When people discover that they've gained some weight, the first reaction of most is to eat less food. Sounds reasonable. Food is what got us into trouble, so it follows that eating less of it will make everything right again. Nearly every diet or eating plan in the magazines or on the Internet says pretty much the same thing: eat less food. Therefore the answer to this problem is very simple and handy. Sure, going with less food than usual is a challenge, but it also carries with it a sort of expiation feeling.
But simply lowering food intake doesn't work. Over the thousands of years of evolution the human body had to face starvation many times and had to find ways of surviving. We are the offsprings of those who managed to survive periods of starvation by coping with the lack of food. Metabolism adjusts. A simple decrease in the amount of food is not going to make a big difference because the body will simply compensate for and require less energy to operate.
So eat smart, not less. Overweight people and thin people eat roughly the same number of calories per day because they share the same required amount of food. However, overweight people eat far more fat than thin people, who seem to prefer complex carbohydrates that are easily broken down and metabolized by the body. This is the biggest difference between the two groups and the best point to start when considering what and how to change in your eating patterns.
If you find that you do need to cut back on calories, of course do so. But remember this tip: splurge on the weekends. This will help keep your metabolism from getting into a funk rythem. And by splurge, I mean SPLURGE. Ice cream, pizza, fat fat and more fat. Anything you want.
Good dieting always takes time. The excess weight was not accumulated over night and will never go away in a single day. This is something that many naive dieters believe when they start, and it only leads to discouragement and quitting. And this is also why the diet pill industry is so huge. People want the quick fiz after they fail: a pill that can make fat disappear in an instant. While many diet pills can help you lose weight, and save you time, they will still not do it for your instantly. They always work best when combined with, you guessed it, diet and exercise.
