Most diets fail and weight loss stops due to eating too little.
Eating too little is what GAINS weight for the body!
Overweight is simply a symptom of a slightly unbalanced nutrition intake during several years or decades.
Eating too little of the important foods that your body needs to maintain its functions and regenerate its vital organs, muscles, bones and cells – creates lots of cravings.
We then satisfy these cravings – and the dwindling spiral of nutrition leading us to overweight is ready.
Eating what you crave “curse” the craving for a while but, unfortunately, it also creates NEW cravings as a consequence… which we then satisfy… which create yet new cravings… and so on.
While there are several essential nutrients that your body needs to maintain and constantly rebuild its organisms, the most vital of all is PROTEIN.
Eating Too Little Protein
Proteins are the building blocks of all living organisms. They are formed out of chains of amino acids – organic chemicals built mostly from nitrogen – which occur naturally in all plant and animal tissue.
In English, amino acids are the smallest chemical parts of organic tissue that all of our body is basically built of.
There are 22 different amino acids out of which 10 are called essential amino acids because these need to be present for the protein to be “complete.”
Thus, unless all essential amino acids are present in the protein that we get, the body cannot recreate cells properly with the nutrition it gets.
Those proteins that contain the essential amino acids – the ones called “complete proteins” – are mostly animal proteins such as fish, poultry and meat.
Out of plant proteins only the soy bean is whole, but soy isn’t very healthy.
Those proteins that do not contain all of the essential amino acids are called incomplete proteins.
Theoretically, you could mix just the right incomplete proteins – eat them at the same time – to actually get all of the essential amino acids… but it’s quite complicated and, in dieting, complications are the last thing you want.
Why Do We Need Complete Proteins And What Do They Do?
If you look at your hand today, the hand you see is not the same hand it was when you were a child – and the eyes you look at it with aren’t the same eyes you used as a kid.
Since then, every cell in your hand and eyes has been replaced by another (almost) identical one.
As you know, each of our cells has a relatively short live span, after which it is replaced by another one that our body creates constantly.
This growth is easiest to see in hair and nails – these grow every day and that growth is, of course, made by creating new cells that “push the old ones out.”
You cut your hair and clip your nails and “remove the older cells” that way.
Protein Is A Building Material
Within our bodies, the vital organs renew constantly and, once a new cell has been created, the replaced one dies and is deposed of through the various ways a body discards its waste products.
Basically, then, it’s the same process as with hair and nails if only less visible and with a different way of getting rid of old cells.
This rebuilding of organs within our body goes on all the time according to a very precise blueprint that’s programmed into our bodies.
As it is a very complicated process and it occurs automatically and naturally without any attention from us… provided we ensure the body gets the RIGHT BUILDING MATERIALS it needs to do the task.
And that’s exactly where the problem is:
As a rule, we give the body too little of what it needs and too much of what it doesn’t.
An average body needs quite a bit of protein daily just to maintain this rebuilding so your vital organs, muscles and other body parts can be “serviced” on constant basis.
The health authorities’ recommended values of daily protein intake are much lower than what we need.
There aren’t any precise measures on this but a good yardstick would be to ensure you get at least 70 grams of pure protein every day. It won’t hurt to get even 100 grams daily.
WHY Daily Protein Intake Recommendations Are So Low?
Well, your guess is as good as anyone’s.
It could be that it’s because those authorities are MEDICAL experts – and, unlike commonly realized, nutrition is really a subject of BIOLOGY and not medicine.
Or it could simply be that complete protein is expensive and people (=voters) would feel unhappy if they KNEW they cannot afford to eat what they need to sustain their bodies in good health.
Or it could be just the influence of the food industry. Their goal is to create products with a very long shelf-life – foodstuffs that stay “fresh” for weeks in room temperature – and profitable ready meals…
They’re not out to unselfishly improve our health unless there’s a demand for it.
Whatever the reason, the fact remains our bodies get far too little complete proteins.
We also get far too few vitamins and minerals with our nutrition. Too few and too little of them to assist our bodies in maintaining other functions and keep up the general maintenance.
We’re Eating Too Little Of What We Need
And, in its place, far too much of the foods that our bodies either don’t need at all or need very little of.
The reason why we ARE overweight is, in fact, mostly due to this constant deficiency of proteins and correct nutrients in our diet.
It’s a little known fact that very skinny people suffer from the very same deficiency.
The only thing that differs is that they eat even LESS of essential nutrients than those of us who grow overweight. So, more often than not, they’re even worse off than we!
Now, can you see how CUTTING DOWN your food intake is going to seem like the end of the world to your body?
It’s been suffering from deficiencies for years and now, just about ALL food stops coming in!
Is Eating Too Little Calories Bad?
Sure, you can lose weight by starvation diets. Actually, these should not be called “diets” at all as they’re more like “non-diets” with practically NO food for the body.
But what you lose is muscle tissue in the main.
At end of the diet, the body will be even more starved for correct nutrients. And it is now that the body will get back what it lost.
All the while being starved for nutrients during a low-calorie diet, the body “stores” a huge number of urges and cravings.
These slowly pile up into coiled up whip-lash, ready to go off the minute you QUIT using that strict self-discipline to get through those months of painful dieting.
And, once you’ve reached the ideal weight, once you give yourself the OK to stop watching every mouthful… the body will take over and regain its weight in a few short weeks or months.
It does so in the attempt to get MORE of the needed nutrients – essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals – so that it could rebuild itself. It needs to create those millions of cells that were put on hold while you starved the body.
