If you want to lose weight, you have to do it the right way. Skipping meals, not starting your day out with breakfast, or following an extremely low-calorie diet is not in any way going to help you lose weight. Calorie deprivation only sets you up for yo-yo dieting, or “weight cycling.” Your weight will continue to go up and down for the rest of your life.  You need to learn what to do to have permanent weight loss.

You might have initial success on one of these extreme diets, but the toll it takes on your body is not at all worth it. Extreme diets that promise big weight loss in a short amount of time cut out macronutrients like carbs and fats — which is horrible for your hormone balance and your metabolism.  I do not worry too much about fats and my carbs are just kept low and healthy carbs is the way to go.

Some people want to desperately want to lose weight for a special occasion and figure that only a couple of weeks at 800 calories a day can give you results you want. And maybe it does…but when you go back to a normal eating pattern, your body is messed up.  According to Jillian Michaels, “While you weren’t taking in enough calories, your levels of T3, the thyroid hormone that boosts your metabolism, plummeted and you slowed down your metabolism. Also, your response to insulin has taken a hit, so instead of glucose entering your cells, where it can be used for energy, your body lets it roam around in your blood, where it can cause trouble. Your sensitivity to leptin (which regulates appetite) is also reduced, so you’re never quite sure when to say, “Enough!” at the table. Plus, the hormone that tells your brain you’re starving, called ghrelin, shoots higher than ever. That is just the beginning of your problems. When you inevitably start gaining back weight, you start the cycle of yo-yo dieting all over again. It gets more and more frustrating every time you do it.”

http://www.jillianmichaels.com/fit/lose-weight/quit-yo-yo-dieting?xid=nl_EverydayHealthHealthyAging_20130331

So, stop calling it a diet and start looking at your choices in eating as a lifestyle change. Shift your thinking from merely “cutting back” to simply eating proper portions of the right, nutritious foods. Whole  foods will repair, nourish, and support every cell so that your body will work for you and not against you.