Losing weight is among the most sought-after topics on the net. This shows that many of us are trying to find ways to burn fat and lose weight.
How can I shed those extra pounds is the question uppermost in our minds. Overweight or obese people don’t look so good. Add to it the serious health complications that obesity can cause.
We search for weight loss supplements, weight loss diets, weight loss recipes, and weight loss exercises. We make a program to lose weight and follow it.
Some of us succeed while some do not.
What differentiates the two of us is the intensity of the motivation to lose weight and the willpower to adhere to the weight loss plan.
In this article, you will find effective weight loss tips without being too strict with yourself.
Sometimes despite a proper weight loss diet and an exercise plan to lose weight, you do not reduce your weight. This may confuse and bother you. To help you lose weight, you must understand two basic principles:
1) Certain health conditions and medications do not allow you to lose weight. You must rule them out.
2) You may be missing the basic principle, which is the calorie equation. Burn more calories than you consume every day (explained below).
Reasons why you may not lose weight
There are certain health conditions that do not allow the loss of weight. You should address those first. Once they are addressed, losing weight becomes that much easier. Those conditions are described below.
1. Certain medications
Some medications that may cause weight gain in some people and do not allow weight loss are:
- Medicines taken for a psychiatric problem can deter your weight loss goals. This may be because after recovering from a bout of depression, you feel better and this makes you eat more.
- Certain medicines you take for type 2 diabetes such as sulphonylureas
- Hypertension medicines such as beta blockers
- Prolonged use of steroids such as for asthma and lupus
- Oral contraceptives can cause you to gain weight.
- Antipsychotic or schizophrenia medications, including chlorpromazine, thioridazine, and olanzapine
- Antidepressants such as amitriptyline, imipramine, or trazodone
- Hormone replacement therapy prescribed for post-menopausal symptoms
Therefore, you should talk to your physician if you are on any of these medications and are putting on weight.
2. Chronic stress
Mental stress and anxiety increase weight because you may respond to stress by eating more. Cortisol, a natural stress hormone, is released by the adrenal glands in your body when you’re under stress. Cortisol puts your fat and carbohydrate metabolism into overdrive, increasing your appetite.
Additionally, elevated cortisol levels can cause you to opt for sweet, fatty, and salty foods like french fries, biscuits, butter, and ice creams.
An excess of cortisol also can lead your body to produce less testosterone. leading to a slowdown in how many calories your body burns.
All this and cortisol make your body more likely to store fat, especially around the abdomen. This type of fat is called visceral fat, and it increases your risk of serious health problems.
Learn techniques to handle stress. Meditation is a good option.
3. Certain hormonal disorders
Hormonal disorders increase the deposit of fats in certain parts of the body such as your face, upper back, and abdomen. They include:
- Hypothyroidism is when an underactive thyroid doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormones. This slows down your body’s metabolism and you store more fat than you burn especially when you are not physically active.
- Cushing’s syndrome in which there is excessive secretion of cortisol, which can cause weight gain.
- Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is an ovarian dysfunction that results in an imbalance of sex hormones during the reproductive age of a woman. Besides, menstrual irregularities and other symptoms, weight gain in women with PCOS is common.
- Insulin resistance or hyperinsulinemia (high insulin levels) develops when the body cells do not uptake insulin from the blood causing the insulin levels in the blood to rise. Hyperinsulinemia may be temporary but if the body cells are too resistant to insulin, it can lead to high blood sugar levels resulting in type 2 diabetes and weight gain. Losing weight with insulin resistance and high blood sugar levels is more difficult because the body stores excess blood sugar as fat.
If you have any of the above conditions, you know why you may not be losing weight. Your physician will investigate, advise, and treat you for this.
4. Lack of sleep
Sleeplessness is another reason why you may not be losing weight because it alters your metabolic activity. Take steps to get that proper sleep.
Research suggests that sleep deprivation hurts metabolism. According to the Mayo Clinic, sleep deprivation in adults appears to increase hunger and appetite and you crave more for calorie-dense foods high in carbohydrates.
Research has observed weight changes when people get fewer than 7 hours of quality sleep a night. Insufficient sleep has often been linked to a higher body mass index (BMI) and weight gain.
5. Menopause
During and after menopause, weight gain is due to the hormonal changes that take place in the body. There is a decrease in estrogen and progesterone levels, which along with aging slows down metabolism and decreases muscle mass.
These changes after menopause cause extra fat to get deposited especially around the midriff. A weight-reducing plan comprising a proper diet and an exercise regime can help you lose weight during and after menopause.
Why you should lose weight?
Two important reasons stand out for losing weight:
1. For that better appearance so that you can stand proudly amongst others and be able to wear the clothes you want.
2. To avoid certain health problems that come with excess weight or obesity, like heart diseases, diabetes, liver diseases, arthritis, and cancer.
