What Is Nutritional Health And How It Is Different Than Dieting

I ask the question about nutritional health and dieting differences, to discuss what I think are misconceptions about dieting and weight loss, being confused with good nutrition.

The distinctions are very important to our overall health, and especially for our quality of life, as we continue to get older. Did you know that although our life expectancy continues to be increased, so do the number of aging related health problems?

This is a very frightening thought to me: I am going to be able to live longer, but I am also going to feel worse and be sicker – that is certainly a reduction in the quality of my life.

Dieting Objective – Eat Sugar Free And Fat Free Foods

The simple objective for going on a diet is to lose weight, and do so by eating fewer calories.

However, dieting and weight loss objectives tend to have little to do with their nutritional health. Many things that people during a diet are actually harmful to their health, along with making losing weight a lot more difficult.

For instance, one of the first things that dieters do is start eating foods that are sugar free and fat free.

But these sugar free foods use artificial sweeteners, like high fructose corn syrup that is very nutritionally unhealthy. It is also sweeter than sugar and affects your insulin release and cravings for my sweets.

And when fats are removed from foods, they are typically replaced with more sugar [or artificial sweeteners] and salt. These become necessary to make the fat free foods still taste good.

Except, there are nutritional, fat storage from insulin spikes, and cravings problems from the artificial sweeteners – and there are blood pressure and excess fluid and inflammation problems, from too much salt.

Also keep in minds that fats don’t make you fat, it is the extremely unhealthy trans-fats that are the health and weight gain problem. A good nutritional health diet will include healthy fats, they are necessary to the body’s functions.

Dieting Objective – Create A Large Calorie Deficit By Eating Less

Additionally, it has been shown that one of the reasons people have trouble losing weight comes from not eating enough calories.

But how could that possibly be, don’t you have to go on a diet and cut way back on how much you eat, if you want to lose weight?

Sure, a large calorie deficit can be effective for a small amount of time – but consider some of the weight loss problems from not eating enough calories:

• Your body begins to think that you are starving; it doesn’t realize that you are intentionally eating less to lose weight. When this happens your body goes into ‘protection mode’ and starts storing fat and conserving energy for survival.
• The weight you lose is fat and muscle mass, which becomes a greater amount of muscle on prolonged diets. Again, this becomes the impact that comes from severe restriction of calories. As a result, you don’t lose the weight component [fat] that you really want to lose – and you tend to become what is known as a skinny fat person.
• Decreased metabolism rates will cause you to have less energy and burn fat far less effectively. And when you have less energy, you also aren't going to be able to exercise harder, which is one of the primary ways to lose more weight.
• Decrease levels and sensitivity in your leptin levels, and leptin is your primary fat burning hormone. When your leptin levels are high, it will tell the body that it is full and to quit eating – but during extreme calorie restrictions, you lose leptin sensitivity and with that you lose fat burning potential.

It’s difficult to say how much to reduce calories by to lose weight. But it is important to be patient and realize that you didn't gain the weight in a few weeks, and you aren't going to lose it that quickly. This is especially the case, if you are certain eating foods and few calories that you are working against your weight loss efforts.

Yes, you want to create a calorie deficit. But the most effective way for doing this is through a moderate decrease in calories with a relatively large increase in high intensity exercise.

The benefits from exercise intensity, including weight lifting and strength training, are an increase in the metabolism rate and muscle mass – both of these are very important for burning fat and losing weight.