There are reasons why a custom tailored diet is more effective than a generic “one diet fits all” type of weight loss program. The majority of dieters however, for one reason or another, will continue to avoid any diets which are personalized for them.
True, there are diets which will give you the option of eating either, cottage cheese or yogurt, or you can choose between baked salmon or boiled chicken for dinner, or blueberries or cherries for desert.
The reasons for these food based options is because it gives the dieter somewhat the feeling that they have control over what they eat. But where these diets fail is they don’t properly formulate the weight loss program to fit the persons gender, heredity, age, etc.
They also fail to consider how much weight that needs to be lost, or the amount of physical activity on a daily basis they get, the amount of sleep, or what their particular work patterns are. These considerations need to be taken into account.
Why Diets Need To Be Tailored
Say for example that a man who wants to lose weight just uses his wife’s diet which is more suitable for women. Most likely, he needs to eat more since he’ll always be hungry, this because he’s taller, weights more, and may exercise more.
What this results in is more calories being burnt, which then needs more servings of protein and additional carbohydrates which becomes deficient.
Never Be Hungry While On A Diet
This however is the mindset that most dieters have, that they expect to be hungry. The usual claim being, after the first few days, the diet plan was tolerable, but once the cleansing took place, I was always hungry.
Diets which are longer than six days long shouldn’t cause hunger because of the decrease in the calories which are consumed before the diet plan even begins.
If someone was consuming say 5,500 calories a day before their diet, and then they suddenly decrease it down to 1,700 calories, is just starving themselves.
But a personalized diet plan would provide a step down process where the calorie intake is gradually decreased and fitted to the reduction in weight as well as stomach size.
Since Everyone’s Different
Why would a diet plan that’s designed for an average size woman who needs to lose 50 pounds, be suitable for a larger woman who’s six inches taller and extremely physically active.
Nor should a diet plan for a large man who happens to work in construction be given the same diet to someone who is much shorter and works as an accountant.
Meals Should Correspond With Daily Patterns
These generic diet plans also assume that everyone eats the same three meals a day at the exact same time of day.
But everyone is different, some will skip breakfast, work late evenings, or are stuck on the graveyard shift, which dictates when and what they eat. So someone who works at night from 12AM to 8AM will usually eat their dinner at 9PM, for instance.
What if someone routinely wakes up at 7PM. What about those working in law enforcement or the hospital who works until midnight, and won’t usually get to bed until 3AM.
Should they be eating breakfast or dinner before they eventually go to sleep. Surely the “Don’t eat late at night” won’t apply to them, otherwise, they’ll gain more weight as a result.
Why Customized Diets Are Needed
We all have our own eating patterns and reasons why we choose to overeat, but these are often overlooked once beginning a diet. What needs to be considered are issues such as someone always skipping breakfast, or they routinely eating a full dinner after 8PM.
Also, if you don’t get to bed until 2AM, but eat dinner early at 5PM, won’t you then be craving for snacks later in the evening. Or if someone eats to reduce stress, the diet then needs to find suitable foods which can decrease that stress, while still allowing for weight loss. Otherwise, once the stress increases, the diet will usually be abandoned.
Since it’s common practice for a doctor to prescribe the appropriate medication for the treatment of an individual for a specific illness, shouldn’t the same approach be used when it comes to weight loss.
Once someone who’s in a weight loss program says, “This diet isn’t working for me at all!” we now know why it doesn’t. So what needs to be done is deciding what’s wrong, and then altering the program to suit the individual.
For this reason alone, we shouldn’t assume that we failed yet another diet, and then become discouraged while the dieter blames themselves and begins to gain more weight.
Are Personalized Diets Too Difficult
But are personalized diets too difficult to manage, being too labor and time intensive. What needs to be planned are specific meals along with developing the proper exercise plan for each and every person.
Doing so also doesn’t quite fit the various weight loss “apps” which are available online, or what’s available on the latest “fad” weight loss TV infomercial.
What’s required instead is an active interaction between the diet adviser and the dieter to customize a plan.
The dieter also needs to be completely honest as well as forthcoming regarding their eating problems and habits, such as how much they exercise and work, and how much stress they’re under.
The diet adviser then must be willing to alter the program regardless of how drastic it may be, which tailors the eating, exercising, and the support plans to meet the dieter’s particular needs.
But doing so can become too timely and too expensive. However, if you’re genuinely wanting to lose weight, and then keep it off, you need to understand how bad the generic diet plans are.
The usual result is obesity and a loss of hope that any diet they try will never work for them. So it may be time to customize a diet that’s based on your specific lifestyle.