European Union Forums

[Giuliana]

Nowadays you may find almost in each magazine or newspaper various methods of growing thin. The same thing you can find on every women site. But why there is such a strong tendency for this? Why people, especially women tend to be as thin as it is possible and for this they are ready to sooooo many horrible diets and methods?????!!! Ok, I understand that every women wants a thin body with fine forms of their figure but, I guess our health should be more important that any other thing in our life!!! Moreover, there are many other methods of losing weight, and keeping your health...for example sport! It helps loosing wight and besides, it is very useful for ones health!
But you, how would you prefer to do in such case??? What do you thinc about all these diets??

[Laurentine]

From one point of view, diets are really helpful and many women needs it to loose weight. But from another point of view it is really bad because its influence their life through its health. First of all it influence the stomach and intestinal tract.

[Big_Becka]

My experience is that you cannot manage your weight through exercise alone: in fact, the more you exercise, the more hungry you become! Exercise is an important and beneficial part of any weight loss plan, but it is just one part.

However, many of the diets you see are very dangerous. They are often very low calorie, and/or they do not provide the nutrition you need. You become tired and moody, and eventually your body goes into "starvation mode" - then you binge on all kinds of food, and become fatter than you were before!

Some diets will make you very ill, for example, some "low fat" foods contain so much sugar that you risk developing diabetes. Other diets (like Atkins) encourage you to continue eating unhealthy foods like burgers.

There are some healthier diets like Macrobiotics, Food Combining and Food Optimising. They encourage you to eat a variety of natural foods including plenty of vegetables and grains. I can recommend these, because they promote a permanent step towards healthy living

[Martin]

The most effective diet is never a diet, but a lifestyle change. If you change what you eat, by reducing the number of calories you consume (for example), you may lose weight. However, when you go back to your previous eating habits, all that lost weight will come right back again.

[Big_Becka]

Martin, it is so much more complicated than that! Yes, you will lose weight if you reduce the number of calories you consume. But if you do not get the correct nutrition, you will become very ill and your body will resist you!

In addition, if you eat too few calories, you will not actually lose any weight at first because you have shocked your body. You will just feel miserable and have no energy.

The most successful approach is to calculate how many calories you need in a day (it depends on gender, age and fitness) and aim to consume around 500kcal less than this. Some people achieve this by eating very small portions. Most people seem to have more success by eating large amounts of very healthy, unprocessed, low fat and low sugar foods (like fresh vegetables). It is VITAL to exercise to prevent your metabolism from slowing, but don't become obsessed with exercise.

[shontelle]

well we can't blame those women who wants to be thin or cautious about there body..
but for me, doing diets are good as long as you are still healthy..
it is good to loose weight but we should be aware that our body should still be healthy.
one reason why people want to loose weight i think because to gain more confidence, and believing in their selves..
but for me it really doesn't matter. what important is i am still healthy whether i am fat or i am thin..