The former reason is more likely amongst young people while the second reason is more attributed to a little later age when you become more health conscious.
Weight loss strategy – Maintain calorie deficit.
Understand this essential principle of weight loss
- Calorie Intake > Calories Burnt = Weight gain
- Calorie Intake < Calories Burnt = Weight loss
- Calorie Intake = Calories Burnt = Weight maintained
One way to lose weight is to keep this principle in mind.
- Your calorie intake has to be less than calories burnt, which means you eat less,
- OR
- The calories burnt should be more than your calorie intake, which means you exercise more to burn your calories.
Incorporate a little of both in your weight loss plan and always remember this calorie equation.
Use a calorie calculator and a BMR calculator to help you with the calorie equation as shown below:
- Use a calorie intake calculator to calculate the calories consumed during the day. Know the calories in various foods and drinks.
- Use a calorie calculator to calculate the calories burnt by the physical activity during the day.
- Use a BMR calculator to calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate).
What is BMR?
BMR is the calories required to support your body’s essential activities like breathing, digestion, metabolism, etc, and the BMR calculator shows the calories burnt for these essential functions by your body even at rest.
Therefore, with the help of these calculators, you will know the number of calories consumed, calories burnt by physical activity, and calories required for BMR during the day.
To lose weight, calories burnt through physical activity plus BMR should be more than the calories consumed. This is called calorie deficit. Maintaining a calorie deficit will lead to weight loss. A good rule of thumb for healthy weight loss is a calorie deficit of about 500 calories per day. If you can maintain this calorie deficit of 500 calories, you should lose about a pound or about half a kilogram in one week. Weight loss has to be gradual to look and stay healthy.
For example,
- if the BMR and calorie calculator show that you have burnt 2500 calories during the day and
- your calorie intake calculator shows that you have consumed 2000 calories,
- then you have burnt 500 calories more than you have consumed during the day, which is the calorie deficit.
Going by the thumb rule, you have to burn 3500 calories more to lose one lb of body fat. Then at this rate, you will lose one lb of weight in one week.
Stay on this fundamental principle of losing weight and there is no normal reason why you should not lose weight in the required fashion.
How to lose weight quickly? Eating and Lifestyle recommendations
- Eat just enough to maintain the BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) and basic nutrition for the body. Eat mindfully and don’t overstuff yourself.
- Intermittent fasting has been highly rated as a good way to eat if you want to lose weight. It is not a prescribed diet but an eating trend. With intermittent fasting, you only eat during a specific time. However, there are several different ways to do intermittent fasting, and they advocate eating and fasting at regular times. For example, you could try eating only during an eight-hour period each day and not eating during the rest of the day. You can also choose to eat only one meal a day on any two days a week. Besides helping in weight loss, intermittent fasting has many health benefits.
- Choose foods, which are low in unhealthy fats (saturated fats and trans fats) and calorie content. Read the labels carefully before you buy anything to ensure you are not buying something, which has high calories. Know the calorie content in common foods. It will help you keep a watch on your calorie intake. Go slow on carbohydrates, choose your fats well, and eat enough protein foods.
- Avoid too much variety in your meals, because you then tend to eat more.
- A normal healthy person should drink 3 to 4 liters of water every day. The tremendous benefits of drinking adequate water in weight loss are explained here.
- Incorporate the required physical activity into your daily routine. Physical exercise should be an everyday affair. There are no weekly offs, just as there are no weekly offs to eating food.
- Sleep well. Getting good sleep helps proper regulation of the neurotransmitters, ghrelin and leptin, that regulate hunger and appetite. Ghrelin stimulates your hunger and leptin makes you feel full. The body increases and decreases the levels of these neurotransmitters as and when required throughout the day. Sleeplessness negatively affects this mechanism and hunger and appetite stay imbalanced. Poor sleep also lowers your metabolism, which makes burning calories harder. Adopting healthy sleep habits can support your weight loss efforts. One way to improve sleep quality is to exercise regularly and avoid heavy meals before bed. It will go a long way in proper weight management.
- Avid smoking and drinking alcohol. Smoking is associated with type 2 diabetes, an unhealthy lipid profile, and abdominal obesity. Alcohol contains empty calories, which give no nutrition and only add to calorie intake.
- Have a strong determination and consistency and your weight loss is guaranteed. For this, the help of your family and friends can be useful to keep your motivation to lose weight high.
- Be patient. Losing those extra pounds has to be gradual. Have a weight loss plan that will spread over a prolonged period. Plan a reduction of half-kilo weight in one week.
Action Plan
Losing weight is not just about understanding the principle explained above. It is about implementing this principle in your daily routine as soon as possible.
Most people fail to do this because they keep on pushing it to tomorrow, which never comes. Once implemented, follow what Sir Winston Churchill said: “Never, never, never give up”.