The physical effects of dieting:
When we diet you exchange automatic internal regulators of appetite for conscious mental ones. You teach yourself to stop responding to hunger cues, both the lets eat and the lets stop messages. So when people break their diets either temporarily or for good they run the risk of rebound binge eating. Also, as we diet our body shuts down, adjusts to surviving on less energy and our metabolic rate, the rate at which we use up energy - goes down. The more weight we lose the less food we need, and at a lower weight we may have to continue eating at least a bit less than we did when we were heavier. Also significant weight loss leads to lethargy which slows down the metabolic rate still further. So at the end of a diet we cannot necessarily go aback to eating as much as we did before. We can unwittingly make the situation even worse by losing weight too fast. If we lose at a rat of a pound or two a week we are likely to lose mostly fat, but if we lose weight faster we are likely to lose lean tissue or muscle as well as fat. This is important because our metabolic rate is determined by the amount of lean tissue we have; the less we have the lower our metabolic rate goes and the less we need to eat. So the optimum way to lose weight is slowly.
The Emotional Effects of Dieting:
The psychological as well as physiological effects of drastically reducing food intake have been well documented by Ancel Keys in a series of much quoted experiments conducted on young healthy male conscientious objectors without a history of weight problems . They participated in these experiments as an alternative to military duties during the Korean war. The men ate normally during the first three months of the experiment while their eating patterns and personalities were studied. They were then put on strict diets where their normal food intake was halved for a period of three months. Afterward they went through a three month rehabilitation period where they were reintroduced to eating normal amounts of food.
What happened suggests that the effects of dieting are far reaching. Food became the main topic of conversation reading and daydreams for almost all of the men. Men who previously had no particular interest in food and cooking became fascinated by cookery and menus. About half way through the semi starvation period 13 of the men expressed an interest in taking up cooking as a career after the experiment was over. Many of the men found it impossible to stick to the diet - they ate secretly on impulse and felt guilty afterwards. Psychologically they became more anxious and prone to feeling depressed , they had difficulty concentrating and they began to withdraw from other people and became less sociable. Two of the men had emotional breakdowns and one cut off the end of his finger apparently hoping that he would be excused from the study.
By denying themselves food, dieters also make it much more important. Dieters are more likely than nondieters to turn to food when they are emotionally anxious or depressed. This phenomenon is created by dieting itself. At a recent study carried out in London, female volunteers were divided into three groups, the first went on a strict diet, the second a rigorous exercise programme and the third neither dieted nor exercised.
After 5 weeks the subjects took part in an experiment which assessed their food intake while watching a stressful film. Bowls of sweets and nuts were left beside them and they were told to eat as they liked. Women in the diet group ate far more than the others.
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