Diet... When you hear this word you almost automatically think about very restrictive in calories and types of food regime of eating after following which for a couple of weeks you should lose unwanted pounds quick and forever. If you think of a diet in this way it will never work for you. I believe the meaning of word ‘diet’ was badly abused by media and I call it a magazine diet. I bet you’ve heard about them a lot: ‘cabbage soup diet’, ‘Hollywood diet’, ‘a movie star diet’, ‘baby food diet’, ‘fruit only diet’, etc. There are so many of them that magazines do still publish but none of them will ever help you to keep your weight off for a long time. As I did dancing from early ages I started to diet from when I was 11 and tried plenty of these diets to know that it never works and I used to put even more weight after going off another one miracle diet. I had to read many books to be able to understand the right types of nutrition for weight loss. I don’t starve myself anymore!
I found out that it is proven scientifically, by lots of live experiments and on my own experience that rapidly decreasing the amount of calories eaten is very bad for your body. Our bodies are much smarter than we think. And when it realises that there’s not enough food coming it presses a ‘panic’ button, switches to a starvation mode and starts automatically store as much fat as possible. Afterwards your metabolism slows down and hence you start burning fewer calories; your body uses muscle as energy and yes, you might lose weight but most of the pounds lost are water and muscle tissue which a body gets rid of first as it is too calorie expensive to maintain them. You turn in so called ‘fat skinny’ person who looks thin but body fat percent is higher than average. That might be why people who are on restrictive diets looking skinny are never satisfied with their bodies and insist on being fat. Funnily enough it is true.
It doesn’t mean all diets are bad for you. Remember, you need to restrict your calorie intake in order to lose weight but it should be done in moderation and I call it a healthy diet. What does a healthy diet mean? Eating healthy foods of course! There’re so many choices here: fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, whole grains, nuts are just a few.
I also discovered that diet alone is not effective enough and it should be combined with a good exercise programme which helps to build muscles and loose even more fat. Muscles are good for you as body needs more calories to maintain them and hence having more muscles you burn more calories a day. Cool!
So the magic diet formula for weight loss = healthy diet + exercise! Easy!
I found out that it is proven scientifically, by lots of live experiments and on my own experience that rapidly decreasing the amount of calories eaten is very bad for your body. Our bodies are much smarter than we think. And when it realises that there’s not enough food coming it presses a ‘panic’ button, switches to a starvation mode and starts automatically store as much fat as possible. Afterwards your metabolism slows down and hence you start burning fewer calories; your body uses muscle as energy and yes, you might lose weight but most of the pounds lost are water and muscle tissue which a body gets rid of first as it is too calorie expensive to maintain them. You turn in so called ‘fat skinny’ person who looks thin but body fat percent is higher than average. That might be why people who are on restrictive diets looking skinny are never satisfied with their bodies and insist on being fat. Funnily enough it is true.
It doesn’t mean all diets are bad for you. Remember, you need to restrict your calorie intake in order to lose weight but it should be done in moderation and I call it a healthy diet. What does a healthy diet mean? Eating healthy foods of course! There’re so many choices here: fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, whole grains, nuts are just a few.
I also discovered that diet alone is not effective enough and it should be combined with a good exercise programme which helps to build muscles and loose even more fat. Muscles are good for you as body needs more calories to maintain them and hence having more muscles you burn more calories a day. Cool!
So the magic diet formula for weight loss = healthy diet + exercise! Easy!
My muscles really hurt on Tuesday after I started a first week of a new routine of exercises on Monday. Hardly able to walk I still went to the gym in the morning and did interval cardio workout and some stretching. In my experience it is better to do some exercise than to have a day off (unless I can't walk at all) and this is how I was taught since young age by all trainers when I did sports seriously (I did figure skating and dancing, both close to a professional level). I got used to the soreness and fine to continue exercising when my muscles are in pain but it could be a common obstacle for people who are just starting to train and could make them stop training or slow down their progress. 
