The minds of millions of people all over the world are occupied by the best diet that can help you lose weight and at the same time consolidate the result. Doctors are sounding the alarm because the number of obese people is growing every day. How to get out of the "work-sofa-refrigerator" vicious cycle and get in shape?
Where does excess weight come from?
The incidence of obesity in a civilized society is increasingly common, despite the absence of changes in genes, that is, in heredity. A modern person no longer has to hunt a mammoth to get food for himself and his family. After all, just dial a phone number and the pizza delivery guy will be knocking on the door within minutes. Electronics and other new technologies have made life much easier for today's Homo sapiens. Many people are engaged in mental work, spending most of their time in a stationary position, and this upsets the body's energy balance, that is, the balance between energy absorbed - calories received and calories expended.
Inadequate nutrition only exacerbates this process and, as eating habits are formed from childhood, it turns out that an adult person is overweight and unintentionally causes its appearance in their children. Obesity affects entire families and this trend is only growing.
Here are the most common causes of being overweight:
- Sedentary lifestyle, hypodynamia.
- Chronic fatigue, stress.
- Lack of sleep. Few people know that lack of sleep leads to overeating, and that's a direct path to obesity.
- Heredity.
- Endocrine diseases - hypothyroidism, etc.
- Psychological eating disorder.
- Taking certain medications, such as hormonal contraceptives.
Obesity is becoming a real problem and it's not about aesthetic appeal. It is one of the most common causes of death across the world today. Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy Saori Sakaue, along with his mentor Professor Yukinori Okada, conducted a study and found that blood pressure and obesity directly affect life expectancy. The results were presented at the 2019 American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in Houston, Texas.
Why diets don't work
Many of those who are losing weight, who have tried a variety of nutrition systems, fail to understand why even the most effective diet does not work? Indeed, it often happens that the chosen way of losing weight almost instantly helps a person to get rid of excess weight, but as soon as he returns to his usual way of life, the loss returns again, often taking with him extra pounds. A person falls into a vicious circle, experiments on himself and his health, but this only worsens the existing state of affairs.
Here are the most common causes of these problems:
- reduction of caloric content to critical levels. Typically, a person, depending on gender, needs 2500-3500 kcal per day. A decrease in daily caloric intake to 1500 kcal or less leads to a significant lack of nutrients. The body cannot long exist in such a regime, which inevitably leads to breakdowns and a return to normal;
- complete exclusion of any products. Some diets prescribe the rejection of fatty foods or carbohydrates. But to maintain a normal life, the body needs proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Refusing anything is fraught with a variety of unpleasant consequences. For example, a ketogenic diet can lead to ketoacidosis, a serious condition associated with intoxication and dehydration. Yes, this diet is practiced for certain ailments, but this process is strictly controlled by a physician;
- non-compliance with mealtimes. Proper nutrition provides for meals divided into small portions and this is far from accidental. In this condition, the digestive system works like clockwork, it is not overloaded and the body is not starved, which means that the risk of overeating is reduced to zero;
- moral torture. If the chosen diet promises weight loss by 10 or more pounds, the person is ready for anything. He mentally tortures himself, completely refusing his favorite foods. And the result of that approach is a--a breakdown.
How to choose the most effective diet?
Thus, it turns out that the most effective diet is the one that can be followed for a lifetime. This is exactly what nutritionists believe, promoting adequate and rational nutrition. Therefore, it is necessary to change the very approach to the choice of products, the cooking method, the consumption time, etc. If you cannot do it yourself, it is better to seek help from a competent specialist, because often a person does not understand what he is doing wrong. It turns out that just one refusal of a late dinner is enough to get the process off the ground.
You should not think that all overweight people eat fast food and convenience foods. They can eat the same food as everyone else but still gain weight. Someone like that takes advantage of stress and someone just suffers from a concomitant illness, for example diabetes, but doesn't know it yet. The approach here must be complex and diet therapy is just one of them. According to American psychologist Tracy Mann, popular diets among people are often useless as a means of fighting excess weight. The first thing to do is calculate the usual caloric content of the diet and reduce it by 500 kcal below the adequate energy requirement.
In addition, it is recommended that you increase your physical activity without fail. What kind of sport it will be - it is up to the person to decide, because a positive result will be noticeable only under the condition of regular classes, which means that the load should be pleasant, bring pleasure. Not everyone likes to carry heavy weights in the gym, and on top of that, many are self-conscious about their bodies. They can try water sports - water aerobics, aquacycling.
Many people today practice Nordic walking, and this sport has practically no contraindications and is suitable for both elderly and obese people who need to protect their joints. Only under such conditions will the weight begin to drop. Drug treatment and psychotherapy will complement what has been started, but with the mandatory participation of a doctor. He may also decide on the surgical treatment of obesity.