To get your own, individual and personalized Ideal-Weight.com nutrition plan please visit www.ideal-weight.com.

72 percent of women and 59 percent of men have already tried a special diet at least once in their lifetime. But not a single diet program keeps what it promises. Therefore one diet follows the next: after the cabbage soup diet, the Atkins diet, the pineapple diet, the South Beach diet, the low-fat diet or the egg diet. All these diets have a mutual quality: 12 lost pounds are followed by 16 pounds more on the scale. So if you want to lose weight permanently, you have to change your nutrition habits. To do this you will be most successful, when you activate your metabolism.

Most dieters are happy if, after the first few diet days, the scale shows 4 pounds less weight. But what have they really taken off? 
Carbohydrates or sugar are the easiest for our bodies to metabolize. So the body first burns up the carbohydrate reserves. Our body has only a small carbohydrate store (glycogen) of about 500 grams, in contrast to our fat reserves, which can be huge. After two days of dieting, the carbohydrate storage is empty. But the fat has remained untouched! 500 g of glycogen also binds two liters of water in the body. While the glycogen is used during the dietary period, two liters of water are released and excreted. On the scales it looks great! The sad truth is, however, we have only lost water and a bit of sugar - but not one ounce of fat! 
The first portion of pasta, rice or bread, we eat, the glycogen stores will fill up again and 2 liters of water will also be bound again. Conclusion: The scale will return to the original weight. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with weight loss.

And what will happen when you will extend the diet for a longer period of time? Would you at least lose fat then? At first, unfortunately not, since the body has to continuously produce carbohydrates to feed the brain (brain metabolism is entirely dependent on carbohydrates for that function). There are two ways available for sugar production: the body produces carbohydrates from protein or fat. 
In the next few days of dieting, protein is used for energy production, because it is easier for the body to burn. Muscle mass is broken down and converted into sugar. Only after about 14 days, the body switches to increased fat burning. But by this time, most diets are already over. Worse weight gain is even faster, because we have reduced the only fat burner we have, our muscles.

Forget the idea of dieting and counting calories and learn how to lose weight in an intelligent way. All you have to do is eat the right thing at the right time. Dieting and starving was yesterday. Somebody who eats only 1,000 calories a day may still gain weight, if he eats the wrong food. In this connection the fattening hormone insulin plays a crucial role. Carbohydrate-rich meals stimulate insulin production and promote weight gain because insulin blocks fat burning. The consumption of high-quality protein is indispensable for intelligent weight loss to protect the body's own proteins from deterioration. Which carbohydrates and protein sources are good for you depends on which metabolism group you belong. Click here and you can determine your metabolic type.