Frequently asked questions about slimming
Why is it recommended to lose weight slowly or why fast weight loss is not recommended?
Of course, we all want to achieve the desired result faster, unfortunately for everyone "Fast" diets There is one big drawback - fast weight loss almost always ends with the same fast and even greater weight return.
Why is this happening? The short answer is - you are not losing fat, but your gut, water and muscles. Yes, the weight is temporarily lost, but the "old" jeans are still too small, you are itchy, stressful and want to lose weight…
I recommend slower but steady weight loss to my clients - a maximum of 1.6 kg per week. You may feel that it is very little - try it and you will see that not only will you lose weight, you will also reduce your waist, hips, thighs and you will not only weigh less, but you will also look slimmer and feel better.
Repeated studies over several years have shown that this type of weight loss is the most optimal, healthy and produces a stable and long-lasting result. If you want to lose weight before the holidays - then just start acting in time, instead of panicking a few days before the important date to look for different miracle diets and miracle pills or starving yourself
Is being overweight dangerous to health?
First of all, being overweight affects your quality of life - being overweight is growing and you won't feel much growth until you start to strap on your shoes, but imagine how you would feel if you carried a 30kg ball every day - and then get rid of it.
There have been several studies comparing healthy people with normal weight and healthy people who are overweight. As a result, the second group is found to have a significantly higher risk of developing or even dying from cardiovascular disease.
A study in the United States involved seemingly healthy people who were overweight, and in 20 years, more than half of them became unhealthy.
The risk was eight times higher than in the normal weight group.
Risks include, but are not limited to, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, sleep apnea, arthritis and joint problems, reproductive health problems, asthma, back pain, urinary incontinence, and stroke.
I ate so little but did not lose weight. Why is it?
Setting: "The main thing is not to swallow!" - Leads to weight gain! The main thing is not how much you eat, but what you eat. What matters is not the amount, but the balance of protein, carbohydrates, fats and calories in the menu!
How to avoid cravings for sweets?
Eating a balanced diet will provide your body with all the necessary nutrients and reduce cravings for sweets. Many of my clients admit that after they changed their eating habits, their craving for sweets decreased significantly or even disappeared altogether.
For illustration - one chocolate candy has an average of about 60 calories, 100g of chicken fillets - about 110 calories, 100g of green vegetables - about 25 calories.
5 chocolates = 200g chicken fillets with 300g vegetable salad. After eating 5 candies you will still be hungry, after eating chicken fillet with vegetable salad you will feel eaten. Everything is simple - we need to learn to combine products properly so that what we eat is both delicious and provides us with all the necessary nutrients and there are no extra calories that our body can turn into fat.
Is it worth skipping breakfast to lose weight faster?
No, under no circumstances! As scientists have found, the conversion of food calories into fat is very uneven throughout the day.
The calories taken in the morning are the "safest". The closer you get to the evening, the more likely it is that the calories you eat will end up in a layer of fat under your skin. Therefore, breakfast should be the richest in calories. What's more, if you miss breakfast, you will start to feel hungry until noon and you will eat a lot more than usual in the middle of the day, and this is the straightest way to become obese.
A full breakfast will not allow your appetite to expand for lunch or dinner, and you will be satisfied with reasonable portions. In addition, a hearty, wholesome, high-calorie breakfast significantly speeds up both the body's metabolism and fat-burning process. And the faster your metabolism, the more fat will burn during the day.
Can I lose weight faster by reducing the number of meals?
No, on the contrary, if you want to burn fat, you have to eat more often than usual. Divide your required daily caloric "dose" into 4-5 meals.
This way, you will consume fewer calories per meal, which means that your body will use them without any leftovers. Without a balance - this means that it will not have any reserves to "deposit" in your hips and waist, reserves that usually occur if you eat 3 times a day and larger portions. In addition, this diet interferes with your body's biochemistry, reducing the secretion of insulin, which converts carbohydrates into subcutaneous fat.
Increasing the number of meals will have an even greater effect if you arrange their calories in the form of pyramids: your morning meals will be the most calorie-rich, and then with each subsequent meal, the amount of those calories will decrease. By eating often and regularly, the body will get used to it and will know when it will be "fed" again. Thus, the emergency mode to build up fat reserves for off-white days will not be turned on and the body will take energy from the existing fat reserves.
Conversely, if your body is "fed" irregularly and with fewer calories, the body turns the calories it receives into a "reserve for white days" (fat!) With the thought, "I'd better put that in reserve, who knows when I'll be fed next…"
How many fewer calories a day is needed to start burning fat?
If you rapidly reduce the number of calories consumed (by 35-40%), then the effect will be short-lived - this is the calorie deficit that is the basis of "fast" diets. After two weeks, the weight loss will stop as "thrown in". This is because when you start this "diet", your body panics and slows down your metabolism to save the energy it needs to survive in such a drastic nutritional deficit.
Experience shows that it is recommended to reduce the total number of calories per day by 10-15%. It is enough to start the process of burning fat and you will also have energy left to continue as active a life as before you start losing weight.
Is it true that apple cider vinegar helps to lose weight?
No, to date there is no scientific evidence that apple cider vinegar stimulates weight loss in any way. Proponents of vinegar claim that consuming one or more teaspoons of vinegar a day reduces appetite and helps burn fat. None of these claims have been clinically tested. Apple cider vinegar has a high concentration of acid and can burn the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat quite strongly. In addition, apple cider vinegar, together with other medicines, can cause dangerous and unpleasant effects. Various strange and completely unjustified diets promise quick and easy weight loss, but remember that there is no "miracle diet" that will help you get rid of excess kg quickly and easily. If you want to lose weight and get rid of excess fat, believe me, there is nothing more effective than a well-balanced diet combined with physical activity.
