It is definitely quite difficult to answer how long you need to diet.
The rate of weight loss is an individual indicator. However, doctors consider minus 400-500 g per week to be the norm. Only with such indicators can the safety and effectiveness of a weight loss program be guaranteed.
The problem with faster results is that not only does it cause weight loss and weight gain to come back quickly, but it also wreaks havoc on our metabolism.
The “weight-kilogram” method will help you find out how long you need to diet
The essence of the method is as follows:
- You determine your ideal weight using a table available on the website of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences or any other authoritative medical resource. It would be better if you were already at a similar weight as an adult and can guarantee that maintaining it does not require complete starvation or other harsh measures.
Often girls take “the smallest value on the table” and cannot lose weight for years simply because it is physiologically impossible. - You calculate the difference between your own and ideal weight and, considering that you can lose 500 grams of weight in at least a week, determine the time frame.
- The last 2-3 kilograms will go away much more slowly; devote twice or even three times as much time to them.
- Now multiply the resulting number of weeks by 2. This is the period of “exit” from the diet, when you eat the same foods that were intended for weight loss, but with a calorie content that completely covers the body’s daily kcal requirement.
Does it take a long time and doesn’t at all remind you of “lose 5 kg in a week”? Relax, this is the only scientifically proven method for determining the duration of a diet. Only she can guarantee stable results for many years.
Analytical method for determining diet duration
More precisely, this method should be called “intuitive-experiential”. After all, it is intended for those of us who have been on more than one diet, but still cannot call our figure ideal.
It is no secret that any manipulations with the diet cause adaptation of the body. This effect is often called a “metabolic slowdown,” but there is no need to be afraid of it. Any changes are reversible, you just need to apply a competent strategy. But we note that for “experienced losers” the use of the first method may cause disappointment, because they will lose weight more slowly.
To determine the duration of the diet for yourself, you need:
- Analyze how quickly you lose weight on low-calorie diets. Remember all the diets you have been on over the past 8-9 months. Make a list with titles, durations, and plumb lines.
- Now identify the pattern. If you lose weight faster on a strictly calorie-restricted diet of less than 1200 kcal/day, but lose almost no weight on a normal caloric intake for your age, weight and height, your diet will last only as long as the slower you burn fat. in relation to the “reference” 500 g in 7 days.
This, by the way, does not mean that you need to go on another kefir diet; try to maintain at least 4-5 weeks of a balanced diet, and to lose weight faster, do exercises. After all, you wouldn't be reading this article if kefir worked in the long run, right?
It also happens that the rate of weight loss is absolutely normal, but you want to go faster. In this case, you should not be stricter with yourself, but more reasonable.
If you don’t need to “weigh this much for a certain event,” but just look cool, take up fitness to tighten your figure, and finally choose the right clothes instead of those that make you look bulkier. If we are talking about sports and the need to “squeeze into a weight category,” it is better to think 100 times about the advisability of “cutting” together with the coach, remember that athletes usually pay for excessive zeal in the result.
In any case, find a suitable diet and exercise program. Focus on your own taste and well-being in order to become not just slim, but finally happy.
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A good diet should not expose a person to a constant feeling of hunger; the stronger the hunger, the higher the chance of breaking the diet. We offer several recommendations for a diet without hunger pangs.
Human physiology and psychology oppose any unnatural restrictions, which is why most diets do not lead to the desired result. Hunger is a threat to the body, it manifests it in all possible ways, and immediately after satisfying hunger, the body strives to put aside as many reserves as possible in case the situation repeats. The unnaturalness of hunger is not a death sentence for someone who wants to lose weight; to satisfy hunger, it is not necessary to consume high-calorie foods and gain new kilograms.
Diet – protein component
Protein is the basis of nutrition for weight loss; it allows you to not stop the process of muscle growth, effectively fights hunger and requires large energy costs for digestion. Low-calorie sources of protein are chicken and turkey breast fillets, beef and pork tenderloin, lean fish with white flesh, natural yogurts and low-fat cottage cheese, protein shakes, egg whites (the yolk is too high in calories and contains fats).
Diet – carbohydrate component
There is a lot of debate about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of carbohydrates in the diet menu. Many people try to minimize their carbohydrate intake, but a better way would be to find a compromise. Many carbohydrate foods are quite suitable for consumption on a diet, such as oatmeal, legumes, fruits, berries, vegetables and herbs. When choosing fruits, you should give preference not to high-calorie bananas, but to citrus fruits or apples; the most preferred vegetables are varieties of cabbage and other leafy crops.
