Anyone that’s ever been on a diet knows that you lose the most weight at the beginning of the diet program and you tend to lose less and less each week until you eventually hit a sticking point. This is the frustrating part. It’s frustrating because you’re sticking to your diet like glue only to see that same number on the scale each morning. Or worse, you may even find yourself gaining weight!

To answer you question of “why did I stop losing weight” you really need to understand how your body reacts to long periods of caloric restriction. This has nothing to do with your will power, that’s fine, and everything to do with the way your body becomes accustomed to what you feed it.

You see, after spending a some time on a diet, eating the same number of calories each day just isn’t the same shock to you body that it was when you started the diet. You body gets used to eating less and your metabolism slows down to match the new caloric intake levels. So instead of your body thinking 3,500 calories each day is normal, it now thinks 1,500 calories a day is normal, and it adjusts your metabolism as needed.

Have you ever taken a week off your diet only to find that you gained some huge number of weight back? I’ll bet you have. And that’s because your body was used to eating lower levels of calories and your metabolism slowed down. When you took a week off from your diet and consumed a higher level of calories your metabolism just couldn’t keep up with burning the calories, so you gained weight.

This is why long periods of caloric restriction tends to only be temporary weight loss method. A diet should really have a way to spark your metabolism and keep it from going into that slowdown state.

Diet programs like Fatloss4Idiots do a great job at implementing strategic “metabolism shockers” which are basically days where you can eat like you’re not on a diet. Now, these days need to be spaced out just right to get the maximum fat burning affect, and if they are, you’ll basically melt the weight off. On the other hand, constant low-cal diets do a lousy job at keeping the metabolism in high gear.