Gimmicky fat-loss diets persuade us to climb aboard the dieting train which ultimately causes havoc on our mental, emotional and physical well-being. 

We have been told over and over again, to restrict food to improve health. 

I’ll say it AGAIN. 

We are taught to restrict nourishment (from food) to improve HEALTH.

Seems pretty backwards if you ask me.  Yet, we ALL have tried this method…maybe more times than we like to admit (I know I have).

Now if someone is eating a standard American diet (SAD) and they restrict fast food, soda, inflammatory oils (I don’t consider those foods anyways) then yes this is a bonus. But, what I am referring to is people heavily restricted calories to improve health.

WE NEED to feed our bodies ENOUGH nutrients to IMPROVE OUR HEALTH not the opposite way around. If your having a hard time losing weight, a simple reason could be…

YOU ARE NOT EATING ENOUGH FOOD (NUTRIENTS!)

I know this may sound insane to you, but let me explain why! When we go on crash diets and continuously restrict calories this effects our entire body and it’s intrinsic function.

What is Metabolism?

Your metabolism amounts to every biochemical process and reaction that occurs within your body. It not strictly how quickly you digest food. 

Your hormonal health plays a CRITICAL ROLE in your body composition, sexual health, and general wellbeing.  If you chronically restrict calories it can cause:

• Thyroid imbalance (master regulator of the body)
• Insulin resistance (not able to regulate blood sugar- inflammatory)
• Elevated cortisol levels (high levels of inflammation)
• Leptin and ghrelin issues (hunger hormones go completely wonky)

When we reduce calories to get swimsuit ready, or fit in our favourite outfit it actually can do more longterm harm on our health.  The frightening thing is, the more times you diet or restrict food, the more it sets you up for future weight gain and throwing your hormones waaaaaaay out of balance (not fun).

The body views caloric reduction as a threat, therefore it goes into an anti-starvation mode and slows EVERY bodily process down. The metabolism gets use to X amount of food coming in and learns to operate at its “new normal.”

The problem is when most people diet, as soon as they reach their “goal weight” they often revert back to their old dietary habits or binge eat (since they have been in a deficit or SO restrictive, that the body is literally SCREAMING FOR Nutrients!

So, the metabolism has learnt to function on a low amount of calories coming in, at a much slower rate!  So the weight packs on relatively quickly, and this is the vicious, vicious, VICIOUS cycle of a yo-yo dieting. The next time you try to cut calories the harder and harder it will be to lose weight. Scary right?

The good news is you are NOT broken. You can be fixed.

But you NEED TIME to rebuild your metabolism.

You can’t diet through it (trust me I have tried).

I  have always had an extreme mindset and I thought the more strict I could be on my diet, the better I would look and feel. I didn’t realize how food and dieting was controlling my entire life for YEARS. There would be days when I had pure hatred towards my body and then there were days where I felt confident. 

My mindset resembled the pattern of yo-yo dieting rollercoaster. Really high, highs and debilitating lows. It wasn’t until I switched over to eating high fat and created MY VERSION of KETO, that I was able to rebalance my hormones and more importantly reset my mind. 

There are SO many different ways to eat high fat that one persons version of high fat could be completely different to the next.

This isn’t a cookie cutter approach, its a healing approach to health.

If you want to get off the hamster wheel of dieting, doing it high fat supports your body opposed to breaking it down. I hope next time you think about aggressively cutting your food, you think twice before taking this approach.

The nutrients and foods choices you make, greatly effect your hormonal health which has a bigger impact on your body composition than simply calories and numbers alone.

Marja xo

Stay Safe!