Sitting on a diet, more people are gaining weight than being discarded. Not immediately, but when they move to a normal way of life. At least this is the case in Britain, experts say.

One in three of the 4,000 participants in a recent study said that after stopping to limit themselves in food, it became harder in a few weeks than before. Of this number, 20% say that the new weight exceeded the old weight by no less than 6 kg.

The British Dietetic Association (BDA), at the request of which the survey was conducted, believes that the "pendulum effect" (then dropping weight, then its set) leads to a fashion for unusual, and sometimes frankly, eccentric diets.

People-pendulums.

Every fifth interviewee sat on a diet for a month, and every tenth - twice as long.

A quarter of study participants said that they were terribly tired of having to limit themselves in food, and almost half said: it was so difficult that they succumbed to temptation and began to eat everything before they expected.

Only 20% achieved their goal and really lost weight to the intended result.

At the same time, after starvation, two-thirds quickly returned to their former weight; Half of these people took the process only a month.

Nevertheless, most Britons say they constantly think about how to lose weight.

It is interesting that men want to lose more kilos than women: almost 20% of men say that it would not hurt to lose weight by 6-9 kg, while most women would be satisfied with a loss of 3-6 kg.

In this case, the results of dieting in women and men also vary. Having hunger, almost 40% of ladies became even more weighty than before, while for men this figure does not exceed 20%.

The funny thing is that practically all participants in the survey - both men and women - say that they understood: the constant restriction in food, when the mass of the body rushes from one extreme to the other, is harmful to health.

"Reality confirms what we are talking about all the time: all these fashion diets simply do not work," says Amanda Wine, a dietician at BDA. - This is a very temporary solution to the weight problem. Immediately after the end of the diet, people return to their former weight ".

If you really want to lose weight, she says, try to gradually change your culinary preferences, set real goals.

"A little less fat, a slightly smaller portion size, a little more vegetables and fruits and more exercise," explains Amanda Wine. - Build your life so that you can constantly adhere to this regime ".

There is evidence that the body simply adapts to any diet, changing the metabolism. And as soon as the diet ends, the body quickly rebuilds back, and the person again gaining weight.

A spokeswoman for the British Food Foundation says that the latest survey only confirms what is already well known: "If people sit down on all these unusual rigid diets, often the weight loss is very short-lived. And gaining weight, a person loses self-confidence and generally feels rather sorry ".

Medicus. En.