Are Meal Replacements A Good Idea For Weight Loss?

Think about the number one reason why people are overweight today. Overweight people fall into two different categories.

Either they have an unhealthy lifestyle - working long hours , eating all the time , not enough exercise - or they simply eat too often compulsively .



This type of diet - eating when not hungry , for example, or eating for emotional reasons rather than physical hunger - is really a type of addiction. It must be understood as an addiction, and it often is.

For example, the group Overeaters Anonymous functions on many of the same principles as other programs or twelve steps of AA . Excessive eating is treated as an addiction because that's exactly what it is.

But if this is the case , it is easy to see why this addiction might be more difficult to treat than others. How to deal with an addiction is to stay away from behavior that is out of control - alcoholics can not touch alcohol , for example. The idea is to not do it at all until the addiction becomes a thing of the past - in fact, for many addicts , they can never indulge in their addictive behavior again, not even once .

With food addiction , however, is obviously impossible. People have to eat - There is no getting away from it all . This is why food addiction , even if it's an addiction to a non-lethal substance , perhaps the most difficult of all to deal with. And that's why companies like Slim -Fast , which produce and market meal replacements for people to use while dieting to lose weight, in fact able to help some people .

The idea behind meal replacements is that you really do not eat at all for a good part of the day - instead , you have a special shake or other product that gives you all the nutrients you need , and prevents you from feeling hungry . This works in two ways: First, by controlling the calories you take as meal replacements are quite low in calories. Second, it breaks the cycle of addictive behavior because you 're not really eating . You can exit the behavior much as an alcoholic can ( and should) leave the alcohol, and that gives you a better chance of breaking the addictive process .

Although most meal replacement plans do recommend that you eat a "normal" meals a day , people who are serious about losing weight are not even that. This is precisely how Oprah Winfrey once lost a lot of weight - about fifty pounds. She said she found it easier not to eat at all ( feeding meal replacement bars) than to control his diet. When you know you will not eat " real food " at all for a while , it takes the guesswork out of it. Everything becomes very simple, and it is a fact that many people have lost weight using this method of weight loss.

There are drawbacks , however. For one thing, while a weight loss program is supposed to teach you how to eat for the rest of your life - to establish healthy habits , in other words - using meal replacements clearly does not to. Once you go back to eating real food, you may find that your problems with controlling your food intake are still found there. Although you 've lost weight , you are more likely to win back if you have not learned healthy eating habits .

Also, there is a risk that some people will continue to use meal replacements for extended periods of time , just because it is easier and more convenient. Thought they re designed to give you a minimum of calories and nutrition, meal replacement bars can not substitute for real food over an extended period .

However, if you know or suspect that your problem with food resembles an addiction or compulsion , it may be worth your time to think about using meal replacements for a while in order to lose weight. Try to make the time you spend with as productive as possible , however. Really come to terms with your past behavior , and learn what it is like to be full but not stuffed . Determine the answer to these questions and other aspects of a healthy diet will help make your weight loss permanent .

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