There are only two months left 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 many kilograms you can lose in a month, why extreme diets are harmful and how to eliminate 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 sculpt it, even if you have dozens of extra kilos. But this is not a quick thing. Why won't it be possible to lose more than 8 kg in a healthy way by next summer? What health problems can be caused by extreme diets? And how, in the end, to lose weight correctly? All these important questions are answered by nutritionist and gastroenterologist Svetlana Kovaleva.
"If we talk about proper weight loss, you need to immediately prepare that it will not be quick, " our interlocutor noted. — Because the body accumulates certain components for a long time and sufficient time is also needed to restore them. The speed of metabolic processes in people does not increase sharply.
The main recommendations of the doctor concern the main components of any diet: calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
Calorie problem
— The diet should not be too low in calories. Sometimes people begin not just to introduce fasting days into their diet, but practically switch to fasting. This is not correct, the body will not perceive it as physiologically correct nutrition, it will only be stressed and will not understand what to do in this situation. Therefore, reducing the volume of food should be gradual, " the nutritionist said.
Separately, the calorie content of each meal should be said.
- If it turns out that you can't have breakfast, you skipped lunch, the entire amount of calories should not be lost before going to bed. Because we have circadian rhythms of the body and in the evening the body prepares for sleep and not for processing the calories received.
Proteins, fats and carbohydrates
However, recklessly reducing calories, even within normal limits, can be harmful to your health if you do not take into account the amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in your diet. How should it be?
Proteins: count correctly
Most people, when losing weight, need to consume an amount of protein in the normal range or slightly higher, the doctor noted. But how to calculate it? It's actually very simple:
— Usually at the beginning, depending on the level of overweight, the amount of protein is considered to be between 1 and 1. 5 grams per kilogram. This 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 should count the amount of poultry, fish and meat he needs to receive the necessary amount of protein. We have many calculators for this on the Internet.
In this case, at first glance, the chicken will be 450 grams, besides, 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
"Excess fats, without a doubt, should not be in the diet, " noted the nutritionist. - They are provided in large quantities only in some 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, from which we get protein, but we also eat a lot of fat along the way. Although beef is not the worst option. Often there is pork.
Or you can use cold-pressed vegetable oils, with sweets, with bitters. All beneficial substances are stored there, and these oils are exchanged completely differently, unlike butter and some dairy products, for example, cheese, where there is more fat or oil.
Carbohydrates: moving from simple to complex
— Very often diets are based on reducing the amount of carbohydrates. But a more correct approach is to simply 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 cream and other confectionery products dear to our hearts, noted Svetlana Kovaleva. Anything made from flour, wheat pasta, refined rice and other simple carbohydrates should be eliminated from the diet. What to replace them with?
— They are more complete cereals that require prolonged cooking. Oatmeal can also be cooked in five minutes, or it can be cooked much longer. Furthermore, from the side dishes in which carbohydrates will predominate, we can also add proteins: we are talking about legumes.
Simplicity and regularity
Correctly calculating the calorie content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in dietary nutrition will not be difficult at all if you adhere to another fundamental principle of proper nutrition: make up your diet with the simplest and most understandable products. A long composition on the packaging is not our option.
"It's just cereal, just chicken, not meatballs, meatballs, sausages or sausages, " Svetlana Kovaleva emphasized.
Furthermore, the frequency and regularity of meals are very important.
— There are many different opinions on this topic. But practice shows that multiplicity 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.
Alcohol consumption regime
"You also can't ignore the drinking regime, " the nutritionist noted. — People who drink three glasses a day began to arrive more and more often. And it's good even if it's water, not tea or coffee. And all metabolic processes occur in the aquatic environment.
In addition, very often the feeling of hunger is interpreted incorrectly. That is, it may be thirst, then the alcohol consumption regime must be adjusted.
How much water should you drink per day? Those same infamous eight glasses? NO. As with other nutritional components, the required amount of water is calculated individually.
— There are also many calculation formulas, but to start with I recommend this formula: 25 ml per kilogram of weight. The daily norm of water appears, other drinks are conditionally, for simplicity, taken as half of the volume drunk and the calculation is carried out.
If a person consumes much less and has related problems, such as high blood pressure, there is no need to suddenly reach this volume. You can add 200 ml every 2-3 days to evaluate your condition, pulse, blood pressure and analyze whether there is an increased amount of salt in your food, because this is the simplest option that helps retain the water and increase blood pressure. Water itself usually does not contribute to this.
Don't forget about training
Changing your diet is the basis for losing weight, but we must not forget about physical activity, noted the expert.
— 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 another. We still want a good figure and besides, the more muscles we have, the more intense the rate of metabolic processes in the body will be.
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 that's a topic for another discussion.
Extreme weight loss and its dangers
Do you dream of losing a few dozen kilos before the summer? Think about whether you are ready to sacrifice your health for such a dubious result. How much weight can you lose per month without harm to your health?
"In a healthy regime, the medical community has accepted a dosage of 4 kg, " replies the nutritionist. — That's about a 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 have been repeated attempts to lose weight, there may be stagnation of bile or stones 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 rapid.
What will happen if you go all out and go on an extreme diet or even starve?
— First, the muscles will "loosen up" and the water will leave the body. Because of this you will feel bad - at a minimum, your mood will also not be very good. Furthermore, questions will arise about the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract: it is still a complex of organs that must function regularly and correctly, otherwise problems could arise.
There may also be problems with the biliary system, and the consequences of disruption of its functioning can be many: from gastritis to reduced motility of the gastrointestinal tract, constipation, bloating due to poor functioning of the intestinal microflora and so on.
If you decide to sit on mineral water or with an extreme minimum of calories for a couple of weeks in order to be able to wear an evening dress for the holidays, keep in mind: after such a diet you cannot avoid malaise, headaches and other ailments, against the background of which even hunger itself will not be so terrible. Therefore, the doctor advises, you should still prepare in advance for an important event or honestly buy a dress in your size.
Minimum number of calories in a diet
We've all heard that the average person needs around 2000 kilocalories per day. But, of course, this amount is very average: for some it is excessive, while others will starve with such a high calorie intake.
"All this is calculated individually, because people have different initial parameters, different types of activity, different ages, different options for playing sports, " Svetlana Kovaleva emphasized. — Therefore, I cannot speak unequivocally about the maximum limit.
The number of kilocalories needed to maintain and lose weight varies and also depends on how many people actually eat "at the beginning", the nutritionist noted. But if you sharply "eliminate" 500 kilocalories from the "initial" calorie intake, the person will experience terrible 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 required using certain formulas; this will be 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 by losing weight?
Giving up heavy meals 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 large amounts of food, will send desperate signals to the brain about the need to eat another half can. How to be? A nutritionist shares some tricks:
- 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.
The second point is to distribute meals evenly. That is, if we have calculated a certain amount of calories using an application and eat it three times, and in the meantime we feel terribly hungry, then let's try to distribute the same amount of food into four meals. Because, if earlier a person could eat a sandwich or snack on a sandwich, now we are trying to take a more systematic approach to meals.
Hunger doesn't just happen on an empty stomach: sometimes we've eaten, but it feels like we haven't eaten. So you just have to wait 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, his stomach simply has a larger volume. Here we will wait longer for this effect.
But, in general, I recommend distributing meals evenly throughout the day or coming up with some kind of healthy snack that will not disrupt our entire diet and lead to the fact that the number of calories will increase more than expected.