Only two months until summer - time to take care of yourself! But you have to get in shape wisely. Together with an expert, we will find out how many kilograms you can lose in a month, why extreme diets are harmful and how you can 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 excess weight.
Basic rules for safe weight loss
Everyone dreams of a "beach figure", and it is quite possible to form it even if you have dozens of extra pounds. But this is not a quick thing. Why will it not be possible to gain more than 8 in a healthy way by next summerkg to lose weight? What health problems can be caused by extreme diets? And how to lose weight correctly in the end? Nutritionist and gastroenterologist Svetlana Kovaleva answers all these important questions.
"If we talk about proper weight loss, you need to immediately prepare for the fact that it will not happen quickly, " our interlocutor noted. — Since the body has been accumulating certain components for a long time and it also takes enough time to reset them. The speed of metabolic processes in humans does not increase sharply.
The doctor's main recommendations concern the main components of any diet: the calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
Calorie problem
— The diet should not be too low in calories. Sometimes people not only begin to introduce fasting days into their diet, but practically move on to fasting. This is wrong, the body will not perceive this as a physiologically correct diet, it will just be stressed and not understand what to do in this situation. Therefore, reducing the amount of food should be done smoothly, " said the nutritionist.
Separately, we should talk about the calorie content of each meal.
- If it turns out that you can't eat breakfast or skipped lunch, you should not lose the entire amount of calories before bedtime. Because we have circadian rhythms of the body and the body prepares itself for sleep in the evening and not for processing the calories consumed.
Proteins, fats and carbohydrates
However, thoughtlessly reducing calories, even within normal limits, can be harmful to health if you do not take into account the amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the diet. How should it be?
Proteins: count correctly
Most people need to consume an amount of protein in the normal range or slightly more to lose weight, the doctor noted. But how do you calculate it? Actually it is quite easy:
— Depending on the extent of excess weight, a protein content of 1 to 1. 5 grams per kilogram is usually expected at the beginning. That means pure protein. Let's say a person weighs 90 kg.
This means that he should not eat 90 grams of chicken, but should count how much poultry, fish and meat he needs so that he gets the amount of protein he needs. We have many computers on the Internet for this purpose.
In this case, the chicken easily weighs 450 grams. In addition, other products also contain protein, so here you can calculate in detail, depending on what a person generally eats.
Fats: healthy and not so good
"Excess fats, undoubtedly, should not be included in the diet, " noted the nutritionist. - They are provided in large quantities only in certain diet options. If we touch on the topic of fats, their qualitative properties are important. You can use vegetable oils, or youWe can eat hearty beef where we get the protein, but also eat a lot of fat. Although beef is not the worst option. Often there is pork.
Or you can use cold-pressed vegetable oils, with cakes, with bitter substances. All useful substances are preserved there, and these oils are exchanged in a completely different way, not like butter and some dairy products, for example cheese, where there is more fat or oil.
Carbohydrates: Go from simple to complex
— Most often, diets are based on reducing the amount of carbohydrates. However, a more correct approach is to simply qualitatively change their structure.
"First of all, it is necessary to reduce as much as possible simple or so-called added sugar: sugar itself, cakes, ice cream and other confectionery that is dear to us, " noted Svetlana Kovaleva. Everything made from flour, soft wheat pasta, refined rice andOther simple carbohydrates should be eliminated from your diet. What should you replace them with?
— These are more wholesome cereals that need to be cooked for a long time. Even oatmeal can be cooked in five minutes, or it can be cooked much longer. We can also add protein to side dishes where carbohydrates predominate - we're talking about legumes.
Simplicity and regularity
Correctly calculating the calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the dietary diet will not be so difficult 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 an option for us.
"It's just cereals, just chicken, no meatballs, meatballs, sausages or sausages, " Svetlana Kovaleva emphasized.
In addition, the frequency and regularity of meals is very important.
— There are many different opinions on this topic. 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 - that won't work.
Drinking regime
"You can't ignore the drinking regime either, " the nutritionist noted. — People who drink three glasses a day became more common. And it's also good if it's water, not tea or coffee. And find all the metabolic processestakes place in the aquatic environment.
In addition, the feeling of hunger is very often misinterpreted. That is, it could be thirst, so the drinking regime needs to be adjusted.
How much water should you drink per day? The same infamous eight glasses? No. As with other food components, the amount of water required is calculated individually.
