Only two months until summer - it's time to take care of yourself! But you have to get in shape wisely. With an expert, we will find out how much weight you can lose in a month, why extreme diets are harmful and how to get rid of the feeling of hunger by changing your diet.
We will tell you the basic rules that will help you get rid of extra pounds.
Basic rules for safe weight loss
Everyone dreams of a "beach figure", and it is quite possible to sculpt it, even if you have dozens of extra pounds. But this is not a quick thing. Why will it not be possible to lose more than 8 kg in a healthy way by the coming summer? What health problems can extreme diets cause? And how, finally, to lose weight correctly? Nutritionist and gastroenterologist Svetlana Kovaleva answers all these important questions.
"If we're talking about proper weight loss, then you should immediately prepare that it won't be quick, " notes our interlocutor. — Because the body has been accumulating certain components for a long time, and it takes enough time to reset them. The speed of metabolic processespeople do not grow suddenly.
The main recommendations of doctors refer to the main components of any diet: calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
A question of calories
— Diet should not have too many calories. Sometimes people begin not only to introduce fasting days into their diet, but practically switch to fasting. This is incorrect, the body will not perceive it as a physiologically correct diet, it will only be under stress and will not understand what to do in this situation. Therefore, reducing the amount of food should be smooth, " said the nutritionist.
Separately, it should be said about the calorie content of each meal.
- If it turns out that you can't have breakfast, you skipped lunch, then the entire amount of calories before going to bed should not be lost. Because we have circadian rhythms of the body, and in the evening the body prepares for sleep, not for processing the calories received.
Proteins, fats and carbohydrates
However, reckless reduction of calories, even within normal limits, can be harmful to health if the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the diet is not taken into account. What should it be like?
Proteins: counting correctly
Most people, when losing weight, should consume the amount of protein within normal limits or slightly higher, noted the doctor. But how to calculate it? It's actually very simple:
— Usually at the start, depending on the level of excess weight, 1 to 1. 5 grams of protein per kilogram is considered. That means pure protein. That is, let's say a person weighs 90 kg.
This means that he should not eat 90 grams of chicken, but calculate how much poultry, fish and meat he needs to give him the required amount of protein. We have many calculators for that on the internet.
In this case, on the hand, the chicken will be 450 grams. Plus, other products also contain protein, so you can calculate in detail here depending on what a person generally eats.
Fats: healthy and not so good
"Fat in excess, without a doubt, should not be in the diet, " noted the nutritionist. - They are given in large quantities only in certain dietary options. When we touch on the issue of fats, their qualitative characteristics are important. You can use vegetable oils, or you can eat hearty beef where we get protein, but along the way we also eat a lot of fat. Although beef is not the worst option. There is often pork.
Or you can use cold-pressed vegetable oils, with cakes, with bitters. All useful substances are stored there, and these oils are exchanged in a completely different way, not like butter and some dairy products, for example cheeses, where there is more fat or oil.
Carbohydrates: the change from simple to complex
— Most often, the diet is based on reducing the amount of carbohydrates. But a more correct approach is simply to qualitatively change their structure.
First of all, it is necessary to reduce simple, or so-called added sugars as much as possible: sugar itself, cakes, ice creams and other confectionery products dear to our hearts, pointed out Svetlana Kovaleva. Anything made from flour, soft wheat pasta, refined rice and other simple carbohydrates should be eliminated from your diet. What to replace them with?
— These are more complete grains that need to be cooked for a long time. Even oatmeal can be cooked in five minutes or much longer. In addition, we can also add proteins from side dishes where carbohydrates will predominate - we are talking about legumes.
Simplicity and regularity
Correctly calculating the calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in a dietary diet will not be difficult at all if you adhere to another basic principle of proper nutrition - compose your diet from the simplest and most understandable products. A long composition on the packaging is not our option.
"It's only cereal, only chicken, not meatballs, meatballs, sausages or sausages, " emphasized Svetlana Kovaleva.
In addition, the frequency and regularity of meals 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 regimen, " noted the nutritionist. — People who drink three glasses a day started coming more and more often. And it's good if it's water, not tea or coffee. And all metabolic processes take place in the water environment.
In addition, very often the feeling of hunger is misinterpreted. That is, it may be thirsty, so it is necessary to adjust the drinking regime.
How much water should you drink a day? Those same infamous eight cups? no. As with other nutritional components, the required amount of water is calculated individually.
