It happens like this: you go on a diet, do aerobics and - hooray!- started to lose weight.And then suddenly this wonderful process stopped.There is both diet and physical activity, but you won't gain a gram less, even if you break it!Plus, you start to gain weight again...
Why exactly does this happen?Scientists only recently received an answer to this question.It turns out that when you suddenly stopped losing weight, your body reached the weight that it, your body, “likes” the most.Well, it's convenient for him to live like this!When you try to lose more weight, your body takes countermeasures: your metabolism slows down and your appetite increases.This will continue until you return to the weight your body considers ideal for itself.The fact is that your body weight is determined by genetics.
Genetics
Each person has their own individual “factory settings” - pressure, blood sugar level, cholesterol.Some people have high blood pressure, while others have low blood pressure.Some people suffer from diabetes while others accept sugar.The situation is exactly the same with weight: for some it is natural to weigh 50 kilograms, and for others, unfortunately, all 90. These parameters set by nature are very difficult to adjust.The body resists and reacts with hostility to any attempt, especially a hasty one, to change its indicators.
What happens?If fate told you to be fat, so be it?No way!There are still chances to improve the genotype.True, then you will have to maintain your “unnatural” weight until the last day with training and diet.Life sentence?!Yes, but what is it?There's nothing worse than feeling short of breath and wearing an XXL dress.
What are your natural settings?To more accurately determine your “genetic” weight (which defines your weight loss threshold), answer the following questions honestly:
- What weight feels most “comfortable” for your body (in other words, what number has the needle on your home bathroom scale been hovering around for many years?)
- How much weight do you gain a month and a half to two months after finishing the diet?
- What was your maximum weight?
In all your answers (after the age of 25) approximately the same weight will appear - this is what genetics determined for you.How many kilograms does it differ from the current one - after aerobics and diet?If the difference is 10 pounds or more, then to maintain the gains you will have to work tirelessly.Well, what if you want to lose even more weight?This is a completely prohibitively difficult task!
By the way, about 10% of women will give different answers to all three questions.This means that nature has not assigned them strict limits.These “lucky women” lose and gain weight at will, surprising mere mortals with supernatural metamorphoses.For example, from an overweight woman to a model.And back.Are you not one of them?
Lose weight once and for all
Therefore, each of us (exceptions do not count!) has its own set weight, and losing more weight than was initially “allowed” by nature is very difficult.What if you try to change your own weight loss limit?Say, “convincing” the body that its “native” weight is 60 kg and not 90?At first glance, the task seems impossible.Argue with nature?Yes, it's the same as making the Sun go back!Fairy tales?Endocrinologists have definitively established that this is possible.
The secret is to maintain your desired weight with the help of a diet for 2 to 4 years.Imagine, the body gets used to the new weight, stops considering it “emergency” and then maintains it as “natural”.
You can also try to trick your own body.A small problem: how can it last for several years?Believe me, it's not that difficult if you live according to the algorithm developed by science.
Certainly...
Tasteless, but great.Thus, your body firmly protects your fat, slowing down your metabolic rate and stimulating your appetite.In addition, you are attracted precisely to “harmful” foods with a high calorie content, such as sweets and bread.On the contrary, you need to limit yourself to the table.As?Very simple.Choose foods that don't trigger your emotions or appetite.In short, it seems in bad taste to you.
Experiments have shown that the “natural” weight of rats fed unappetizing food will certainly decrease.Furthermore, they do not gain weight even if they are given fatty and high-calorie foods.Conclusion: the less you like what you eat, the fewer extra pounds you will gain.“Harmful” products (high-calorie, fatty and sweet), according to an incomprehensible law of nature, always taste better.This means you will inevitably eat more of them.Healthy products are out of luck.Most of them cannot be called tasty.So eat them!
Eat every 2.5-3 hours.Long breaks between meals are perhaps the most common mistake made by those who lose weight.The fact is that rare meals (every 4-5 hours) stimulate an increase in insulin and leptin secretion.And this pair of hormones is precisely responsible for the deposition of fat under our skin.If you eat frequently, insulin and leptin are released to a minimum.If you really want to lose weight, you need to break your traditional eating routine and replace it with snacks.To do this, you must take the food in boxes so that it is always at hand.