Is it true that eating late at night contributes to obesity (do not eat after 18:00…)?
No, this only applies to those who have a tendency to become obese since birth. For others, a reasonable meal with a small amount of carbohydrates (or no carbs at all) will not do you any harm late at night.
It all depends on the total number of calories consumed per day. If you really consume most of the daily calories in the evening, then, of course, it can cause fat to build up in your body. However, if you do not exceed the amount of daily calories required for the maintenance of your life processes + consumed in physical activities - then there is no risk. Therefore, I repeat - eating in the evening alone does not threaten obesity, it is important not to exceed the total amount of calories you need per day.
If the total amount of calories you need per day starts to exceed what you need, then you will start to become obese no matter what time you eat.
Why is the consumption of protein (protein) so important?
Reducing calories at the expense of protein is the biggest and most common mistake of slimming! Many, proud to lose weight, proudly say that they have given up meat. This is a mistake! On the one hand, meat contains not only protein, but also fat (and not "good"). On the other hand, the human body needs glutamine, alanine, amino acids, which in turn can get only from products that contain protein. If your diet is very low in protein, then all of these essential amino acids will be taken from your muscle tissue. This, in turn, will significantly slow down your metabolism and the consequences - the process of burning fat will become practically impossible.
Remember that any diet should contain at least 0.8 g - 1.5 g of protein per 1 kg of your weight. Otherwise, you will achieve the opposite - the process of slimming and burning fat will slow down or even stop altogether.
Meat should be cooked either by cooking, stewing or grilling - do not fry it in fat or oil, so as not to increase the fat content in it.
The best sources of protein are eggs, cottage cheese, chicken fillet, chicken (without skin), beef or veal, fish.
How does fat build up on our hips, legs, stomach? What products to choose to reduce them?
The body converts the absorbed carbohydrates into glucose and delivers it to the muscles. Excess glucose (excess that is not consumed) is converted into fat under your skin.
If you start reading the information on the product labels purposefully and consciously choose products with low fat content, it will not help you to become slimmer, because such products usually contain a lot of sugar - so a lot of carbohydrates (salmon - calories). Juices are no way out in this case either, for the same reason - they contain sugar. Sugar juices are added instead of a preservative. What to do then? The way out is one - choose to cook only from natural and unprocessed products!
How much fat do you need to absorb to keep your body slim and firm?
The fat ingested with food is the first to settle under our skin, on our stomachs, hips and legs. A diet based on too much fat will cause obesity faster than a diet that is too high in carbohydrates.
And, however paradoxical it may be, completely giving up fat in your diet will not lead you to slim body. The explanation is that it is fat that is the raw material for the production of many hormones, including those that are responsible for burning fat. Fat deficiency leads to a decrease in the production of these hormones and even stops the weight loss process at relatively high physical activity.
The critical amount of fat that the body should consume per day with food is not less than 0.6 - 1gr per kg of its own weight.
Which fat is better to choose then? The best sources of fat are fish, olive oil, linseed oil, nuts, avocados.
If I want to lose weight - should I eat less carbs?
Research confirms that we must not completely eliminate carbohydrates from our diet. By eliminating them from the diet, we change our metabolism (metabolism), but as soon as we start taking them in again, the weight returns, and with gains. In addition, carbohydrates are our source of energy. One of the optimal calories needed is 30% of protein, 55% of carbohydrates and 15% of fat.
1 gram of carbohydrates in our body is retained by 3 grams of water - that's why when we use low-carbohydrate diets, we actually lose not fat, but water, because the body artificially reduces the amount of carbohydrates. Therefore, even with these diets, the weight is lost quickly, but then also regains the same speed and speed.
Carbohydrates can be divided into "ordinary" and "complex". The former are rapidly absorbed, causing very strong insulin production. The latter are usually quite high in fiber and are therefore absorbed slowly and gradually without causing rapid insulin production.
Ordinary carbohydrates are found in large quantities in confectionery, sweets, but complex carbohydrates are found in cereals, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. There is no need to specifically limit complex carbohydrates, the main thing is to calculate the amount of daily you need. We can calculate the required amount of carbohydrates based on the amount of calories you need per day. Subtracting the calories from protein and fat from this amount can calculate how many carbohydrates you need to consume.
The healthiest sources of carbohydrates: brown rice, buckwheat, beans, peas, whole grain oatmeal porridge from various cereals.
Can I get fat from pasta and bread?
You can get fat from everything. If you take in more calories than you need - any product that contains kcal in your body can turn into fat. Bread and pasta (whole grains) are actually the main sources of complex carbohydrates that are needed to give you the energy you need on a daily basis. It doesn't matter if it's bread, pasta or anything else - it's important how you make them and how much you eat them.
Is it true that you have to drink a lot of water to lose weight?
Yes! Water is needed for the "fat burning process" to take place. You should drink at least 8-10 glasses of clean water a day, regardless of whether you want to drink or not. Water is also needed for muscle toning.
Which diet is best?
If a diet has a "Name", it probably doesn't "work." I do not recommend "fast" diets, because although they lose weight, they are then regained. Many of my clients have tried "all possible diets" and the weight has only increased after each. In addition, the body no longer "understands" what is happening, and instead of working on weight loss, I must first help restore it to normal.
There are no "miracle diets" or "miracle tablets". if you wish lose weight healthy - so that it does not come back - the only safe solution is a balanced diet with a deficiency of 10-15% calories and a change in eating habits. By "balanced diet" I mean a menu that aims to absorb all the necessary nutrients for the body - so that the body lacks nothing, so that your skin, hair, nails - are healthy and beautiful and at the same time you become not only lighter, but also slimmer.