You’ve heard it before – not all diets help you lose weight, but what if your diet makes you gain more weight?
Being on a diet is stressful enough, but it can be even more frustrating when you discover that after all of that stress, you still gained weight. That can’t be fair, right? As it turns out, there are many reasons why your diet makes you gain weight instead of losing fat. In fact, it’s a common occurrence, especially in women, but the same can be expected in men.
Diets can backfire, and when it does, weight gain may become the least of your problems. Here are 5 reasons why your diet makes you fat:
Some diets are too restrictive
Diets are intended to be restrictive, to give your body a chance to burn the excess energy stored in fat. When you consume fewer calories, the body burns off fat to use as fuel for your body. Some find restrictive diets effective, but it doesn’t work for everyone. The restrictive nature of diets may even be the reason why people gain weight on restrictive diets instead of losing fat.
For a person who had just started trying to lose weight, a restrictive diet may not be the best option. An overly restrictive diet only makes it easier to make mistakes, and these mistakes may become the reason why people shift right back into their unhealthy eating habits. Such a drastic change in a person’s lifestyle may be too much for someone to fully adapt to without having any problems. It’s better to start with a diet that you are comfortable with, before switching over to a more challenging and more restrictive diet.
The diet principles are misunderstood
The most popular diets are the easiest ones to adopt. The general impression of a diet is forcing people to eat food that they are not comfortable with, and having a less-restrictive diet that still allows you to eat some of the food you like could be the diet that would work for you.
Unfortunately, not everyone fully understands that anything consumed in excess can still make you gain weight. It doesn’t mean that when a certain diet allows you to eat a certain type of food, that you can consume as much of this food as you want. A great example is the Keto diet, which is focused on cutting carbs from your diet, in exchange for consuming more fat in your diet. The idea that you can eat fatty food in the Keto diet makes an impression that you can eat as much fatty food as you want, as long as you don’t eat carbs, but that entire mindset is what makes people gain more weight on the Keto diet, instead of losing fat.
A drastic crash causes problems
A diet is a drastic change in your lifestyle. You’re essentially forcing yourself to unlearn your unhealthy eating habits, and this doesn’t just affect your motivation to work on your diet, but it also affects how your body functions.
Your body can get used to your unhealthy lifestyle, and while it doesn’t mean that you should stick with an unhealthy lifestyle since your body is used to it, you shouldn’t drastically change your diet overnight as well. Completely changing your diet can tip the delicate nutritional balance that your body has, and this might force you to switch back to your unhealthy eating habits, which your body is familiar with.
Cheat days
Do you reward yourself with a cheat day for strictly following your diet? Cheat days only make things worse for people who are on a diet. We’ve already mentioned that a diet is a change in your lifestyle, and cheat days only remind you of what you loved to eat before you were on a diet. As a result, you are constantly reminded that your unhealthy eating habits are much more enjoyable for you, and this creates problems on its own.
It also doesn’t help that people tend to overeat during cheat days, and this can negate all of the progress you’ve made. A day of unrestricted eating could make you consume more calories than what you’ve given up, making you gain weight instead of losing fat.
Pre-packaged meals
Many of today’s new diet fads offer pre-packaged meals to make it easier for you to follow a diet. Basically, you get all of your meals from the same source, so you wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of looking for the right ingredients, preparing your food, and sticking with your diet.
Unfortunately, many of the pre-packaged meals contain additives that could make your weight gain worse. If you’re following a diet, make sure that you prep your meals so you know exactly what’s going inside your body. The less bad stuff you consume, the faster you are likely to lose weight.
Weight loss is always challenging, but that doesn’t mean that you have to give up before you’ve even started. All you need is the right guidance to steer you clear from the pitfalls of weight loss. If you’re struggling to lose weight with a certain diet plan, try something else. Not all diets work the same way, and you may experience better results with another diet plan.
