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Can Dieting Make You Fat?

The number of types of diets out there is as large as the number of reasons people go on a diet. Books, programs, consultants, and TV shows all cash in on our obsession with dieting. But can dieting make you fat Yes, it can. Dieting can make you fat, especially when they are done in extremes, due to an assortment of physical and psychological reasons.

Rebound binging

People almost always want what they cannot have. When a person goes on a diet that restricts the amount or types of food they can eat, people start to crave what they are restricted from. Some might have self control throughout the length of the diet, but as soon as it is over they splurge on all those forbidden foods that they have denied themselves. This rebound binging can lead to regaining and surpassing the weight lost, most of which is muscle and water weight with fad diets.

Stressing about every calorie

Everyone knows stress is not good for your health, but not many know that it also can make you fat. When a person is on a diet, they tend to stress about what they are eating, how much, and if they made any mistakes with their diet recently. All this worrying and stress increases the production of the hormone cortisol, which has been linked in several studies to an increased percentage of belly fat.

Confusing your metabolism

When a person starts a diet, often times their metabolism goes into what some like to describe as shock due to the dramatic change in food intake. Many diets claim that this process resets your metabolism and help you lose weight. Wrong! When your metabolism goes into shock it isn’t resetting, it is getting ready to scrounge ever morsel of food it is given, because it believes you are experiencing a famine. Metabolisms scrounge away food by turning them into fat. Even after you come off the diet, it will take a long while before your metabolism stops preparing for the next potential famine.

The only proven way to tone up and slim down permanently is through exercise and a change in eating habits. To prevent your body going into shock, it helps to have small healthy meals regularly throughout the day that total to less sugar, fat and calories than you were eating. This allows you to eat what you want, without stressing about following specific rules, and without making your metabolism think you’re in the middle of a famine. Anything in extremes is bad for you and that is why many diets can make you fat.

This article has been written by expert author ‘Emily Cordz’.