It is a popular misconception.  You diet, you lose weight, and then it’s all good, it’s all great in fact.  The problem is that idea doesn’t work.  Dieting doesn’t work.  You may lose weight now, but you will gain it all back later, because people are volatile and go on extreme diets that they cannot actually live with for long periods of time.  So after they have lost all the weight they want, they go back to all their old eating habits or at least half their old eating habits, and of course all the weight comes back in a shorter time than it took to lose it in the first place.  This is what happened with the Atkins diet and many like it for that matter.  It’s even happening with newer diets like the South Beach diet that try to slowly incorporate more carbs over time.

So for long term weight loss results, you need to change your lifestyle, using solutions you can stick to literally for the rest of your life.  Do things like first of all, exercising at least 3 times per week if not more like 5 times per week.  5 times per week is optimal.  You burn excess calories and your body can start to burn excess fat calories over time.

Second, learn to eat foods that you like, but fill you up faster and therefore prompt you to eat less.  These are foods you could see yourself eating a lot of all the time instead of just for a few months.  They should be packed with vitamins, minerals, nutrients, fibers, and have few calories to boot.  Examples of this include fruits, vegetables, and grapes specifically have 100 calories per 100 grams, making them a better snack as compared to some others.

And third, control your portions.  Even if you’re eating the best foods, if you eat too much of them, the calories will still build up, and you will still end up with troubles surrounding your weight.  This is what the books “French Women” something about never get fat is based on.

Finally, everything in moderation.  You can cut out fats, carbs, etc. But you are much better off if you have all these foods, but in moderate and controlled amounts.  Also, eating too many acidic fruits and vegetables could actually damage the walls of stomach lining among other things.  So moderation is key.