Have you given in to the temptation already?
It's Monday and the New Year, New You diets were started last week - but, according to new research it's apparent that 92 per cent of dieters took the weekend off and risked their hard work from the working week.
Nearly 40 per cent of dieters said their naughty weekend food habits kick-in at Friday dinner time and not surprisingly, nearly two-thirds end the weekend binge with Sunday dinner.
The findings, by new weightloss aid XLS-Medical Fat Binder, suggest that in fact the vast majority are only sticking to their diets for less than five days a week.
Whilst 2.6m people started their diet on last Tuesday, two out of 10 dieters say they experience their first relapse just four to five days into their diet/healthy eating, meaning that a massive 590,000 could already have fallen off the wagon.
The new research explains why dieters do not feel they get the weight loss they deserve from ‘dieting’ and suggests that dieters are blinded by what a weekend off or even a single day off can do to their weight loss efforts. Therefore dieters may be disillusioned and depressed because they feel they're making a real effort but are not seeing any results. This is further highlighted by the fact that one in 10 dieters said they have been on a diet their whole life.
Dr Matt Capehorn, Clinical Director of the National Obesity Forum, comments: "Taking a single day off from dieting can undo a whole week's worth of hard work if you are not too careful. A healthy diet, aimed at losing 1lb per week, relies on saving 3500 calories a week by having 500 calories less each day.
"A day off the diet should mean that you eat the correct amount, but many dieters see it as an excuse to binge and have thousands of calories more than they need. They can easily end up having more excess calories in that one day than they have saved throughout the whole week of sticking to a diet. This survey suggests that many dieters are completely unaware of this. We need to educate people who are trying to lose weight and encourage them not to relax their diets too much over the weekend."
The reality of just how easy it is to consume more calories in one day than the total number of calories saved in an entire week is made even more apparent considering the average calorie content of a Chinese takeaway tops 1400 calories.
The survey found that over 70 per cent of dieters eat a takeaway at least once a week, with Chinese being the favourite – and the most calorific of all takeaways. Furthermore, almost 70 per cent of dieters eat out once a week, with Italian restaurants being the most popular, despite the average pizza weighing in at nearly 1000 calories.
The survey also found that just 5 per cent of women sustain their diet until they’ve reached their goal weight. Two out of 10 dieters admitted they have their first diet relapse just four to five days in, with hunger being the main cause of this. Other top causes for falling off the diet wagon include boredom and alcohol.