition to the wrong paradigms, another danger of dieting without professional supervision is that you may cause an unbalanced nutritional supply, which has very negative consequences for the organism. A clear example is the famous "dissociated diet." Also, eating only vegetables is very dangerous because it makes the food intake low in iron and high in protein of biological value. When this happens the person starts to become malnourished."

"We must remember that obesity is a chronic disease, therefore, requires chronic care. So the long-term diet must be balanced to avoid problems of anemia, or growth (in adolescents) or osteoporosis due to low calcium, for example."

Diquecito SANATORIUM

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