The healthy eating formula looks like this: 4-6 meals a day, 300-400 calories each.
Eat more!It sounds seditious, but this method really works.If you receive less than 1,200 calories per day, the body switches to an emergency, very economical, energy-wasting mode, and the metabolism “falls asleep”.To “crush it,” try eating 100-200 calories more than your individual norm suggests.Receiving excess calories, the body loses vigilance and easily gets rid of subcutaneous fat.
It seems like an impossible paradox, but on a starvation diet a person loses fat more slowly than on a reasonably balanced diet.Science has accurately calculated the difference in rates.If you stop eating suddenly, you will lose weight 10% slower than someone who exercises and maintains their caloric intake.
Vegetables
Load up on vegetables!This is your first ally in the fight against excess weight.They contain very few calories, but, most importantly, they are “bulky”.For this reason, you should start any meal with a large bowl of vegetable salad.This will fill your stomach and less of everything else will go into it.
Fruits
As for fruits, be careful with them.They have a lot of calories.To avoid overeating, it is best to chop the fruits and add them to the porridge.Fruit juices are completely contraindicated for you.Fruit calories are highly concentrated there, and manufacturers also add sugar to the juice to improve the flavor.
The formal basis of your diet should be carbohydrates with a low glycemic index - these are grains and other cereals, rice, legumes.You need to serve them with vegetables and add proteins three more times a day: lean meat, chicken, fish.
Fats
Fats must be healthy.Don't make the fatal mistake of ditching fats completely.Animal fats are harmful, but vegetable fats are healthy.Fats are joint “lubricants”, “raw materials” for the production of hormones.Fat deficiency results in psoriasis, hair loss, joint diseases and brittle nails.Don't eat anything fried in animal fat, but you can safely add a tablespoon or two of peanut or sesame oil to a vegetable salad.
And you should take fish oil without any restrictions.Contains omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.They will help you lose weight.During aerobic exercise, they “burn” with the formation of special compounds that prevent the accumulation of subcutaneous fat.
Don't eat chocolate candies.They contain so-called trans fats.They are added so that the sweets remain soft longer.It has been proven that trans fats are carcinogenic.
Drink water
Another key point on the way to losing weight is regular water.Water is removed from the body by the kidneys.When you drink a lot, the kidneys begin to work actively and at the same time the adrenal glands - the hormonal glands on top of the kidneys - are activated.They secrete more hormones and they all “burn fat”.The more you drink, the more weight you lose.There isn't much water!Furthermore, water carries with it metabolic byproducts.The less “garbage” there is in the blood, the less the load on the liver will be, and then it will be able to start burning fat without interference.
For those who forgot school biology: when you do aerobics, the increased blood flow tears off the fat molecules from the surface of the fat deposits, and they “burn”, giving energy to the muscles.But not all.The remainder travels through the bloodstream and ends up in the liver, which destroys them so that the blood does not thicken with fat and lose its fluidity.Along with the kidneys, the liver is committed to neutralizing the aforementioned metabolic “garbage”.If the kidneys take on most of this work, the liver will destroy more fat.Drink more!
Running to lose weight
Aerobics?But only intermission!Cardiovascular training with constant intensity is of little use.Cycling an hour on an exercise bike at the same pace is not only boring, but also useless: this activity only helps in the initial stages of the sport and then stops working.Modern science knows only one effective way to burn fat, which is called “interval” or circuit training.
What is that?This is what they call training based on the “sometimes fast, sometimes slow” principle.For example, after 30 seconds of incredibly high load, 60 seconds of low pace follow.And so on for all 25-30 minutes of training.The effect is impressive!The secret is that this type of aerobics sharply aggravates the secretion of the most powerful “fat-burning” hormones - norepinephrine and growth hormone.
Interval training is the only way to shake up a body that is tired of losing weight.
Don't overestimate aerobics.Physical activity actually helps you lose weight.This is an indisputable and scientifically proven fact.When, in one experiment, scientists forced rats to switch from a sedentary lifestyle to physical activity, they began to lose weight.But!If the rats were already moving a lot, it was pointless to increase physical activity - it didn't affect their weight.Conclusion: aerobics is not omnipotent.