Diet – are fats appropriate?
It is wrong to completely deprive yourself of fats, even for dietary purposes; they must enter the body from healthy sources. If you are on a diet, then the list of foods from which you can get fats will be very short - meat, whole yoghurts and cottage cheese, dairy products and cheeses, eggs with yolk, fatty fish.
How to diversify food on a diet?
Often, hunger on a diet is not a consequence of malnutrition, but the result of a violation of established habits. If a person is accustomed to eating food with mayonnaise or cheese sauce, then the classic taste of the food will seem bland to him. Dietary does not mean tasteless, natural spices come to the rescue, they add taste and aroma to dishes, and at the same time contain practically no calories.
The best flavorings are soy sauce and lemon juice, varieties of vinegar and various spices, dried vegetables, roots and herbs.
It is important to choose the frequency of meals that suits you; now most recommendations come down to fractional meals, but this is not suitable for everyone. Many people feel better if they eat 3-4 times a day rather than 5-6 times a day, but eat slightly larger portions. Finding the best mode can only be done by trial and error.
A good diet should be flexible, and its components should be interchangeable. Sometimes, in order to overcome hunger, it is enough just to replace one product in the diet with another. If you try to force yourself into too strict limits, this will lead to a breakdown and a complete lack of results.
According to modern ideas, having a slim and healthy body is very prestigious. It is no longer a secret that with a beautiful figure it is easier to get a job and arrange a personal life. Slender people, as a rule, are devoid of various complexes; it is easier for them to move through life. Numerous diets allow you to lose extra pounds. The essence of any diet is to temporarily limit or eliminate certain categories of foods to achieve a goal.
Each has its own clear set of rules and prohibitions that must be strictly observed. Going on a diet is not difficult, it is much more difficult to follow it exactly and effectively limit yourself at all stages of losing weight. Let's try to understand all the psychological nuances of the diet.
How to start dieting
Before choosing one or another diet method, you need to clearly understand why it is needed, that is, choose a specific goal and follow it. Then losing weight will be planned and effective.
When choosing a diet, you should consider your health status. You should not prescribe your own diet if you have chronic diseases. In this case, you need to seek help from nutritionists.
How to diet properly
- You should learn to restrain yourself in food. Most often, people gain weight by eating excess food.
- It is necessary to eat in small portions 5-6 times a day. “Hungry” days are stressful for the body. Experiencing periodic hunger, the body adapts and stores up “nutrient” reserves for future use, so as not to experience such stress in the future.
- It is recommended to increase the amount of fresh vegetables and fruits in the diet. Prohibited foods should be excluded from consumption: sweet carbonated water, fatty, fried and smoked foods, fast food.
- Complete - a mandatory daily morning ritual.
- A number of diets include small snacks using fruits, low-fat dairy products, and herbal teas throughout the day.
- All diets recommend mandatory consumption of up to 2 liters of clean water per day.
- To effectively lose weight, you should increase your physical activity: morning jogging, gym, cycling, jumping rope, swimming are welcome. Daily morning exercises for 10-15 minutes, walking, replacing the elevator with walking up the stairs will be useful.
How long can you go on a diet?
It should be remembered that all diets have time restrictions on their use. There are hard ones that allow you to lose up to 5 kg within 3-5 days. Such diets should be used in extreme cases: you urgently need to lose weight for a wedding, beach season, New Year, in order to fit into your favorite dress, etc. After spending more than 7 days on such diets, you can get a serious health problem. Most often these are mono-diets, devoid of many substances and minerals beneficial to the body.
But because there are already restrictions, but there is no result yet. And if there is no result, why, one might ask, suffer so much? Allen Carr, in his book “The Easy Way to Quit Smoking,” talked about one of his patients who, without meaning to, explained why quitting smoking is so difficult. He said, “Oh, I could easily quit smoking if I could smoke while I do it!” Indeed: giving up cigarettes is a serious stress, but what does a smoker do when he is worried? He smokes, of course.
It's the same with diets. The body perceives sudden dietary restrictions as a stressful situation and demands a portion of endorphins, that is, pleasure. And delicious food is the fastest way to get out of stress. Now, if you could first lose weight and then go on a diet, everything would be much simpler: the brain would receive its endorphins at the moment when you look in the mirror at your updated figure. And I wouldn’t demand chocolate. That's why you can't lose weight and give up tasty treats later? We hasten to please you: you can! You just have to trick your brain.
