Quality over Quantity: Why Low-Calorie Diets Don’t Work

Not sustainable in the long-run

When you eat too few calories over a period of time your body thinks it’s starving and your metabolism adjusts to burning less calories. Then, when you increase your calories, your metabolism is running much slower, and doesn’t burn as efficiently, causing even more weight gain. This pattern results in the typical yo-yo dieting you see in many people.

Involve Eating a lot of Overly Processed, Artificial Foods

Many low-calories diets advertise low-calorie frozen meals, snacks, and desserts. In order to lower the calories in these types of “diet foods” while maintaining the flavor, they must add a ton of artificial sweeteners which are toxic to the body. These artificial ingredients leave you feeling hungrier and craving more sugar. In addition, these foods have been processed to the point where they are not even real food anymore and are devoid of so many essential nutrients found in the whole foods.

Leaves you Feeling Tired and Lacking Energy

A low-calorie diet depletes your energy preserves, which can leave you feeling tired, weak and irritated. In addition, your body starts to cannibalize its own muscle tissue to preserve the last amount of stored fat tissue. As a result, you are unable to participate in physical exercise. You may lose weight initially, but you will lose all muscle tone and strength you ever had and still maintain a relatively high body fat percentage overall.

Instead, Focus on QUALITY over QUANTITY

The best diets should advocate the QUALITY of foods you eat versus the QUANTITY of food. If you focus on eating clean, whole, plant-based foods you can not only EAT WITH ABUNDANCE, but you will lose weight and become healthier on the inside and out. When I became a plant-based vegan, I realized I was eating about 1000 more calories than I had before and I still lost weight! I was never hungry and I wasn’t craving bad foods because I was getting plenty of calories, fiber, and nutrients from the foods I was eating. In addition, I had more energy and was able to exercise more, I became stronger, I got better sleep, had better digestion, and was just happier overall.

In order to reach your weight-loss and health goals, I believe you need to focus LESS ON CALORIES and more on the QUALITY of food you are consuming. Low calorie foods are NOT health foods! Whole, unprocessed, plant based foods are the healthiest foods in the world and are what humans are made to eat. So…STOP COUNTING CALORIES and START EATING HEALTHIER! I promise you, you will see and feel the benefits and you will be able to sustain this healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life.