The whole subject of weight loss is fraught with confusion. Advice given by one expert is very often contradicted by another. The problem is, most of the experts are affiliated to organisations with specific agendas. It is a bit like going to a financial advisor who receives a fee for recommending a certain products. At the end of the day these people have to make a living so how can you really trust their advice as the best? The weight loss industry is no different, every sector has its experts providing advice heavily biased to the sector they represent.
Regardless of the advice given there does exist a set of fundamental rules to achieve safe but natural weight loss. These rules do not favour any particular diet nor do they promise the world. If you have jumped from one diet to the next hoping for a miracle you will know what I mean. Conventional diets, for most of us, are in the main doomed to failure. We are asked to break a lifetime of habits, switch to some new regime and avoid the foods that we actually like! I ask you, are we not setting ourselves up for failure? Don't get me wrong these diets do and can work for some people. After all they're all based on the fundamental principle that providing there is a calorific deficit after you apply the equation calories in minus calories out, you will lose weight.
Natural weight loss is all about losing weight safely and in accordance with how we have evolved. You just cannot ignore the last 100,000 years and only consider the last 100. It just doesn't make sense! Of course, we need to consider how we live today. Technology might have advanced at a remarkable speed but nature certainly hasn't! You see, we are continually fighting effects with effects. Rather than finding the root cause of a problem we create something new to solve the problem. Our approach to to fighting fat is to invent a low fat product. One can only guess at the problems we are setting up for ourselves. But that's ok, we'll just invent a new medicine :)
One thing is certain in this world though, what may be good for one person is not necessarily good for another. It is no good trying to sell the benefits of meat to a vegetarian. The last thing a marathon runner wants is to bulk up and a body builder will not thank you for asking them to cut protein from their diet! All of these people have different needs so any one diet won't suit all.
It is clear, there are many different roads one can take on the journey to good health and that each of us can only make decisions that are right for us. However, what is also clear is that somewhere we have lost our way. We have tried to fight the effects of modern day obesity with modern day answers and all we seem to be doing is to make the problem worse.
Isn't it about time we looked at things in a different way? We shouldn't be on a 'diet', we should change our habits for life! If we start out on the assumption that this is just a temporary thing then we are doomed to failure, simply because we start to do the things we were denied all the more. How often do you see people lose weight quickly and then put it all back on in a relatively short time? I guess quite a lot. Just imagine the long term effect this has on our health.
The correct way to live a healthy life is not to diet at all. Don't deny yourself anything but begin the process of changing to a more natural way of living by introducing new healthy habits. You will find that over time the crave/binge cycle will diminish and you will start to lose weight naturally.
Stuart is the author of Blog Key To Success and is a long term student of practical philosophy. Visit the Natural Weight Loss Blog for more information.