At any given time, about half of all Americans are trying to lose weight. That means millions of people are doing keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, Optavia, Atkins and all the other diets that limit what, when and how you eat. And as you can tell from all those 맥스카지노�before and after맥스카지노� Instagram shots, many dieters do lose weight 맥스카지노� at least at first. But for the vast majority 맥스카지노� some 98% 맥스카지노� it inevitably comes back, leading to a national reckoning of guilt, disappointment and the biggest question of all: What am I doing wrong? Why can맥스카지노�t I keep off the weight?Here맥스카지노�s the truth: It맥스카지노�s not you. It맥스카지노�s biology.The dirty little secret of the dieting industry is that most diets are destined to fail. But we are still bombarded with the message that if we only find the right diet we will be thin 맥스카지노� which has been conflated with "beautiful" in our culture 맥스카지노� and all our troubles will melt away along with our love handles. 맥스카지노�The diet industry is a $72 billion dollar business, so there's an extraordinary amount of money that맥스카지노�s hooked into selling the idea that there is something wrong with us, and if only we buy their product, we can find salvation,맥스카지노� says Lindo Bacon, PhD, associate nutritionist at UC-Davis and author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. But according to one well known study at UCLA, not only do most people eventually gain back the weight they lost on diets, but as many as two-thirds may wind up gaining back more. That type of 맥스카지노�failure맥스카지노� can take a huge emotional toll, says Alissa Rumsey, RD, a certified intuitive eating counselor and the author of the book Unapologetic Eating: Make Peace with Food and Transform Your Life. 맥스카지노�People who have dieted have been led to think that if you can맥스카지노�t lose weight, it's your fault and it's all about willpower 맥스카지노� and there맥스카지노�s a lot of shame around that. But in reality, it has nothing to do with willpower.맥스카지노�What really happens to your body on a dietAt first, it맥스카지노�s simple math 맥스카지노� as you decrease the number of calories you맥스카지노�re consuming (whether by counting points, eliminating categories of food, or restricting the hours when you can eat) you will certainly lose weight. But then your body and your brain catch on, and they try to stop the process. In essence, your body thinks you맥스카지노�re starving and it's trying to save you, protecting you at all costs. This is largely thanks to the hormone leptin, which is produced in fat cells, explains Dr. Caroline Apovian, professor of medicine and pediatrics and director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston University Medical Center. 맥스카지노�One of the main functions of leptin is to protect your fat stores, because you need fat to make sure that you have an energy source in case there맥스카지노�s no food available,맥스카지노� she explains. Leptin is what tells your brain you맥스카지노�re full 맥스카지노� as you reduce the amount of fat in your body, you produce less of it, so you don맥스카지노�t get that same sense of satiety you once did after dinner or a midday snack. Instead, your body starts receiving hormonal messages saying, 맥스카지노�All hands on deck! We have to get this person to gain weight!맥스카지노�One of the ways it does this is to send a message to your thyroid to slow down your resting metabolism rate (RMR) 맥스카지노� the number of calories your body burns to keep you breathing and digesting. If you typically burn a certain number of calories a day at rest, your RMR may slow down to burning a few hundred fewer a day, as your body adjusts to hold on to as much energy as possible to use later. In fact, one headline-making study that followed contestants from The Biggest Loser six years after they appeared on the weight-loss show found that most had not only regained the weight and body fat they had lost, but their RMR had dropped from an average of 2,607 calories per day before the show to 1,900 calories a day six years later. The contestants맥스카지노� slowed metabolisms may not have been the only reason they regained the weight, but it is true that the more you diet, the fewer calories you burn, meaning you have to restrict your diet even more to keep losing weight, or even to maintain your current weight.Your happy weightThis life-preserving system is called 맥스카지노�defense of body weight,맥스카지노� and its goal is to keep you within a 10­ to 20 pound range, or your 맥스카지노�set point맥스카지노� weight. Bacon describes the set-point system as similar to a thermostat, with your body constantly making adjustments to stay at the same weight. 