So what is the major reason to avoid using a low calorie diet?

It is very simple. They make you hungry, while at the same time slowing down your metabolism!

When you do not consume enough calories during the day, it is only a matter of time until your body starts to increase your appetite in order to get you to eat more food.

When you do not provide your body with everything it needs to function properly it will use its defense mechanisms to force you to eat more food.

For example, if your daily maintenance calorie intake is 2000 calories and you try to consume 1200 calories, your body will have to make up for this deficit by using some of its fat deposits as an energy source.

But, since body fat is viewed as a long term energy source, your organism does not really want to give it up. After about three days of using a low calorie approach you body will start to slow down your metabolism. It will do this to protect you, because it thinks that there will be a long term food shortage.

Since our bodies can't tell the difference between low calorie dieting and starvation, whenever you use a low calorie diet for more than three days, your body will compensate for this, and will start to slow down its calorie burning ability.

The easiest way for your body to accomplish this is to burn its own muscle as an energy source.

Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, and your body needs to expand a lot of energy (calories) to sustain it. What this means is that by burning off you muscle your body is trying to help you to survive longer.

This is the major reason why people lose a lot of muscle when they use a low calorie diet.

In addition to this, if your body does not get the essential amino acids it needs to achieve proper cell function, it will be forced to break down your protein tissues and you will lose even more muscle.

If you do not go off your diet, your organism will start to produce strong food cravings, and eventually will force you to quit using this approach.

But, since you have a slower metabolism than when you started using a low calorie diet to lose weight, you will not only gain all this weight back, but you will also gain a couple more pounds on top of that!

If you are caught in this vicious cycle, it is to your advantage to stop using this approach. Instead of trying to diet off unwanted body fat, simply eat like a normal person and use exercise to permanently burn it off!