— There are also many formulas for calculation, but at the beginning I recommend this formula: 25 ml per kilogram of weight. The daily norm of water appears, other drinks are conditionally, for the sake of simplicity, taken as half of the amount drunk and the calculation is made.
If a person consumes much less and has related problems, such as high blood pressure, then there is no need to suddenly achieve this volume. You can add 200ml every 2-3 days to assess your condition, pulse, blood pressure and analyze if you have an increased amount of salt in your food, as this is the simplest option to help retain water and increase blood pressure. Water itself usually does not contribute to this.
Don't forget about training
Changing the diet is the basis for losing weight, but we must not forget about physical activity, notes the expert.
— In rare cases, it is possible to achieve the desired rate of weight loss without physical activity, because reducing calories is one thing, but we still need to maintain muscle mass is another. We still want a nice figure, and plus, the more muscles we have, the more intense the metabolic processes in the body will be.
The choice of a training program is also an individual matter, not to mention that physical activity should be increased 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 the summer? Consider whether you are ready to sacrifice your health for such a dubious achievement. How many kilos can you lose per month without harming your health?
"In a healthy regime, the medical community has accepted a rate of 4 kg, " answers the nutritionist. - That's about a kilogram a week. Of course, there can be individual differences: a little more, a little less, but when there is excess weight, fatty liver usually occurs.
Also, if there have been repeated attempts to lose weight, then there may be stagnation of bile or already formed stones 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 an extreme diet or even starve yourself?
— First, the muscles will "melt" and the water will leave the body. Because of this, you will feel bad - at least, your mood will not be very good either. In addition, questions will arise regarding the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract: it is stillalways a complex of organs that must work regularly and properly, otherwise problems may arise.
There can also be problems with the biliary system, and there can be many consequences of disturbances in its functioning: from gastritis to motility disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, constipation, flatulence due to poor functioning of the intestinal microflora, etc.
If you decide to sit on mineral water or an extreme minimum of calories for several weeks in order to fit into an evening dress for the holiday, keep in mind: after such a diet, you cannot avoid a bad condition, headache and other ailments, against the background of which even hunger itself will not be soterrible. Therefore, the doctor recommends, you should still prepare in advance for an important event - or honestly buy a dress in your size.
The minimum number of calories on a diet
We've all heard that the average person needs about 2000 kilocalories a day. But, of course, this amount is very average: for some, this is too much, while others will starve on such a calorie intake.
"It's all calculated individually, because people have different initial parameters, different types of activities, different ages, different opportunities to play sports, " emphasized Svetlana Kovaleva. — So, I can't unambiguously say about the upper limit.
The number of kilocalories for maintaining and losing weight varies and also depends on how much people actually eat "at the beginning", noted the nutritionist. But if you sharply "cut" 500 kilocalories from the "initial" caloric intake, a person will experience terrible hunger - and such a diet will not lead to healthy weight loss.
— Now we have many calculator applications that efficiently calculate the required number of kilocalories using specific formulas; this will be the easiest to use.
As for the lower caloric limit, the doctor stressed that one should not resort to diets with a calorie content of 1000-1200 kcal per day - nothing good will come of it.
How to fight hunger while losing weight?
Giving up heavy meals and switching to a healthy diet is not an easy task. Often along this path, you can encounter not only an aversion to oatmeal and broccoli, but also extreme hunger. Even if the diet itself is balanced, the stomach, accustomed to large amounts of food, sends desperate signals to the brain about the need to eat half a can. How to be? Nutritionist shares life hacks:
- First, you need to try to gradually move away from a large amount of calories so that the body does not feel this hunger too much.
Another thing is the even distribution of meals. That is, if we have calculated a certain amount of calories using an application and eat it three times, and in between we feel terrible hunger, then we try to distribute the same amount of food in four meals. Because, if earlier a person could eat a bun or a snack on a sandwich, now we are trying to systematically approach meals.
Hunger doesn't just appear on an empty stomach: sometimes we've eaten, but we feel like we haven't. Then you just have to wait a certain amount of time. You can walk the dog, just 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 his stomach is simply larger in volume. Here we will wait longer for this effect.
But in general, I recommend that you spread your meals evenly throughout the day, or come up with a healthy snack that won't disrupt your overall diet and cause your calorie count to increase more than you intended.