The First Secret of Successful Weight Loss - Avoid Low Calorie Diets

As the book is called Six Secrets of Successful Weight Loss, I thought you may be wondering what the other five secrets are. Hopefully Dr Mansfield wont mind if I give you a little insight into the others. I will start with Secret One, which is Avoid Low Calorie Diets!

The phenomenon Dr Mansfield describes in his book is one I have experienced personally.  He states that low calorie diets cause you to lose weight for the first few weeks, then a process he calls 'stabilisation' occurs, where despite sticking to the diet you loose no more weight, then the weight starts going up again, even if you are still sticking to the diet.  I have dieted with a well known international diet program several times - the last time I did actually get heavier! I also remember that the first time I did it, my starting weight was 10st 5lb - which horrified me at the time. If you convert my current weight I am now 12st 8lbs - and that's 10lb less than I was 3 weeks ago! It was because of this that I responded to the call for bloggers to try this diet. I was desperate!




Dr Mansfield's explanation of what is going on here makes perfect sense. He says that our body has evolved two weight conserving mechanisms that kick in when food is scarce. The first decreases our metabolic rate so that we use less energy, and the second increases the bodies insulation through fat storage. Dr Mansfield does not deny that some people do eat too much, more than they need, but he strongly advices against periods of very low calorie consumption as repeated 'low calorie' diets lead to lower metabolic rate and higher fat storage. There certainly is no calorie restrictions on this diet. You can eat as much as you like of any of the foods that you have found to be safe for your body.

He has some compelling statistics for the UK which show that the average calorie consumption per person in the UK has decreased, however, the % of people that are classified as obese has risen in this same time period.  He writes about all of this and more in great detail in the second chapter of the book.  You could also do an internet search for 'dieting makes you fat' if you want to know more.

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If you are interested in buying the book it is available at Amazon, Waterstones and The Book People. It maybe be worth checking them all as prices do change. Amazon also have a Kindle Version