We have always believed that dieting can aid in shedding pounds, but it's not really true. Dieting can actually make you put on more weight. Here are some reasons why you tend to gain weight despite dieting hard:
Dieting makes you hog!
While we diet through the day expecting our weight to deplete, we end up eating lesser and starving more. This triggers hunger and our hunger hormones make us binge eat, i.e., we end up eating a lot. Hence, dieting makes us eat much more than we usually do and end up gaining more weight.
Irregular eating leads to weight gain
Dieting affects our metabolism rate. According to a study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a group of women were asked to eat the usual amount of food they have at regular timings, or to eat erratically at unscheduled timings. The researchers observed that women eating at regular intervals burnt more calories than they did while eating unscheduled meals. The amount of insulin secreted by women when they had unplanned meal was comparatively less, which leads to weight gain.
Eating healthy foods in big proportions
Eating healthy foods is good for us, but we often forget that even healthy food have calories in them. Be it any nutritious food like fish, yogurt or baked chicken they all have calories in abundance and we should consume them in limited proportions when dieting and keep a track of the calorie intake.
Not dieting strictly
Most dieters have the habit of switching back to the old eating habits after achieving the short-term goals they made for losing weight loss. According to the estimation of the National Weight Control Registry, only 20 per cent of dieters lose weight successfully and they get back to eating the way they used to. It's also found that the dieters who strictly maintain their diet in the long run are likely to achieve and maintain their BMI 1.5 times more.
Consuming low-fat foods excessively
We often opt for low-fat food products while dieting and often end up eating them excessively, this makes us put on more weight. A research was conducted by the researchers of Cornell University in which they served candies labelled as "low-fat" or "regular". It was observed that people ate the candy with the low-fat label 28 per cent more. The researchers explained just because a product has low fats, it doesn't mean it's low on calories too.
