What is a diet break and how can you implement one?

Opting for a “diet break” is a clever move where you hit the pause button on your diet for anything from a day up to two weeks. When you’re on the quest to lose weight or simply watch your weight, understanding how your body uses calories and drops the pounds is key.

This becomes almost devastating and chronic, particularly when obesity or overweight reaches a certain level. Often people opt for regular dieting to counter obesity. But dieting has its own counter effects of hazardous consequences. In this juncture, diet break appears as a promising solution both for countering the ill effects of dieting, as well as a quick and easy way for weight loss and weight gain as well.

Find out what happens when you are dieting and about diet break in details below:

The consequences of dieting

In spite of the fulfillment of the desired purpose of weight loss, the dieting has multiple physiological and psychological complications which may lead to life-risk consequences. First and foremost, it is a myth that weight gain or obesity shortens the life span. In other words, people wrongly believe that becoming slim will increase the life span. In fact, by dieting and becoming slim you are making your life shorter (1).

A regular and prolonged lack of calories in the body eventually develops hormonal imbalance, some increasing to more than the required level and some decreasing alarmingly. For example, the serotonin and dopamine hormones which are responsible for us to feel good drastically get reduced by regular and prolonged lack of calories caused by strict dieting.

The absence or reduction of serotonin and dopamine result in feeling lethargic and less enthusiastic. Almost every woman or man who does dieting experiences depression and ultimately goes for medication.

The most important aspect of dieting is controlling hunger. Hunger is the natural process of the body. If you are by-passing and ignoring hunger, you are denying the natural process of your physics and allowing the body to perish. Consequently, you are permitting your health to degrade and get into calamities.

What is a diet break?

“Diet break” refers to a conscious or purposeful intake of calories for a period of seven to fourteen days, to fill the gap of calories deficits caused by dieting. In a simple understanding of “diet break” is to eat as much as you like and as long as you can eat. Eventually, you become leaner than you ever expected without perishing yourselves physically or psychologically.

However, “diet break” does not mean overeating. Eating in diet break means, you enjoy your eating till you satisfy your hunger without calculating your calories as you normally count the calories in dieting. While dieting, you restrict yourself taking high-calorie food especially in festivals and special occasions. Diet break neither restricts you of such over-consciousness of counting the calories nor letting you overeat. In fact, people, in general, do not overeat. Often they feel like overeating particularly the people who are dieting.

The rationale of a diet break

The deficiency of calories that is caused by regular and prolonged dieting has to be necessarily refilled in order to avoid hormonal imbalance and to gain required muscle building. A brief diet break would ensure the reverse of calories and recover the hormonal balance. Eventually, during and after the diet break you will not be hungry or less hungry, have more energy keeping yourself active.

The other reason to opt diet break is for a psychological boost which ensures activeness and keeps you energetic and enthusiastic. Obviously, this happens due to the recovery of serotonin and dopamine hormones which have a role in keeping you happy and feel good.

Nevertheless, when you have all the freedom of eating whatever the quantity of food you feel like eating and the food of your taste, ultimately psychologically you feel relaxed and happy. In the process, this feeling of happiness impacts you physically as well as psychologically and improves your health and personality as well.

How to implement diet break

There are basically two types of diet break. One is the full version of diet break and the other a controlled version. However, take the assistance of a guide and go for your diet break.:

A full course of a diet break

The full diet break regulates all diets you can take from day one to eight weeks. However, most guides advice running the full diet break from 10 days to 14 days on average. In this period you are encouraged to eat full to your hunger and eat to your taste. You may be wondering at this freedom of eating after a long period of strict restrictions of dieting. But that’s how it happens.

Eventually, though your intake of food is increased, your cardio amount will get reduced.

Controlled version or partial diet break

The controlled version of diet break is best for people who like competition. The basic difference between the full diet break and controlled version of diet break is to add approximately 20% of calories which comes around 500 calories irrespective of your weight loss.

In a controlled version of the diet break process, you keep a track of your calorie count and evenly go on with your diet break processes.

Diet break and fat loss in the long term

If your agenda is fat loss significantly, you must be prepared for long term dieting. Ultimately, you need to go for full or partial diet break in between your long term dieting. Eventually, it will help you to regain your energy and recover the hormone and maintain the hormonal balance in the long term.

On top of everything, for a long term diet break, your metabolism remains normal and fat does not increase. Your prolonged dieting and in between the diet breaks balance your metabolism and keeps you slim but energetic with physical and psychological fitness on a long term basis.

When should you go for a diet break?

If you are on a regular dieting or bodybuilding process, obviously you have all the prescribed charts which indicate you the appropriate time for the diet break. But, above all, your body provides you with the best symptoms or indications of when you should necessarily go for diet break. Following are the symptoms you should never neglect to essentially and immediately go for a proper diet break.