Yes, if after many years of a sedentary lifestyle a woman starts doing aerobics, she will lose weight.But if you've been training for a long time, increasing aerobic activity may be useless.What should we do?To aerobics it is necessary to add a fundamentally different anaerobic load.Simply put, you need to do strength exercises.At least 3 times a week, do aerobic interval training for 25-30 minutes and train seriously two more times on the machines.
Why do you need muscles?The fact is that muscles are a living biosystem that needs nutrition.Muscles actively “consume” calories, even in a state of physical rest, when you watch TV and sleep.Adding an extra kilogram of muscle results in an automatic acceleration of metabolic processes by 2.5-3%.Thus, strength training will certainly speed up your metabolism, and with it fat burning, if aerobics refuses to do so.
Breathe deeper
Some people are genetically predetermined to be fat, while others are thin.The reasons for this injustice lie in the difference between the natural amounts of the two types of hormones.Some accumulate fat, others break it down.It seems that you need to analyze your own hormonal background to identify a genetic predisposition and take action.For example, if everything is fine with hormones, then “wrong” nutrition or lack of physical movement are to blame for obesity.However, all this work is very complicated and only a specialist of the highest standard can carry it out.
There is a simpler parameter that allows you to accurately determine who is at risk of gaining weight and who is not, even in a district clinic.This is the so-called respiratory coefficient, that is, the ratio between the volume of carbon dioxide exhaled and the volume of oxygen inspired.Thanks to this coefficient, you can understand where your body “prefers” to get energy from - from carbohydrates or fats.
People who have a high respiratory quotient “burn” carbohydrates.Fats as a source of energy take a backseat and, therefore, physical activity does not give a quick return.Well, those with a low coefficient, on the contrary, get energy from fat and lose weight quickly.Women with a high respiratory coefficient gain extra pounds, even when limiting their diet.
Let's change our lifestyle!
Losing weight is difficult not just because of the damn “set” weight.Habits and lifestyle play a huge negative role.For example, don’t eat anything for breakfast, eat too much at night, or add a ton of fat to everything – “to make it tastier.”Consequently, the rate of weight loss will largely depend on your general culture.
The following argument can be given in support.Among women from the lower social strata, about 30% are obese, among representatives of the middle class - 16%, and in the upper strata of society only 5% of women are overweight.Anyway, buy popular books on nutrition and finally discover all those proteins, fats and carbohydrates.You need to know exactly what is good and what is bad in nutrition.And teach this to your children.Otherwise, they will suffer from the same problems.
Let's say you break your diet.We need to sit down and figure out why.Each of us has our own list of “dangerous” situations.Here are some examples: sitting at your desk - putting sweets in your mouth, watching a movie on TV - chewing chips... All this needs to be carefully analyzed and a safe replacement for “dangerous” products must be prepared - apple, dried breads and the like.
Psychologists believe that transmission is rarely conscious.It is caused by eating in a hurry, when you eat in a hurry or want to get rid of food quickly and then eat automatically.It is precisely situations like these that need to be completely eliminated from life!Automatic eating is often triggered by eating in company.That's why psychologists advise developing the habit of eating alone.You can't watch TV and read at the same time!
When alone, it is easier to learn to eat slowly.And this is another secret to successful weight loss.Signals from the stomach to the brain increase very slowly - about 20 minutes.And all this time you will have the impression that you are hungry and have not eaten much, although your stomach has been full for a long time.Conclusion?Eat slowly.After 20 minutes, the brain will give the command to your appetite to “turn off the lights”, even if you have eaten less than half of your caloric intake.
Then, you will have to spend the next 2 to 4 years in a unique “genetic” experiment.Your family and friends will be shocked: you will become unrecognizably different.It seems like there's a hell of a lot of work ahead - sticking to a steady diet and exercising regularly for years.However, fitness professionals claim that there is no feat in all this.A person quickly gets used to good things.In a few months, all those who choke on junk food and do not know the joy of training will seem like aliens to you... Well, how can you live without fitness?