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There is no magical
formula that will guarantee weight loss. The only answer is to take in
less energy and use up more.
If fewer calories are taken than your body
burns, you will lose weight. To maintain lower bodyweight our eating
habits
have to alter permanently.
No one knows precisely how many people are trying to lose weight at any
one time, but it could be as many as one in ten.
For many people it is a constant problem since if they are prone to being
overweight, reducing their weight to even an acceptable
level is only one
part of the challenge. Keeping it off or even at a suitable level is
equally hard because it is so easy to slip
back into the wrong eating
habits without realizing it and to put weight on again.
We should be more concerned with reducing body fat and not body weight.
Weight reduction should be gradual. It is better for our health that we
are not over-ambitious, unless one is grossly obese.
It is better if we
aim at a small and steady weight loss, rather than trying to lose all our
excess weight in a one or two weeks.
Weight loss in the first stage will
be greatest. This will slow down in the subsequent weeks, so do not get
disillusioned.
In fact some of the initial weight loss is caused by loss of water rather
than of fat tissue, which makes it very easy to regain.
Fat is unlikely to
come off evenly, it often comes off first from those areas that were not
especially fat in the first place. Continue
maintaining healthy eating
habits, the balance between your proportions will return to normal.
Motivation is very important, although many people recognize that they are
overweight and want to slim, the success rate is not
very high. It may be
a good idea to familiarize ourselves with the health risk attached to
being overweight/fat.
The energy value of Body Fat is about 32Kj per gm. Therefore to lose 1Kg
of adipose tissue (fatty tissue) in a week, reduction
of
energy content of
diets would need to be 32,000Kj below average weekly output. This would
mean taking in approximately
5000Kj
per day less than is needed. The
shortfall would be made by using surplus adipose tissue for energy.
A man who walks for one hour uses up 1250Kj. This is equivalent to only
40g of adipose tissue, so eating less food seems to
be
more effective than
taking exercise in reducing weight. A combination of both is probably
best.
Short term weight losses which result from various dieting represents loss
of water, glycogen and protein, rather than adipose
tissue. The best
solution is a long term change in diet and pattern of exercise.
"Slimming diets" must
always contain enough energy to keep basal metabolism active for normal
activity. It must also include
the
necessary proteins, vitamins and salts.
The diet should reduce sugar and fat, through some fats are essential. If
we want
to lose
weight, we must learn to leave the table while still
feeling hungry.
Slimming formulae are no move effective than a carefully regulated diet of
natural food. Before embarking down the diet road
we
would strongly
recommend seeking professional advice in order to have a diet which is
both nutritious and palatable. |