• If you are a bodybuilder and you notice that everything is getting alright except your muscle gain which has either stopped growing or decreasing. This is an indication that you require immediate diet break and give some extra nutrient to your body to maintain balance. If you neglect the indication, you will probably land in further complication. Therefore, you must necessarily go for a diet break.
• If you are on regular dieting and feel that everything is on the right track, but seldom you feel unexpectedly tired. You remember that you never felt tired before you started dieting. Here comes the call for you for a diet break. You must never lose time; rather immediately go for a diet break. Your feeling tired is an indicator that your body requires more energy and your hormone level has reduced.
• If you notice that you are no more enthusiastic like before, rather you are becoming more and more irritable. This may happen in cases of persons who are dieting or no dieting. This is a clear symptom of hormonal imbalance which immediately requires diet break. You should never waste your time by just wondering what to do or whom to approach. Go for a diet break, the sooner, the better.
• In spite of your uttermost care, if you are regularly falling sick, then you should be sure that you need a diet break. This is an indication that the immune of your body is weakening gradually and it essentially requires a boost. Diet break is the only healthy solution for you to recover the immune system and strengthen your body to protect itself from external threats.
• If you feel that you are on a prolonged dieting process and have substantially reduced your weight, and feel that you cannot go further anymore. You are right. You must not continue the diet process. Your body essentially requires a diet break, you must get it.

Few tips for a successful diet break

1. Be punctual in your meal time.
2. Eat your preferred food and eat until you are satisfied and full.
3. Never count on your calorie as you were doing while dieting.
4. Trust in the diet break and strongly believe that you will gain weight. However, the weight you are gaining is all about water weight which will vanish as soon as complete the diet break.
5. Do not overeat, eat normally till you are satisfied.
6. Take your diet break before special occasions like vacation etc.

Pros and cons of a diet break

Pros

• Diet break is essential especially for the people who are engaged with dieting because it actually helps you maintains your energy and gives you further opportunity to boost your metabolism for your desired weight loss. It never hampers the processes of weight loss and keeps you slim and free from obesity. Eventually, by adopting diet break, you do not lose whatever you got from your dieting; rather you get more energy and strength to continue your weight loss processes.
• The short duration of diet break makes it faster and easier for the clients to go for diet break without wasting much of their time. Especially for the people who do bodybuilding, gymnastics and other manual exercises, games and athletes normally do not get time for appropriate recovery of their lost energy. Diet break is the only appropriate solution for them to gain their lost energy and hormone as well as muscle and weight gain.
• Diet break speaks of eating sufficient preferred food. It does not restrict in taking of foods which have weight gaining ingredients. The reason behind this freedom is whatever food you take during diet break does not deposit fat in your body. These weights are only water weights and this vanishes as soon as you complete your diet break duration. Therefore, though you eat a lot you do not get too much weight to hamper your weight loss purpose.
• The loss of serotonin and dopamine hormones during the weight loss dieting is crucial in terms of physical, psychological and social damage. You get various hazardous symptoms like depression, lack of enthusiasm, feeling intolerant and angry, etc. This also puts a greater impact on your personality.
  Since the serotonin and dopamine help you remain happy and deal pleasantly, your personality is dragged down by the absence of these hormones. Diet break recovers the hormonal balance in the body resulting with physical and psychological balance, improvement, and well being.
• The two types of diet breaks make it flexible for the clients to opt for the best version which suits them. The partial diet break option provides you with the opportunity for gaining weight quickly along with maintaining physical and psychological balance without wasting much time. On the other hand, the full version of the diet break process ensures adequate energy and hormonal balance in the body on a long term basis.
• The lifelong process of diet break is a unique way to maintain the metabolism and hormonal balance all through your life. This ensures your lifelong well being of physical, psychological and social improvement.

Cons

• If you do not take the assistance of an expert guide on a diet break, there may be irregularities in your diet break. Eventually, you may not be able to get as much weight as your body requires leading to failure of your diet break.
• There are systematic and calculative procedures for people with specific percentages of fat to go for diet break during specific time gaps. If you do not follow that you may not get the desired benefits. Ultimately, your diet break may be in vain or land you in frustration with little benefits.
• If you do not have confidence and trust in diet break, you may not get the maximum benefit of the diet break. For example, if you hesitate to take as much food as you can take and hence restrict your food intake, you may not get the desired result of your diet break.

Final Words

Food is the gift of God. Every religion in the world professes that the food that is provided to all the living being is the greatest blessing of Destiny. Science goes a step forward and establishes that food is the other name of life. Intake of food provides energy and keeps us alive.

Wrong intake of food results in weight gain and obesity which is one of the alarming issues in the contemporary world. The right solutions for weight gain and obesity are not many. Often we choose the wrong path to address these complications and eventually land in more problems and risks.

Diet break is the only scientific procedure to ensure weight loss and related complications, and ensure physical, psychological and social balance and improvement. You can go for diet break and get desired benefits irrespective of your dieting or no dieting, weight loss or weight gain.

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