Losing weight is a struggle that most of us have been through in different times of our life. People who tend to gain a few pounds quicker than others are prone to follow different kinds of diets. You can find all sorts of diet plans and exercises regimes on the Internet. The purpose is simple: balance out the calories through burning more and consuming less. A large variety of options are available out there and different kinds of diets suit different kinds of people. Even though it may seem like an exhausting task, losing weight can become easy to accomplish with the right kind of diet.
Modern researches have repeatedly shown that excluding certain food groups does not guarantee weight-loss. Instead, such diets can become very difficult to maintain. Furthermore, they have a negative impact on your health as they do more harm than good. Most of the times, people tend to follow diets that cut out fats from their diet completely. This means that foods like nuts, avocados, and dairy fats are completely off the menu. Or carbs coming from baked goods such as bread are not allowed to be consumed. This sort of dieting plan can show encouraging results in the beginning but unfortunately, in the longer run, they are unsustainable. And whether you may like it or not, you may stop the diet and gain all the weight back!
Introducing Metabolic Confusion Diet
Before we dive into this kind of diet plan, it is important to understand the basics of metabolism. Here goes:
Metabolism
In scientific terms, metabolism is the process of breaking down the food eaten by a person and convert it into energy for the different cells of the body.
In simpler words, metabolism happens inside your body every time you consume food. Through this process, your food is broken down into simpler molecules. These molecules are then absorbed and utilized for distributing energy throughout your body. Now you must be wondering what role metabolism plays when it comes to losing weight. Well, the truth of the matter is that metabolism is one of the key factors affecting the overall health of your body.
Efficient Metabolism
If the metabolism system works properly inside your body, then there is little to no chance that you will gain or lose weight. Your body is able to maintain itself to the ideal weight conditions. This means that if you eat a clean enough diet, with a few slips here and there, your weight will remain at a constant and healthy balance.
Slow Metabolism Rate
But unfortunately, if your metabolism does not work efficiently, there is a chance that you will start to gain weight speedily. To balance out the whole process, people have to consume food in moderate amounts. Slow metabolism rates are not rare and many people around the world suffer from it throughout their lives. As the human body gets older, like many of its other functions, metabolism process starts to slow down as well. This is why the ability to gain weight becomes easy.
Calorie Cycling
Calorie cycling is one of the most basic concepts that is followed when it comes to dieting. This means that a certain number of calories are consumed in a specific time frame. For example, a healthy adult needs a minimal of 1500 to 2000 calories on a daily basis to keep themselves healthy and strong while losing weight at the same time. Some adults like to spread out their calorie consumption throughout the day while others set a time frame during which they consume their calories.
Also Read: Does Stevia Break A Fast?
What is Metabolic Confusion?
When it comes to metabolic confusion diet, a special kind of calorie cycling is used. In this type of cycling, people consume a specific number of calories one day and then another number of calories the next day. Or in another scenario, a constant number of calories which are high in number are consumed throughout the week. And then in the next week, they consume calories in fewer amounts.
Is it Effective?
Now that we have understood the basic concept of metabolic confusion diet, let us understand how it really effects the body and whether it genuinely makes a difference or not.
When you alternate between consuming high and low number of calories on a regular basis, you tend to confuse the metabolism system inside the body. Scientifically, that is not possible. There is no way that your inner metabolic system will ever become confused and does not know what to do. Instead, what it really does is, it prevents the body from slowing down the process of metabolism.
Since our bodies are a work of magic and lots of science, our metabolism starts to slow down when we consume fewer calories. The body starts to think that we are living in harsh environmental conditions and food is scarce. All the primitive instincts from our ancestors kick in and we turn on the body’s starvation mode. Our body is no longer willing to burn more calories, imagining there to be a famine. This means that our overall metabolism system slows down completely.
As per the metabolic confusion diet, you can confuse your body because one week you eat very little calories whole in the other week you consume a lot more calories. This tricks the body into thinking that you are eating enough food regularly, there is no famine, and hence the starvation mode of the body is not triggered.
Also Read: The Best Insoles For Flat Feet
Where’s the Catch?
This kind of diet sounds perfect, doesn’t it? But unfortunately, that is not the case. Let us be straightforward. The total number of calories consumed even on the higher calorie days are quite less than the calories required by a healthy adult to maintain weight. Surprising, right? At the same time, the metabolic confusion diet requires you to follow a strong exercise regime.
With physical exertion in the picture and fewer calories consumed, your metabolism rate will eventually slow down. This means that the weight loss process will be greatly affected. Moreover, the total calories consumed are not healthy and unsustainable. Therefore, you cannot keep up the metabolic confusion diet forever. And like most diets, as soon as you get back to your normal lifestyle, there is a good chance that you will gain all the weight back quickly.
Conclusion
With the above discussion, it is obvious that metabolic confusion diet is not as effective as it should be. There are many complications involved in the whole process. But the truth is that there is not enough research present to discuss the positive or negative impacts of this diet. Sure, there are some pointers available which fit to the general perception of most diets. But without proper studies, nothing can be said for sure.
Always remember that before you start any kind of diet, metabolic confusion diet or not, please consult a health professional. This is because not every diet is suitable for every body type. And instead of doing good, you can harm your body and create poor impact in the longer run. Diets seem like an easy and fun way to lose weight but unfortunately, they can cause a lot of problems if they are not followed through a check and balance. It is always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to the matters of health.
