You already know that most calorie restricted diets aren’t healthy and you’ll likely gain back all the weight you lost and then some. Perhaps you have first hand experience with this, I know I do. It is true that calorie restriction can cause weight gain over time, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t lose weight in a healthy manner and avoid the whole diet yo-yo syndrome.

I’ve had many clients who have had insatiable appetites persist for years after losing weight on a crash diet. They were doing fine until they reached a point where a switch went off and their appetite which was previously normal or slightly depressed became voracious. It’s sad, as they struggled with excessive appetite and weight gain for years without much improvement and visited many practitioners and doctors without much help. The switch went off and they hadn’t been able to turn flip it back to before the crash diet. This is due to muscle memory, which I will explain below.

So, how can you avoid this or reverse the trend if it’s already happened to you?  Let’s look at that.

If you drastically reduce calories in hopes that your body will burn more fat, you may lose some weight initially but then you’ll regain it, and then some. I don’t know too many people who haven’t experienced this. This is nature hard at work trying to protect you, it’s not the fault of your body, it’s doing it’s job really well, keeping you alive. The good news is, you can lose weight in a healthy way and side step this whole mess. It is a mess, right?

So first, let’s understand the physiology of why diets make you fat. There’s this thing called muscle memory. It’s like a set point that your body has regarding your total muscle mass. If you go on a crash diet to lose weight, and reduce your calories too severely, in addition to burning fat, you will lose muscle mass and water–your body has no other choice than to use it for energy. Your body starts to break down your muscle mass to turn it into free amino acids (protein building blocks), which can then be converted into blood glucose to keep your brain functioning. You see, your brain runs on blood glucose, it can’t run on fatty acids (fats) or amino acids (proteins), it must have glucose (blood sugar). If you brain doesn’t have blood sugar, you won’t be upright for long.

So, when you lose this muscle mass through calorie restriction, your body gets the message “we are in danger of starving and we need to get more food.”  We start craving large amounts of fat and sugary, starchy foods. We may crave protein foods as well, but there’s a biological drive towards fat and sugar. The problem is, we don’t build much muscle mass from fat and sugar.  We also need amino acids from protein rich foods like beans, nuts, meats, etc. So our bodies, fearing for our survival, trying to restore our muscle mass, gains weight. The problem is, our metabolism has also slowed down in order to prevent us from burning up our precious reserves. So, you have a slower metabolism, reduced muscle mass triggering our appetite, and it’s sort of a perfect storm for weight gain. This weight gain is harder to reverse with every calorie restricted diet we do as our metabolism slows more and more and we then have less muscle mass for burning up excess calories (energy).

But, the good news is that knowing how your body works can set you free. If you give up calorie restricted diets and find an eating plan that works for you, you can at least stop this upward scale trend. Everyone is different, so find what works for your body and your unique body chemistry. Even if you don’t lose the weight, at least you won’t gain more, right?

But, if you choose, you also can repair your metabolism, lose the excess fat and return to your normal healthy weight. You are not broken, you just need a little adjustment if you’ve been dieting, to help your body recover. Your body can heal, and you can do it in a healthy, sustainable way that is not based on deprivation or calorie restriction.

The metabolic balance® program is a great program to reverse this trend. I’m sure there are other systems out there, this is just the best one I’ve found in over 20+ years of active searching. It works partly because it’s an individualized plan that targets the needs of your unique metabolism. Through your blood lab values, and body measurements, your exact requirements for nutrients including fats, proteins and carbohydrates are determined so you know exactly what to eat in order to support your healthy metabolism and to preserve your precious muscle mass. You never have to worry about losing muscle mass or yo-yo dieting ever again on this program. There’s a lot more to the system, that’s just a snippet. And, if you have lost muscle mass, the program can help you regain it and preserve what muscle mass you have, thus ending your excessive appetite or yo yo dieting for good.

A patient was in my office recently, who safely lost 20 pounds in 6 weeks, told me that she came to see me for weight loss, but, in fact, she got her life back! She told her mother, who has witnessed her struggle with food for decades, that this was the last time she would be losing this weight—that it was going to stay off. Her Mom said, “I know.” We all knew that this was it, she‘d found her balance, actually herself again. As she told me this, we both had tears in our eyes.  This is why I absolutely love this work.

So, My Questions for You Are:

• Would you be willing to declare that you’ll never starve yourself again, ever?
• What would it be like to never have to worry about weight gain ever again?

It’s risky to start something new when you feel like you’re repeatedly failed, this I know personally all too well. Whatever you decide for yourself, please know that I wish you all the health and happiness in your life. If we never work together, that’s okay, everyone has their path. Please, just don’t diet again, your health and happiness are much too important for that!

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Yours in health,