You see, most diets (incorrectly) assume certain things as true of the people following the program and thus often fail to mention them. These are factors which, if not in place, will prevent your body from letting go of the excess weight it is carrying.

Here are the 4 most important things you need to consider in order for your diet to work:

1.     Vitamin and/or Mineral deficiency

Due to the poor quality of a lot of the foods we eat and the lack of variety in our diets, most of us are deficient in one or many vitamins and minerals.

Now, you could go for a battery of expensive tests to find out what gaps you need to plug but I prefer a cheaper, easier ‘catch-all’ method to solve this problem.

Take a multi-vitamin and multi-mineral supplement. It’s as easy as popping a couple of pills once per day. If your body is deficient in something it will benefit, and the ones you have enough of will come out again in your urine. No harm done.

2.     EFA deficiency

Essential Fatty Acids are important… Very important. They aid in everything from cholesterol control to brain function.

Problem is they are not that easy to get in a normal diet (unless you live in Alaska and eat wild-caught salmon every day). Again, the fix here is simple.

Fish oil supplements are not expensive and do the trick of getting your EFA levels up to where they should be. Just make sure that you buy a reputable brand as they are often overheated when made into capsules and can be rancid and unusable by the body.

Tip: if you burp ‘fish’ for the rest of the day, your pills are bad quality, or rancid.

3.     Protein deficiency

Protein is a building block for the body – not just of muscle, but even of synapses in the brain. Getting enough protein also helps you feel fuller for longer.

Getting the right amount of protein is actually quite easy. If you are exercising hard (gym five times per week doing resistance training) then you need between 90g and 120g of protein per day.

If not, then around 60g to 90g will do. Just make sure you get a bit of protein at each meal throughout the day and you’ll be fine. Otherwise a whey protein supplement can help. These usually contain around 25g protein per serving.

4.     Water deficiency (dehydration)

‘Make sure you drink eight glasses of water per day’.

Thanks Mom… But really…

You should drink at least this much daily. Your body is mostly water, and water does so many important things in the body that it is beyond the scope of this article to list them.

Being dehydrated is very very bad. It slows down your brain, causes your muscles to work less efficiently and makes you grouchy. If you went without food and water you would die of dehydration long before dying of hunger. Drink drink drink.

Water, black tea, and black coffee all count (unsweetened of course).