Ever broken your diet before?
Highly frustrating, isn’t it? Please don’t feel bad; according to research, most people do. In fact, our own research has shown that people who fanatically adhere to their diets for extended periods are actually worse off than those who don’t deprive themselves completely. Being too compliant with your diet only seems to work for a while, until something snaps in your head, triggered by depravation, that causes you to abandon all your good intentions and devour as much food as you can , thereby undoing all your hard work in a flash.
So why can’t we just behave ourselves and adhere to a diet until we are skinny?
The truth is that in order to survive famine, we have all been genetically programmed to eat more than what we need. This tendency is encoded in the hard-drives of our brains and cannot be erased. Wherever you go, delicious food is shoved in our faces. Our social lives revolve around it and it comforts us on days when we feel down in the dumps.
Ever felt an almost animal-like urge to gulp down some delicious food?
Science tells us that this is quite normal. Hunger and its opposite, satiety, are controlled by two small centres next to each other in the brain. When glucose levels in the bloodstream fall below a certain level, the feeding centre switches on and compels us to search for food. Activation of our satiety centre, on the other hand, allows us to focus on our favourite TV programme without contemplating the remains of last night’s dinner.
Dealing with hunger is easy. Low blood sugar, however, brings even the boldest among us to their knees. This is how it works: If a large amount of glucose suddenly enters your system, a large amount of insulin is released to ensure that all glucose molecules are rapidly removed from the bloodstream.
Blood insulin levels, however, do not immediately adjust to lowering blood sugar levels, as the duration of insulin’s action continues for a while longer, even after glucose levels have been normalised. This causes blood sugar levels to drop below normal.
Brain cells contain no energy stores and are totally dependent on a continuous supply of energy from the bloodstream in the form of glucose. When low blood sugar sets in, the first symptoms therefore occur in your head. As your neurons begin to misfire, lack of concentration, tiredness and drowsiness set in. Adrenaline, released in response by the adrenal glands, makes you irritable and short tempered. Your knees go wobbly and your brain turns to mush. In order to survive, a strong primordial urge to eat takes control of your body. Can anybody be blamed for losing control?
What does the latest scientific research say?
“We don’t need another diet trial; we need a change of paradigm.”
– Sacks et al.
This comment comes from a landmark study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, where researchers examined the efficacy of different weight-loss diets. Their observations led them to conclude that behavioural factors, rather than the macronutrient composition of your diet, played the biggest role in the end result. In other words, how much you eat is more important than what you eat.
This leaves us with three options:
• we can try harder doing the same thing, even if it doesn’t work all that well
• we can throw in the towel, give up and let our bodies go to ruin
• we can fight back by using better tactics
This is where strategy versus effort becomes important. Make peace with the fact that there will be times when you will step outside the boundaries of your meal plan. This is quite normal. Accept that you are human and it’s okay to enjoy delicious food. You must, however, compensate for these events by using a damage control loophole to prevent you from undoing all your hard work. Replace the word “cheat” with “damage control loophole”. This seemingly insignificant strategy will change your emotion from one of guilt, to hope – an important step in maintaining the necessary level of motivation to keep you on the road to success.
This certainly does not mean that you can eat as much as you like and expect medication to do the rest! You still have the responsibility of controlling your dietary intake as best you can. On the other hand, wanting to look good and feel healthy does not mean that you must torture or deprive yourself. Unless you are somewhat of a fanatic, no one can sustain a depravation-type diet without the wheels eventually falling off. Even worse, your experience will make you hate the process so much that you’ll give up and lose all interest in weight maintenance – a highly counter-productive strategy!
How does damage control work?
To combat excess weight gain after a weekend or event, when you are unable to stick to your strategy, you can employ two damage control strategies. First you can increase your AntaGolin dosage to 1 tablet three times a day. Secondly, if you’ve consumed your entire energy allocation in one meal, you can skip the next one. In most cases, you don’t actually need that extra meal.
Therefore this is good news, remember all excess carbohydrates are converted and stored as fat. AntaGolin from MNI, contains a unique blend of advanced ingredients to optimise glucose and fat metabolism, it targets the digestion of the carbohydrates you eat, thus helping your body to absorb less sugar from your diet. It also increases the bioavalibilty of digestive hormones that make you feel fuller for longer, thereby reducing your appetite and food intake.
What you need to remember:
The most important message is that you must break away from the idea that when your diet derails you give up completely. Remember AntaGolin from MNI can support you through that meal or glass of wine to prevent you from gaining the weight you worked so hard to lose in the first place. Understanding and implementing damage control can make a big difference in your weight loss journey. It’s all about finding a sustainable approach that allows us to enjoy life while still achieving our goals.
