Diets...

[Taz]

...don't usually work! Here's why.

Your body has a BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). This is the rate at which your body consumes energy (i.e. calories) if you were to rest all day. This is usually around 1000-2000 calories. Most people burn more calories than this as they are not sitting in bed all day.

Most diets will drastically cut the number of calories consumed. The human body is designed to detect long-term hunger and take steps to conserve energy (i.e. calories). Energy supply to non-essential parts of the body (eg. muscles) is reduced. Conservation of energy through fat build-up is triggered. Essentially your body goes into 'starvation' mode.

When you come off the diet your body starts to build up the fat even more than before as it tries to conserve energy in case it needs to enter 'starvation' mode again. It's a vicious circle.

A regular exercise programme with a healthy, hearty diet is the only healthy way to lose weight. Eating a lot of good, healthy food means your body does not go into starvation mode as it knows there is an abundance of energy available so it just gets rid of the excess. The exercise programme will keep the existing fat down.

[Totem]

I saw a program last night about a 28 stone teenager, he went in for that stomach opperation, he was only 17!! All that kid had to do was steady diet and exercise and he could have lost the weight. After his opperation he was like i have to diet and keep exercising, I was like ??? why didn't he just do that in the first place. With that opperation he is still going to be always hungry as if he was on a diet, pointless. The only good thing i guess is that if he did overeat after the opperation he would put much weight on as a lot of his intestine has been bypassed.

[Million]

this makes me really angry. I just can't for the life of me understand how this kid didn't get to maybe 15 stone and think "man, i'm getting really fat, I should probably stop eating so damn much". It's just common sense! I know that there's a lack of education out there about healthy eating (I live in Cardiff for god's sake) and that some suggest that poorer people can't afford it, but if that's the case I presume they got this operation on the NHS, which makes me even angrier! Our taxes shouldn't be being spent on someone who can't even help himself (apart from to cake, obviously)