The “blueprint” of the body is way behind the set schedule. It takes proteins from its own muscles – they’re expendable to a degree – to maintain the most vital tasks.
In taking proteins and nutrients from itself, the body extracts protein from parts it considers “less vital” for survival.
Of course, none of these substances are REALLY expendable anywhere within the body, but they are taken from where the immediate continuance of life is not directly threatened.
We actually suffer from malnutrition although the word usually creates an image of a starving person.
Too Many Empty Calories
In our modern, Western-world malnutrition, we do get LOTS of calories into out bodies but the ESSENTIAL building blocks of the body are not present in that food in sufficient quantities.
It’s only different in that where a starving person grows very thin, we grow overweight – but the lack of correct and essential nutrients is more or less identical, if less severe in our case, of course.
In taking nutrients from other parts of the body – and ceasing activities of “nonessential” parts of the body – we first lose our muscles.
What we have grown to accept as “losing muscles due to aging” is, to a large degree, actually caused by decades of too-low protein intake on daily basis.
The body needs its protein and it will take it from the muscles if no other source is provided.
Once we become weaker in muscles, we move less. We feel tired and move even less. Next, the body will diminish the activities of the reproductive organs.
Eating Disorders
It’s a well-known fact that women suffering from anorexia nervosa commonly lose their menstruation cycle and, thus, also their ability to have children. Once the nutritional deficiencies have been sufficiently corrected, the reproductive cycle begins again.
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder in which the person starves him/herself because of a strong certainty of being “very fat” although underweight.
And so it continues, one function shutting down partially (or totally) to concentrate the insufficient nutrients to the organs totally vital for sustaining life.
Vital organs like heart, liver and so on get what’s left… and even that’s not enough, of course.
The best weight loss program: if your diet is insufficient, it will be found to be so in MANY nutrients vital to the body.
A sufficient intake of complete protein is just ONE of those. There are about 90 minerals and vitamins that present-day food does not provide in adequate quantities.
The arable land is depleted of minerals due to decades of high-efficiency farming. Crops take out about 60 minerals out of the soil and we put an average of FOUR minerals BACK into the soil by fertilization.
And whether it’s plant or animal food that you eat, they both lack sufficient minerals and vitamins, as the food chain ultimately starts from plants. All living creatures eat either plants or animals that, in turn, eat plants!
Additionally, there are the needed balances of various nutrients. One without the other can cause problems and not get absorbed into the body – or create deposits – and things like that.
Before you despair, let’s say that, ultimately, it’s not all that difficult to create a satisfactory balance within your body.
Eat More, Not Less
Eating LESS food isn’t actually the best way of losing weight. “Too little” is what got us overweight and feeling lousy!
Eating more but selectively is the way to more permanent weight loss and well-being. The best weight loss program.
All dieting gimmicks aside, the way to permanent weight loss is through making the diet feel much BETTER for your body than gorging anything and everything ever was.
You’ll be surprised to know how MUCH you need to eat to lose weight.
You’ll also be amazed at how GOOD it tastes.
In fact, you’ll be surprised how more enjoyable taste and smell become once you’re on a correct diet for a while – you’ll see how these senses, too, had been partially turned off!
Contrary to common belief, you can also SAVE on food bills while using by far better ingredients that allow you to feel better while losing weight.
And here’s a bit of good news:
Remember those times when you felt so bad after subsiding to temptation and practically RAIDING the fridge in the middle of the night?
Want to know why it happened?
It happened because, during the day, you ate FAR TOO LITTLE.
Had you eaten enough – and the right foodstuffs correctly prepared – you would not have created a situation where the temptations become just too overwhelming for the strongest of wills.
Ever had those foods TALK to you from the fridge even in your sleep? Had your attention so thoroughly stuck on some food that it practically CALLS OUT for you from the kitchen?
If yes, again the reason is in having had too little food and / or wrong type of foods!
Body Must Get What It Needs
Believe it or not, about 95% of all cravings will GO AWAY once you balance your diet so that the body GETS what it needs from what you digest.
The well-being that this brings on after just a few DAYS will greatly surpass the level of pleasure eating to satisfy an endless stream of cravings ever could!
It’s not propaganda, although we all know the way people who’ve succeeded to lose weight tend to see only the positive of what they went through.
It is actually true.
Unfortunately, very few of those dieting ever get to experience it!
Dieting is a billion-dollar industry and he, who has the money to spend, can hire the best marketing gurus and spend millions on advertising.
Only… it won’t guarantee that the diet will make you feel BETTER or even lose weight over the automatic 5-10 lbs./2.5-5 kilos that ANY diet will during the first week or so.
And it certainly won’t ensure that the lost excess weight wouldn’t return.
Know What Your Body Needs
For, without the knowledge of what YOUR body needs, the weight will always return!
Knowing what your body needs to lose weight AND feel well while dieting.
Knowledge on nutrition and dieting is power over your own destiny.
Once you know what your body needs, how much of each foodstuff and nutrient you need to have a much higher level of energy and well-being WHILE dieting, you will reach your set ideal weight.
You HAVE the required willpower if and when the diet is correct for your body.
If it isn’t correct, weight loss is an excruciatingly painful nightmare that can only offer short-term results, after which the yo-yo effect will inevitably take your weight back to where it was… and beyond.
And the first piece in that knowledge is that the most common reason for failing to lose weight is eating TOO LITTLE!
