Weight loss is a topic many people struggle with. Whilst it may be easy to diet for a week or two; you cannot keep this up forever. The idea behind losing weight is to have a solid plan and lifestyle change that you can stick with.
Weight Loss Ideas
The only way to lose weight is through a calorific deficit. In summary, the deficit is consuming fewer calories than you burn. When this happens, the body will begin to burn its fat as there is no more food left in your body to burn.
In general, to lose 1kg of weight, you must reduce the deficit by 1000 calories. So if you were to cut your meal sizes by 500 calories for 20 days, this would lead to approximately a 1kg weight loss. This may not sound like a lot, but remember, weight loss is a marathon and not a sprint. There is no point cutting weight, only to put it back on right away.
So in summary, there are 2 ways to lose weight:
- Eat Less Calories Than Normal Burn More Calories Than Normal
- or, Eating Less
Everyone could do themselves a favor and eat healthier. However, whilst this would improve your internal health. If your calorie intake remained the same, you would just become a healthier version of yourself- being the exact same weight. This is why the aforementioned calorific deficit is needed.
One of the more common ways in the modern age is to go on a Ketogenic diet plan. Whilst this is called a “diet,” you can actually stick to this for life if needed as your body does not have to rely on carbohydrates for energy. If you do not eat carbs, your body will take approximately 2 days to reach ketosis. After this time, your body will begin to burn fat and create ketones, rather than rely on carbohydrates for energy. As your fat is being burned instead of bread, pasta, or rice, you will begin to lose weight.
Burning More
Burning more calories is done by exercising. Ideally, exercise should be a habit and something you enjoy. This way, you will continually do it and not think of it as just a way to lose weight.
One study found that in a single 1.5-hour session of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a man was able to lose 872 calories. This is really quite a lot of burn, considering an average male needs 2500 calories per day. The recommended calorie intake for a woman is just 2000 calories. Although this makes sense since women generally have considerably less muscle mass.
Another study found that you can burn 50-150 calories (depending on your starting weight) from walking just 1 mile. Whilst this is quite considerably less than going to the gym and doing high-intensity exercise. It would still make a difference if you were to walk to work, for example. If we average the numbers to the reason you will burn 100 calories per mile, walking 1 mile to work for a month would burn 3000 calories. This is approximately a 0.4kg weight loss and would also improve your general health.
Final thoughts
Although many people still often link weight loss to working out, it should also be added that losing weight relies massively on losing calories through a healthy diet.
For instance, you can lose calories that can be achieved by running or swimming, which are great forms of cardio. However, making simple replacements in your diet, such as switching processed sugary snacks with natural sugar foods such as apples and bananas, will also lead to healthy, sustainable, and quick weight loss.
Remember, a large factor of weight loss depends on will power. It may be doable to lose weight for a couple of weeks based on the novelty of a new workout or diet.
However, it is several months in when things may become stale, and temptation kicks in. With this in mind, it’s important to stay focused on your task – whether that relies on cardio or diet to lose weight, you need some form of will power.
In conclusion, if you follow the above guidelines, then you should be able to lose weight in a happy and healthy way. Whilst it’s important to be able to successfully lose weight if desired, you should also be content whilst doing it and avoid being miserable for the sake of creating a calorie deficit.
Not only this, but you should also make sure the deficit is done correctly; for instance, if you literally ate one apple a day, then you would lose weight.
However, this is also incredibly unhealthy and unsustainable. Because of this, a combination of a good, enjoyable but healthy diet and an exciting exercise regime is recommended if you are serious about losing weight in an efficient way.
