Many people tend to see flaws in themselves, especially the imperfection of their own body. Often we begin to critically examine ourselves with the onset of spring, when the weather is conducive to changing our wardrobe to a lighter one. Then in line with the question “what to wear?” The question is “how to lose weight?”.
Both people who are clearly overweight and those who want to lose just a few kilos think about diets. It is a mistake to believe that only girls resort to the help of diets. Guys are no less reverent about their forms, they only care about muscle mass. It is believed that the right diet can work wonders, the problem is that no one knows the secret of the “perfect diet”. It is even more correct to say that this secret does not and cannot exist, because the diet must be individual, and for some people, due to existing diseases, diets are contraindicated in principle. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks about it.
Before you go on a strict diet and begin to voluntarily torture yourself with restrictions, you should make sure that your weight is really overweight. If not, then you first need to work on keeping it within normal limits, and secondarily think about what you would like to improve. Diet is not usually needed to maintain weight within the normal range. It is enough to provide yourself with a sufficient level of physical activity and take care of a proper balanced diet, and this is not the same as a diet.
What weight is considered “normal”?
There is a specific indicator “body mass index (BMI)”, which will show whether you are really overweight, or is it more of a self-esteem complex. BMI is calculated simply by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters and squaring the result. A BMI over 25 indicates overweight, and over 30 indicates obesity.
The calculation of the body mass index allows you to objectively assess your own weight, and not be led by stereotypes, taking an example from catwalk models. Often people worry about problems with being overweight, although they do not have such a problem. BMI avoids subjective evaluation. In addition, the body mass index shows a tendency to be overweight or, conversely, to thinness. It is enough to compare the indicator obtained as a result of calculations with the “norm”. If your indicator is close to the upper limit, then you have a tendency to be overweight, but this is still no reason to go on a hunger strike.
It is important to understand a few things related to BMI:
- BMI is a variable value, so you need to calculate it regularly to track the dynamics. BMI is indirectly affected by calories. It seems that the easiest way to lose weight is to spend more than you consume. Alternatively, you can reduce the energy content of food while increasing physical activity, but this is a dead end.
- The desire to reduce BMI by drastically reducing weight can lead to exhaustion of the body. Arranging “fasting days” is sometimes useful, but not for the sake of losing weight. Judge for yourself: if your new diet makes you starve openly or increase your physical activity level to an unrealistically high level, then your body will work for wear and tear. Perhaps you will achieve a short-term effect, but when you break yourself or the body fails, all the lost kilograms will return with a vengeance,
How should you eat to lose weight?
Many mistakenly believe that there are two ways to lose weight: either eat little or exercise a lot, so some go on a diet, while others go to the gym. In fact, there is only one way, and it includes both dietary adjustments and the selection of optimal physical activity.
The diet should be balanced and varied, this can also be called a kind of diet, but not a temporary diet, but a permanent one. Compliance with the principles of proper nutrition should become part of your lifestyle, only in this way you can not only achieve the desired results, but also keep them.
The diet needs to be formed based on your physiological needs, then you can stick to the chosen diet for a long time, until the conditions change. For example, the diet may change with age, and in women, pregnancy may be the reason for changing it. To understand the principles of proper nutrition and evaluate how your current diet corresponds to them, you need to answer a few questions:
- Is your diet varied? A person's diet should include fruits, vegetables, grains, low-fat dairy products, and protein-rich foods on a regular basis.
- Do you like what you eat? Psychology is also important, food should not only satisfy hunger, but also like it, at least not cause disgust, otherwise you will experience discomfort during each meal.
- Can you refill your grocery cart at your local grocery store? You need to understand that the daily diet should be based on products that are easy to find and buy. You may be a fan of the exotic, but if you can only replenish your supplies during foreign holidays, then this is definitely not a basic diet. Look for analogues “in the local market”.
- How Many Foods Does Your Diet Forbid? A well-chosen diet is not based on prohibitions. You should be able to eat almost anything, but in limited quantities.