맥스카지노�There맥스카지노�s a certain fat level that your body wants to maintain, and when you drop below that range, your body's going to put all kinds of mechanisms into place to try to get you back in a healthy range,맥스카지노� Bacon says. 맥스카지노�At first it will try to elicit your help, by making you feel hungry . But if that doesn맥스카지노�t work, it can get more aggressive, by slowing down your metabolism.맥스카지노� But wait, there맥스카지노�s more: Not only do you get the double whammy of feeling hungrier and having a slower metabolism, but the types of food you crave may change, too. 맥스카지노�When you lose body fat because you're dieting, your hunger center is triggered, and that includes the rewards center, which makes you crave sweets because that맥스카지노�s the easiest way to get a lot of calories,맥스카지노� says Dr. Apovian. You might even get cravings for foods you would normally walk right by without a second thought, Bacon adds: 맥스카지노�You're willing to eat anything because your body's trying to just get you the calories that it wants to restore.맥스카지노� Losing touch with your own hungerAnother side effect of dieting: When you pay attention only to external rules of what and when to eat 맥스카지노� and how guilty you should feel if you eat the 맥스카지노�wrong맥스카지노� thing 맥스카지노� you can become disconnected from the cues from your own body, says Rumsey, who points out that researchers have seen some of the same behaviors 맥스카지노� such as binge-eating and bulimia 맥스카지노� in people who are dieting and in people who are dealing with a true scarcity of food. 맥스카지노�We get disconnected from our feelings of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. And we also lose that sense of food as being something we enjoy, that feels good in our body,맥스카지노� Rumsey says. But what about all those people losing weight and keeping it off?Attention, anyone who is reading this article and saying, But what about Rebel Wilson, Adele or Jennifer Hudson? How did that guy Matt from college drop 50 pounds and keep it off for years?: For more than 20 years, the National Weight Control Study has tracked more than 10,000 people in the 2% who have beaten the odds and maintained a weight loss of more than 30 pounds for at least five years, and it found that they do it with constant vigilance, says Dr. Apovian. But obsessing about your weight every day and considering what you eat every meal is a huge commitment 맥스카지노� and for many people, it's just not a realistic (or desirable) way to spend your mental energy or time, especially if you're working full-time or juggling family care. What happens when you go on vacation or get too busy to cook? The fear and guilt from slipping just once or twice can throw your entire regimen off, leading to renewed resolutions to be stricter with yourself. It's a setup for more guilt, more vigilance and more all-too-human "slipping up." Wash, rinse, repeat. So what can I do to be healthy? But when you start to look at health and well-being as separate from the numbers on a scale (and yes, you can be perfectly healthy without being thin), a whole new way of living comes into focus. 맥스카지노�It맥스카지노�s about food and nutrition, but also movement and stress management and coping skills 맥스카지노� all those things coming from a place of self-care,맥스카지노� Rumsey says. 맥스카지노�It맥스카지노�s making decisions about what to eat not from a negative place of restriction and control, but from a place of taking care of yourself. It맥스카지노�s about coming back into your own body and figuring out what that looks like for you.맥스카지노� Through the practice of intuitive eating, you replace an external set of dietary rules with the wisdom of your body. "You learn to pay attention to the physical sensations that arise in your body and let those cues guide you,맥스카지노� Rumsey explains. You can also find some kind of exercise that brings you joy 맥스카지노� whether that means long, meditative walks, dance classes or playing softball every weekend with your friends맥스카지노�since movement is crucial not only for brain and heart health, but keeps your metabolism humming along. What do you get from saying good-bye to commercialized restrictive diets and respecting your body, in whatever beautiful, healthy shape it comes in? "There is a real sense of freedom that comes from not thinking about food all the time, not feeling guilty, and being able to just eat a meal and move on," says Rumsey. "I've had clients say, 'I have to find a new hobby 맥스카지노� I have so much extra time in my day from not obsessing about food!'"