Diet & Your Body

Some Dieting Tips and Tricks

There are definitely ways to influence the size and shape of your body. I use the word influence very carefully, because “control”—complete and total control of your body—is impossible. However, there are ways that you can nudge your body in one direction or another, and one of those ways is through monitoring your diet. In the conversational sense, diets are usually talked about as a way of restricting your caloric intake, but that’s not necessarily always the case. Indeed, many people have different aims for diets.

By raising your awareness of what goes into your body, you can exercise more influence over how your body looks. This functions on the basic premise that your body uses a certain amount of energy—known as calories—every day. By consuming fewer calories than you use, you can force your body to rely on stores of reserves. By consuming more calories than you typically use, you can build up those reserves. The relationship between calories and energy expenditure forms the basis of almost all diets—though not all. Some diets will focus on the types of calories you consume.

What Type of Diet is Right for You?

Determining the type of diet that is right for you will often rely on knowing what your desired results are. To that end, we have more information on the following diet types:

• Diets to Lose Weight: These are diets that are designed in the traditional sense, to help you lose weight in a sustainable, healthy, and—usually—gradual way. Essentially, you will eat fewer calories than you expend. It should be noted that you cannot target this type of diet to, for example, take fat away from your stomach. Your body will target certain areas naturally and there’s not much you can do to direct that.
• Diets to Support Muscle Growth: Often, when you’re trying to build muscle, you will need to change your diet. Muscle growth requires exceptional amounts of energy and of protein. In many cases, getting those extra resources will require paying special attention to your diet in order to optimize muscle growth.
• Diets to Cleanse: Sometimes your body just needs a fresh start. Some diets—short term diets, it should be mentioned—are designed to do just that. These are known as cleansing diets, and they usually consist of very clean food and fluids, such as vegetables and juice.
• Diet Fads and Trends: Diets are a huge business, and there are inevitably going to be fads and trends in such a large business. Whether it’s the Atkins diet or the Paleo diet, or whatever is next on the horizon, it can be difficult to tell short term solutions from marketing hype. Be careful with fad diets, but don’t be afraid to try new things, either.

Listen to Your Body

At their core, most dieting tips and tricks are about one simple thing: listening to your body. This means putting more food into when it needs it and refraining when it doesn’t. To learn more about diets, be sure to check out our wide selection of body contouring articles.