Does Calorie Counting Work?

by Carrie Spry

Calories are not the enemy. Most people believe that eating fewer calories will result in weight loss. This is not exactly true. If you are eating 2500 calories per day and drop down to 1500 calories per, you won’t necessarily lose weight. If you cut your calories by too much, then you will reach a dieting plateau; a point where you will no longer loose weight.

What makes a person go on a diet in the first place? Well, it usually builds up to a specific point, or several, and one day, you look in the mirror and enough is enough. You are going to lose weight if it kills you. Your clothes are getting too tight and you are disappointed and frustrated with what you see. Does this seem familiar to you? I was once in your shoes and am finally feeling good about myself. Anyways, on this day you are particularly motivated and decide to go on a diet.

Today is the day of new beginnings. You start by skipping breakfast and decide that you will have an early lunch, or brunch as they call it. Kill two birds with one stone. When it gets close to your next meal, all you can think about is food. You begin to get a little shaky as your body is not used to going this long without food.

You try to bravely tell yourself that you can do this, but you feel miserable. You want to lose weight but you don’t want to be a quitter. For lunch you decide to have something small or maybe a salad, but your stomach is telling you its “HUNGRY.” You are still convinced that eating less will get you to your goal.

By dinner time, you’re tired, hungry and you have a headache. You start to think, “Do you really want to go through this everyday? Can You?” Today, you are still so determined to lose weight that you decide to stick to it.

After a few days, you’ve likely gone back to your previous ways. Or, perhaps, if you are really brave you may have held off for a week or too. But now you feel terrible. Even if you’ve stuck with it for a few weeks, you won’t have achieved any serious weight loss, and in fact, your body will still look the same when you look in the mirror. You may have made even worse by starving your body and now it absorbs every single calorie that enters your body. This is bad news, especially when you go back to your normal habits.

You may have lost a pound or two, but this weight that was lost was only water weight and will be gained back as soon as you begin to eat normally again.

This is why if you keep trying to starve yourself, you will never lose weight. Starving yourself is not the answer. If you are serious about weight loss, you need to start giving your body the right types of calories in the right doses on the right days.

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