Buy yourself some small plates
Surprisingly, but true: we really “eat” with our eyes. The larger the plate, the larger the portion. You won’t be able to trick your brain by putting an orphan half of a portion on a huge dish: even if this half contains your daily calorie intake, you will feel like you’re not full. But if you put the same portion on a dessert plate, you will definitely be full.
And let the plates be colorful and bright
Food looks prettier on white plates, of course. But the problem is that we unconsciously try to fill the white plate entirely, as if we were painting the background of a picture on a white sheet. But I don’t want to “shade” colored dishes anymore. And if it is also green, then you just want to put more fresh vegetables on it.
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Hide junk food
There is no need to build hiding places in hard-to-reach places. All you have to do is transfer the delicious goodness into opaque containers or wrap them in foil. And put healthy and dietary products in transparent containers or leave them completely uncovered. You open the refrigerator with the desire to eat something immediately and see a dark bag with sausage, and next to it a boiled chicken breast in a transparent container. Guess what you'll take? That's right, a piece of meat. Because you saw it, and your brain is already anticipating this particular taste. Although, actually, you wanted sausage.
Prepare breakfast in the evening
Breakfast is the main problem of those losing weight: you definitely need to have breakfast in order to “start” your metabolism, and you need to have a hearty breakfast so that you don’t have to chew cookies until lunch. But in the morning you either don’t have time to cook, or you don’t feel like doing anything. That's why you have breakfast with a sandwich and coffee, and two hours later you feel like you're ready to eat an elephant. But in fact, there are plenty of dishes that can be prepared the day before. You can buy a multicooker, and delicious porridge will be ready when you wake up. You can pour fermented baked milk over oatmeal and leave it overnight - it’s very tasty. And if you are not ready to give up sandwiches, you can make them with baked meat, prepared in advance. In general, the idea is simple: you wake up and there is ready-made food waiting for you. Question: “Shouldn’t I buy a pie on the way?” removed from the agenda.
Let there be water everywhere
There is a very funny trick: you take several glasses, fill them with water and put them in the refrigerator. As soon as you want something tasty, you open it, see these glasses and realize that you really wanted to drink. And you'll drink, but you won't eat. The fact is that we often confuse thirst with hunger. In addition, we drink too much coffee and carbonated drinks, which dehydrate the body. Therefore, let there be clean water not only in the refrigerator, but also on the table in the office, and at home - where you usually relax. At arm's length. Before you know it, you will stop drinking cola and get used to the taste of clean water.
Drink from tall glasses
The first rule of any diet is no alcohol. It's horrible. And so there are restrictions all around, and you won’t have any fun at parties. In fact, alcohol consumption can be limited, and completely unnoticed. Scientists conducted a fun experiment: they asked bartenders to pour one standard portion of strong alcohol into short and wide glasses, and the second into tall and narrow glasses. So, in the second case, even professionals with extensive experience underfilled by about 20%. The secret is simple: a vertical line seems longer than a horizontal one to us, even if they are the same. Therefore, a tall glass is “fuller” than a low one. So choose tall glasses, and if you like cocktails, ask for more ice. The portion will seem huge to you, although in reality you will drink very little.
Keep fruits and vegetables on the table
The secret is that you will never reach into the bottom drawer of the refrigerator for an apple, unless, of course, you are planning to bake a charlotte. Because there are a lot of interesting things in the refrigerator and on the shelves. Cake, for example. But if washed fruits and vegetables are in plain sight, you will simply grab something as you pass by. The fact is that our brain really likes to turn on the autopilot: what if there’s a war and he’s tired? That's why you snack the same way every day: completely thoughtlessly you take some cookie and chew it without noticing it. It would be better to take a tomato, of course, but you need to get it out, wash it... But now there’s no need, here it is, right at hand.
Don't eat straight from the package
Yes, we know that you don't eat as well as you can! And we don't eat either. Nothing. Except, perhaps, chips or crackers. And more chocolate. And a fresh baguette tastes better out of a bag, and you can pick up Nutella straight from the jar while no one is looking... In general, you understand, right? Packaging is a bottomless barrel, because we don’t see how much we eat, and the brain is sure that you, poor thing, weren’t fed at all. Get into the habit of putting everything on your plate so you can see how much you eat. By the way, chips in daylight are terrible rubbish, it turns out.
Don’t eat carbohydrates, forget about fats, look at sweets and starchy foods as enemies of the people. These rules have to be followed by those who are trying to lose weight thanks to the most famous and popular diet plans. But before you follow one of them, think: do you need such strict restrictions if a similar result can be achieved in other, more pleasant ways? What if, in order to lose weight easily and for a long time, you don’t have to starve, but, on the contrary, eat more? We have collected at least 7 reasons in favor of not going on strict diets, but simply reconsidering your eating habits a little. Here they are.
