Why do attempts to lose weight fail despite dieting? Watch out, your body and mind are uniting against you
If you think that losing weight is achieved simply by exercising and burning calories, then you are wrong. Despite expectations that the size of the global diet market will reach $253 billion by 2024, most extreme diets are destined to fail, according to a study conducted by the University of California, which showed that those who follow a diet lose 5 to 10% of their weight in the first six months, and then... More than two-thirds of them regain more weight than they lost within 4 or 5 years.
When a dieter begins to reduce the food and calories he consumes, his body’s reaction is completely opposite, as he resists burning fat, losing weight, and tries to cling to energy sources. The more calories decrease, the more the body resists burning fat, according to what Dr. Yasmine Abdullah Abdel said. Al-Ghafoor in her book “Medical Illuminations,” adding, “Your body and mind are afraid of the idea of starvation, and they unite against you. If you want to lose fat, you must change your lifestyle itself, to eliminate the reasons why your body refuses to lose weight.”
10 reasons not to lose weight
The body's resistance to weight loss occurs for reasons, the most important of which are:
1- Hormones. Australian researchers found that the diet reduces the hormone leptin, which is responsible for feeling full, and increases the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates hunger, making it difficult for the body to control weight.
2- Metabolism: When calories are reduced quickly, metabolism slows down and “the body becomes more susceptible to regression and going in the opposite direction, and the desire to eat increases,” according to Sabrina Joe, director of scientific and health content at the American Council on Exercise.
3- Insulin resistance. When it is high, the body stops converting stored fat into a source of energy, and seizes any excess energy due to laziness, and turns it into fat that it stores in the abdominal area.
4- Excessive exercise, without giving the body a chance to gradually adapt to the effort, which makes its response to stress decrease with time, and requires new exercises every three months, to burn calories.
5- Chaos in eating schedules. Not eating for long periods of time leads to a decrease in blood sugar, resulting in an intense desire to eat, which is overcome by eating light meals at random times. The body is always busy digesting various foods, even if they are healthy, without having the opportunity to burn fat.
6- Lack of water and fluids in the body, and the resulting inhibition of the kidneys’ ability to get rid of toxins, which forces the liver to support them, abandoning its primary task of getting rid of fat, according to Deutsch Valley.
7- Sleep. Studies have shown that good sleep enhances the secretion of growth hormone (somatropin), which reduces fat. It also reduces the stress hormone (cortisol), which stimulates appetite, weight and fat storage.
8- Boring nutrition. Nutrition experts advise the need to diversify food, because the body gets tired of eating the same food every time, so it gets used to it and does not burn fat enough.
9- Increased appetite. The feeling of hunger and the desire to eat are controlled by powerful hormones and chemicals in the brain, which often work differently in those suffering from obesity, changing their eating behavior through the secretion of dopamine and other substances that give a feeling of satisfaction when eating, according to the Healthline website. .
10- Psychological stress stimulates cortisol, which weakens muscles and reduces the body’s loss of fat.