Why do regular diets often fail?

• Food is all around us.
• We often eat even when we are not hungry. We often need to eat for social reasons, sometimes after we’ve just eaten our fill, or for emotional reasons, or out of habit.
• When we go on a diet and severely lower our caloric intake, after 2-3 days, the body reacts as if there is famine; the body protects itself by greatly lowering its metabolic rate (the rate at which it burns calories).
• Once metabolic rate goes down, unless you exercise A LOT, you will stop losing weight, even when eating a fairly low calorie diet.
• endless dieting is no fun.
• We continue to be hungry, food is still all around us, and even a few lapses per week will be enough to keep us from losing weight.
• Exercise can burn a small, additional amount of calories, but to lose weight and keep it off, our average calorie intake needs to be reduced and to stay down.