Only two months until summer - time to take care of yourself! But you need to get in shape wisely. With the experts, we will find out how many kilograms you can lose in a month, why extreme diets are dangerous, and how to get rid of hunger by changing your diet.
We will tell you the basic rules that will help you get rid of excess weight.
Basic rules for safe weight loss
Everyone dreams of a "beach figure, " and it's very possible to sculpt it, even if you have dozens of extra pounds. But this is not a quick thing. Why is it not possible to lose more than 8 kg in a healthy way by the coming summer? What health problems can an extreme type of diet cause? And how, in the end, to lose weight properly? All these important questions are answered by nutritionist and gastroenterologist Svetlana Kovaleva.
"If we are talking about proper weight loss, then you need to immediately prepare yourself that it will not be quick, " said our interlocutor. — Because the body has accumulated certain components for a long time, and to reset those components, it also takes enough time. The speed of metabolic processes in people does not increase dramatically.
The main recommendations of doctors concern the main components of any diet: calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
The calorie issue
— The diet should not be too low in calories. Sometimes people begin to not only introduce fasting days into their diet, but can be said to switch to fasting. This is not correct, the body will not consider this as physiologically correct nutrition, it will only be stressed and will not understand what to do in this situation. Therefore, the reduction in the amount of food should be smooth, " said the nutritionist.
Separately, it should be said about the calorie content of each serving.
- If it turns out that you cannot eat breakfast, you skip lunch, then the total number of calories cannot be lost before going to bed. Because we have a circadian rhythm of the body, and in the evening the body is ready to sleep, and not to process the calories received.
Protein, fat and carbohydrates
However, thoughtless reduction of calories, even within normal limits, can harm health if you do not take into account the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the diet. What should it be?
Protein: counting correctly
Most people, when losing weight, need to consume the amount of protein in the normal range or slightly higher, doctors say. But how to calculate it? It's actually very simple:
— Usually at the beginning, depending on the level of overweight, protein is considered from 1 to 1. 5 grams per kilogram. This means pure protein. That is, say a person weighs 90 kg.
This means that he cannot eat 90 grams of chicken, but he has to calculate how much chicken, fish, and meat he needs so that they give him the required amount of protein. We have many calculators for this on the Internet.
In this case, directly, the chicken will be 450 grams. In addition, other products also contain protein, so here you can calculate in detail depending on what a person eats in general.
Fats: healthy and not so good
"Excessive fat, without a doubt, should not be in the diet, " said the nutritionist. - It is available in large quantities only in certain dietary options. When we touch on the issue of fat, its qualitative characteristics are important. You can use vegetable oil, or you can eat good beef, where we get protein, but also eat a lot of fat along the way. Although beef is not the worst option. There is usually pork.
Or you can use cold-pressed vegetable oil, with cake, with bitters. All beneficial substances are preserved there, and this oil is converted in a completely different way, unlike butter and some dairy products, for example, cheese, where there is more fat or oil.
Carbohydrates: change from simple to complex
— Often, the diet is based on reducing the amount of carbohydrates. But a more correct approach is to simply change its structure qualitatively.
First of all, it is necessary to reduce as much as possible simple sugar, or the so-called added sugar: sugar itself, cakes, ice cream and other sweet products dear to our hearts, says Svetlana Kovaleva. Anything made from flour, soft wheat pasta, refined rice and other simple carbohydrates should be excluded from your diet. To replace it with what?
— This is a more complete grain that needs to be cooked for a long time. Even oats can be cooked in five minutes, or they can be cooked longer. In addition, from side dishes where carbohydrates will dominate, we can also add protein - we are talking about legumes.
Simplicity and order
Correctly calculating the calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the nutritional diet will not be difficult at all if you adhere to another basic principle of proper nutrition - composing your diet from the most simple and understandable products. The long composition on the packaging is not our choice.
"It's only cereal, only chicken, not meatballs, meatballs, sausages or sausages, " Svetlana Kovaleva insisted.
In addition, the frequency and regularity of eating is very important.
- There are many different opinions on this matter. But practice shows that diversity is necessary. Especially as a gastroenterologist, I cannot ignore this topic. You need to eat at least three times a day, otherwise many of us like to eat once or twice - this will not work.
Drinking regime
"You also can't ignore the drinking regime, " said the nutritionist. — People who drink three glasses a day start coming more and more often. And it's also good if it's water, not tea or coffee. And all metabolic processes occur in the aquatic environment.
In addition, hunger is often misinterpreted. That is, it can become thirsty, so the drinking regime needs to be adjusted.
How much water should you drink every day? The famous eight glasses? Nope. As with other nutritional components, the amount of water required is calculated individually.
