Preparing to diet: more important than the weight-loss diet you choose to follow

I am often baffled by the extreme lengths women will go to in order to lose weight and fat from their bodies. From fat absorption patches, to swallowing tapeworms, colonic irrigation, juice fasts, diuretics, diet pills and gastric band surgery. They have all been tried with varying degrees of success whether healthy or not.

If there was one piece of advice, one nugget of information, a top tip I could give you on weight-loss, this would be it:

Prepare your body for weight-loss.

Most of us launch ourselves into a weight-loss diet, the latest get thin quick diet without considering whether our physiology is prepared to undergo a stressful weight-loss programme. You would never build a house without foundations, so why do people diet without preparing the biochemistry of their bodies?

Like foundations to a house, the body requires certain nutrients in order to break down fat. To achieve the breakdown of carbohydrates, the body requires co-enzymes such as vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin B6 and Biotin. To break down lipids (fats), the body requires the coenzymes vitamin B5, selenium, vitamin B12, and biotin. If one’s diet is lacking in any one of these nutrients, the body will struggle to lose weight and instead of a quick fix, it will take longer to reach one’s goal weight.

It is essential to work on the foundations of your current diet in order to achieve optimum nutrition and nourishment before embarking on a weight-loss programme. Weight-loss diets are tough enough as it is, why make it harder on yourself? Ensure your body has all the raw materials its needs to chip away at those fat rolls. If you are unsure whether you are eating a balanced diet that contains all these co-factors, it is a good idea to take a high quality multi-vitamin supplement to ensure you do not miss out of these key nutrients.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Nutritionist Resource are reviewed by our editorial team.

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