- Can you afford the chosen diet? Unfortunately, our desires do not always correlate with our capabilities, so if you cannot afford elite products, or you do not have time to cook complex, but very healthy meals, then the compiled diet will have to be abandoned in favor of a more realistic one.
- Is your diet safe? As we have already noted, the diet must be balanced and contain sufficient amounts of essential nutrients and calories, then you can lose weight not only effectively, but also safely, and subsequently maintain your weight within normal limits.
- Have you forgotten about physical activity? This, of course, does not apply directly to the diet, but without physical activity, your desire to lose weight only by adjusting your diet will be doomed to failure. At least in the future.
If you could not give positive answers even to some of the questions asked, then the type of food you have chosen is not suitable for you. It is worth asking for advice from a nutritionist or once again independently compare desires and possibilities, taking into account our advice.
What should be the correct diet?
As we have already noted, the diet should be varied. The danger of mono-diets lies precisely in their uniformity. A person receives only those vitamins and microelements that are contained in the product chosen as the main one for a mono-diet, and this is often not enough. In the right diet, fruits and vegetables must be present, and fresh ones are better, especially in season.
First of all, you need to control the amount of fat consumed, but you should not exclude them from the diet. Fats are also necessary in the body, since they take part in the construction of cell membranes, hormonal balance and other important processes. The most dangerous are saturated fats and trans fats. Most of them are found in sauces, as well as artificially fat-free foods, such as yogurt, milk or cottage cheese. Margarine is also a supplier of unhealthy fats, and with it confectionery, sweets and fast food products.
If we talk about the method of cooking, then steamed or boiled food should be preferred, but it is better to minimize the consumption of fried foods, since animal fats are also often used for frying. If you still decide to cook a fried dish, then choose vegetable oils for frying.
Sugar has a strong influence on a person's weight, and, accordingly, on the body mass index. If you take a close look at your daily diet, you will realize that you consume a large amount of natural sugar, which is found not only in fruits, but also in some vegetables. But if natural sugar is good for the body, then artificial sweeteners will quickly add extra pounds to you, so if you want “something sweet” in the evenings, then let it be an apple, not an apple pie.
Why is physical activity important?
Physical activity is the regulator with which it will be easier for you to keep your weight within normal limits, especially if you are inclined to be overweight. When the level of physical activity increases, the body speeds up digestion and burns fat stores. If we are not talking about losing weight, but about “keeping fit”, then it will be enough to allocate about 3 hours a week for training, but it is better to divide this time and do less, but more often. Daily half-hour workouts will be more useful than one three-hour one.
If you need more tangible results, and you want to not only maintain your current shape, but also lose weight, then you will need to play sports at least 2-3 times a week so that the body gets used to the loads. The exercise program should also be varied, even if you decide to focus on strength training, remember the importance of cardio.
Slimming for extreme sports
People tend to want everything at once, without making any serious efforts, advertising plays on this. Commercials talk about how you can lose weight without dieting and exercising, only with the help of “magic powder”. Dietary supplements gained their popularity due to the similarity with drugs. Meanwhile, manufacturers of bioactive supplements honestly warn that their products are not a medicine, and therefore, in the worst case, such drugs will not cause harm, however, there may not be any benefit from them.
But people are willing to pay for their own laziness. Instead of going to the gym or rethinking their diet, they are ready to part with rather big sums in the hope of a miracle. True, not all dietary supplements are really “dummy”.
Some preparations contain extracts of herbs and plants. On the one hand, such drugs can have an effect on the body, on the other hand, this effect can be unpredictable, especially if a person takes other medications at the same time as dietary supplements. Such experiments can be especially dangerous for people with dangerous chronic diseases, such as diabetes. The active substances contained in dietary supplements can either enhance or weaken the effects of drugs, and this can endanger human life and health, so it is not recommended to take dietary supplements without first consulting a doctor.
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