— There are also many calculation formulas, but at the beginning I recommend this formula: 25 ml per kilogram of weight. The daily norm of water appears, other conditional drinks, for simplicity, are taken as half of the amount of intoxication, and the calculation is carried out.
If a person takes less and has related problems, such as high blood pressure, then there is no need to reach this amount suddenly. You can add 200 ml every 2-3 days to assess your condition, pulse, blood pressure and analyze whether there is an increase in the amount of salt in your food, because this is the easiest option that helps retain water and increase blood pressure. Water itself usually does not contribute to this.
Do not forget about training
Changing your diet is the basis for losing weight, but we must not forget about physical activity, experts say.
— In rare cases, it is possible to achieve the desired rate of weight loss without physical activity, because cutting calories is one thing, but we still need to maintain muscle mass is another. We still want a beautiful figure, and in addition, the more muscles we have, the more intense the rate of metabolic processes in the body.
The choice of training program is also an individual matter, not to mention the fact that it is necessary to increase physical activity gradually and carefully. But this is a topic for another discussion.
Extreme weight loss and its dangers
Do you dream of losing a few tens of kilos before summer? Think about whether you are ready to sacrifice your health for such a dubious achievement. How much weight can you lose each month without harming your health?
"In a healthy regime, the medical community has accepted a rate of 4 kg, " answered the nutritionist. — That's about one kilogram a week. Of course, there may be individual differences: a little more, a little less, but when there is excess weight, fatty liver usually occurs.
Also, if there are repeated attempts to lose weight, then there may be stagnation of bile or stones that have already formed in the gallbladder. Therefore, it is important to provide the necessary support and ensure that the rate of weight loss is not too fast.
What will happen if you go to extremes and go on extreme diets or even starve yourself?
— First, the muscles will "melt" and water will leave the body. Because of this, you will feel bad - at least, your mood is not very good either. In addition, questions will arise regarding the function of the gastrointestinal tract: it is still a complex organ that must function regularly and correctly, otherwise problems may arise.
There may also be problems with the biliary system, and there may be many consequences of its dysfunction: from gastritis to motility disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, constipation, flatulence due to poor intestinal microflora function, etc.
If you decide to sit on mineral water or an extreme minimum of calories for a few weeks in order to fit into an evening dress for the holiday, remember: after such a diet you cannot avoid feeling unwell, headaches and other diseases, against the background of which eventhe hunger itself will not be so terrible. Therefore, doctors recommend, you should still prepare for important events in advance - or honestly buy clothes in your size.
The minimum number of calories in the diet
We have all heard that the average person needs about 2000 kilocalories per day. But, of course, this amount is very average: for some this is too much, while others will starve with such a calorie intake.
"This is all calculated individually, because people have different initial parameters, different types of activities, different ages, different preferences for playing sports, " emphasized Svetlana Kovaleva. — Therefore, I cannot say clearly about the upper limit.
The number of kilocalories to maintain and lose weight varies and also depends on how much people actually eat "at the beginning, " said the nutritionist. But if you suddenly "cut" 500 kilocalories from the "starting" calorie intake, the person will experience severe hunger - and such a diet will not lead to healthy weight loss.
— We now have many calculator applications that effectively calculate the number of kilocalories needed using certain formulas; this will be the easiest to use.
As for the lower calorie limit, doctors emphasize that you should not use a diet with a calorie content of 1000-1200 kcal per day - nothing good will come of it.
How to overcome hunger while losing weight?
Stopping heavy eating and switching to a healthy diet is not an easy task. Often along this path you may encounter not only an aversion to oatmeal and broccoli, but also extreme hunger. Even if the diet itself is balanced, the stomach, accustomed to a large amount of food, will send a desperate signal to the brain about the need to eat half a can again. How to be? A nutritionist shares a life hack:
- First of all, you need to gradually try to avoid a large amount of calories so that the body does not feel too hungry.
The second thing is to distribute food evenly. That is, if we have calculated a certain number of calories using several applications and eat them three times, and between us we feel terrible hunger, then we try to distribute the same amount of food into four meals. Because, if before one could eat bread or snack on a sandwich, now we try to take a more systematic approach to eating.
Hunger doesn't just appear on an empty stomach: sometimes we've eaten, but we feel like we haven't eaten. Then you just have to wait for a certain time. You can walk the dog, just go for a walk, distract yourself with something.
The fact is that the gastrointestinal tract needs time for the stomach to contract. If a person has eaten a lot, then the volume of the stomach is larger. Here we will wait longer for this effect.
But, in general, I recommend to distribute food evenly throughout the day, or come up with some kind of healthy snack that will not disturb our entire diet and lead to the fact that the number of calories will increase more than planned.