— There are also many calculation formulas, but for starters I recommend this formula: 25 ml per kilogram of weight. The daily amount of water is displayed, for convenience other drinks are conditionally taken as half the amount drunk and the calculation is carried out.
If a person is consuming significantly less and has associated problems, such as high blood pressure, there is no need to suddenly reach this amount. You can add 200 ml every 2-3 days to assess your condition, pulse, blood pressure and analyze whether your food has increased salt content, as this is the easiest way to retain water and increase blood pressure. Water itself usually doesn't contribute to this.
Don't forget about training
A change in diet is the basis for losing weight, but physical activity should not be ignored, the expert emphasized.
— In rare cases, it is possible to achieve the desired weight loss without physical activity, because reducing calories is one thing, maintaining muscle mass is another. We still want to have a beautiful figure and the more muscles we have, the more intensive the metabolic processes in the body will be.
Choosing a training program is also an individual matter, not to mention that it is necessary to increase physical activity gradually and carefully. But that is a topic for another discussion.
Extreme weight loss and its dangers
Do you dream of losing a few dozen pounds before summer? Think about whether you are ready to sacrifice your health for such a dubious achievement. How much weight can you lose per month without harming your health?
"The medical community has accepted a value of 4 kg in a healthy diet, " answers the nutritionist. — That’s about one kilogram per week. Of course, there can be individual differences: a little more, a little less, but obesity usually results in fatty liver disease.
Even with repeated attempts to lose weight, stagnation of bile or stones that have already formed in the gallbladder can occur. Therefore, it is important to provide the necessary support and ensure that weight loss does not progress too quickly.
What happens if you go to extreme lengths and go on an extreme diet or even starve yourself?
— First, the muscles "melt" and the water leaves the body. This will make you feel bad - at least your mood will not be very good either. In addition, questions arise about the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract: it is still a matter ofa complex of organs that must function regularly and properly, otherwise problems can arise.
There may also be problems with the biliary system, and dysfunction can have many consequences: from gastritis to impaired motility of the gastrointestinal tract, constipation, flatulence due to poor functioning of the intestinal microflora and so on.
If you decide to give up mineral water or an extreme minimum of calories for a few weeks in order to fit into an evening dress for the holiday, remember: malaise, headaches and other ailments cannot be avoided after such a diet. Given this, even hunger itself will not be so terrible. That's why, the doctor recommends, you should still prepare for an important event in advance - or, frankly, buy a dress in your size.
Minimum number of calories for a diet
We have all heard that the average person needs around 2000 kilocalories per day. But of course, this amount is very average: for some it is too much, while others starve to death with such a calorie intake.
"This is all calculated individually, because people have different initial parameters, different types of activities, different ages, different opportunities to play sports, " emphasized Svetlana Kovaleva. — Therefore, I cannot make a clear statement about the upper limit.
The number of kilocalories needed to maintain and lose weight varies and also depends on how many people actually eat "in the beginning, " says the nutritionist. However, if you sharply "cut off" 500 kilocalories from the "initial" calorie intake, the person will feel oneterrible hunger - and such a diet does not lead to healthy weight loss.
— There are now many calculator applications that use certain formulas to effectively calculate the required number of kilocalories; this is the easiest to use.
Regarding the lower calorie limit, the doctor emphasized 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 deal with hunger while losing weight?
Avoiding heavy meals and switching to a healthy diet is not an easy task. Often on this route you not only encounter an aversion to oatmeal and broccoli, but also extreme hunger. Even if the diet itself is balanced, the stomach, accustomed to large quantities of food, sends desperate signals to the brain that half a can still needs to be eaten. How to be? A nutritionist shares life hacks:
- Firstly, you need to try to give up a large amount of calories gradually so that the body does not feel this hunger too strongly.
The second point 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 feel terribly hungry in between, then we try to distribute the same amount of food over four meals. Because while previously it was possible to eat a roll or a snack on a sandwich, now we try to approach meals more systematically.
Hunger doesn't only occur on an empty stomach: sometimes we have eaten something, but we feel like we haven't eaten anything. Then you just have to wait a certain amount of 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. When someone has eaten a lot, their stomach simply has a larger volume. Here we will wait longer for this effect.
In general, however, I recommend distributing meals evenly throughout the day or coming up with a healthy snack that doesn't mess up our entire diet and cause the number of calories to increase more than planned.