1. Carbohydrates help you lose weight; without them, it’s the opposite.
A joint study of several European institutes showed: the basis of the diet of the slimmer and thinnest people is... carbohydrates. But those who are overweight, on the contrary, pay undeservedly little attention to these substances. In numerical terms, the ideal carbohydrate content in the daily menu is up to 64% or approximately 361 grams per day. And this is 3 or 4 medium-sized baked potatoes, seasoned with vegetable, cereal or mixed side dish.
Naturally, the majority of low-carb diets suggest limiting the consumption of such foods to 30% of the daily diet. There are also those who prohibit eating more than 30 grams of carbohydrates per day. So it’s not surprising that after sudden weight loss they sometimes lead to even more weight gain.
2. “Diet stress” makes you overeat.
A lack of nutrients and a constant obsession with extra pounds leads those losing weight to stress and depression. There is also a purely physiological reason for this phenomenon: without carbohydrates, the brain cannot function normally, which negatively affects both mental abilities and mood. The result: the body produces excess amounts of stress hormones (such as cortisol), which increase your appetite and cause you to “attack” the refrigerator, eating everything in sight.
3. Cereals and bread suppress appetite, apples and cabbage inflame
Ask any “expert” in nutrition how to lose weight quickly and for a long time, and he will immediately advise you to give up flour, replace cereal side dishes with vegetables, and it is better to eat only apples. Don't believe such recommendations. Yes, sweet pastries and white bread really add extra centimeters to you; but whole grain bread, pasta and other products made from durum wheat do not at all provoke obesity, but quite the contrary. A recent study found that consuming carbohydrates in this form causes the brain to recognize that the body is "full." And then it speeds up metabolism, thereby preventing the formation of excess fat. Especially effective in this sense are products containing so-called resistant starch and fiber, such as new potatoes, bananas, and oatmeal.
As for apples, they also contain fiber, but the acid contained in these fruits provokes the secretion of gastric juice and causes an increased feeling of hunger. Therefore, remember: one apple before lunch is good. Eating nothing but apples will not lead to anything good.
4. “Forbidden” foods prevent you from overeating
Many carbohydrate foods are much more filling than fat and protein foods because they are processed by the body much more slowly. Thanks to this, the brain takes longer to believe that there is no need for nutrients yet, and, accordingly, does not send a signal to the stomach that you are hungry. These foods include legumes, brown rice, potatoes, bananas and durum wheat flour products (including bread and pasta, which are mistakenly sacrosanct for most dieters). A study from the University of Surrey showed that after eating at least one portion of such food per day (150-200 g), calorie intake the next day is reduced by an average of 10%. For clarity: 10% of the average woman’s diet is 150-200 kilocalories.
5. The more you eat, the more weight you will lose.
Many dietary regimes are based on so-called “fasting” days, when food intake is limited to a minimum in various ways. One of them is to give up breakfast and dinner and eat one meal at lunch.
This is completely wrong. The first meal of the day starts the metabolism and sets it up for the daily work schedule; that is, until we have eaten, the body thinks that it is sleeping and wastes energy very sparingly. It turns out that instead of losing extra calories, we deliberately interfere with their processing.
But if you eat something heartier for breakfast (for example, a bowl of oatmeal with fresh berries), your metabolism will immediately start working at full speed, and energy consumption per day will increase by as much as 25%!
6. Without flour, your belly will grow
Proper food makes various fat burning mechanisms work more actively, and its absence dulls them. Scientists have proven that when fiber or resistant starch passes through the gastrointestinal tract, the body releases special enzymes that help break down fatty tissue, especially in the abdominal area. An experiment on laboratory rats confirmed: these substances not only “burn off” excess fats, but also prevent the deposition of new ones, and the caloric content of food does not play a role.
7. Most diets are impossible to stay on.
A study by English sociologists showed: about 80% of diets end... in nothing. Desperate dieters either can’t stand it and return to their usual diet, or they can stand it, but then again eat up everything they lost with such difficulty. Moreover, the more complex the dietary instructions (if you need to count calories, look for special foods, eat by the hour, etc.), the greater the chance of failure for someone losing weight. So is it worth it to suffer so much and then return to the beginning again? As nutritionists say, it is much more effective not to invent some kind of temporary miracle diet for yourself, but to gradually switch to permanent proper nutrition. This will slowly but surely give you a slim figure and good health.
