The biggest reason why most people can't lose weight is because their bodies have adapted to a certain amount of calories, and when this process happens it causes your metabolism to slow down significantly and weight loss is almost impossible. This is the problem with most of the available weight loss programs.

It is for this reason that people who go on starvation based diets only lose pounds for the first couple weeks, and then they get to a point known as a "plateau" which is a where their body adapts to the severely low amount of calories and all the weight loss comes to a complete stop. The other big problem with this type of dieting is that your metabolism will be alot slower after dieting and you will gain all the weight back eventually.

To lose weight permanently you mustn't allow your body to adapt to a specific level of calories daily, otherwise your metabolism will begin to slow down and you will cease losing weight. This also applies to eating a certain amount calories at the same time each day, so in order to avoid this problem you must never consume the exact same size breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.

To better understand this idea of dieting, you should always keep your body off-balance by doing these two simple things:

1. Always eat a different total amount of calories daily. As an example, one day you might consume 2000 calories, then the next day you will only consume 1800 calories. The third day you would consume 1600 calories. On the fourth day you would consume 1400 calories and on the fifth day you would consume 2000 calories again.

2. You also need to change the total amount of calories consumed at each meal (This is so that your body won't get used to eating the same size breakfast, lunch and dinner).

For example, one day you might decide to eat a large breakfast and then a medium sized lunch followed by a small dinner. Then, the day after you might decide to eat a small breakfast, a large lunch followed by a medium sized dinner.

As you can now see, your body won't be allowed to adapt to eating a certain number of calories at any one meal, as well as not allowing your body to adapt to any one amount of total calories each day.

To further illustrate this important part of any successful weight loss plan, we have drawn up a sample of how you might eat for the next one week period:

Monday: 2000 Calories Total - Breakfast = 700, Lunch = 650, Dinner = 650

Tuesday: 1800 Calories Total - Breakfast = 600, Lunch = 700, Dinner = 500

Wednesday: 1600 Calories Total - Breakfast = 700, Lunch = 500, Dinner = 600

Thursday: 1400 Calories Total - Breakfast = 450, Lunch = 450, Dinner = 500

Friday: 2000 Calories Total - Breakfast = 700, Lunch = 650, Dinner = 650