The first rule to keep in mind is not to starve you. Most people that are trying to lose weight have tried this method, and it just doesn’t work. If it didn’t work before, why would you do it again? It has been shown over and over that person who use the starvation method to try and lose weight only end up gaining weight after each session. This isn’t their fault. When a person starves themself, their body does not know when it will be getting the food that it requires again. This is where our ancestral makeup kicks in and our bodies do everything they can to conserve fat. This evolutionary mechanism is often referred to as the “starvation protection mechanism” or “starvation mode.” For women, this evolutionary make mechanism kicks in when the body isn’t meeting its nutritional demands (around less than 1200 calories for women).
The starvation mode slows the loss of body fat and triggers the loss of muscle mass. This produces an unfavorable effect on body composition, resulting in a body type known as skinny fat. This simply means that you will end up with a higher body fat percentage, even though you weigh less.
Facts about starving yourself:
Stress
When you starve yourself, you’re stressing your body. Stress, in turn, increases cortisol which increases belly fat. It stands to reason that your body does not know that you are purposely withholding calories from it and that there are several restaurants and fast-food emporiums just around the corner.
2. Caloric Intake
Your body simply believes that you drop your calorie intake so severely that there must be a famine; and since it doesn’t know when food supplies will next be available it will slow down all unimportant processes to save energy, such as slowing metabolism. To the body, saving energy means you burn fewer calories.
3. The Importance of Nutrients
When you deprive your body of important nutrients, thus failing to meet your body’s caloric and nutritional demands. This will not only increase your risk of medical problems but also make weight loss just that much more difficult.
4. Understand Your Weight Loss Plateau
In the end, you will hit a weight loss plateau and thus you will give up on your very low-calorie diet, and you will regain all the weight. Why does this happen? Once you begin eating normally, you regain your weight, and then some, because your body’s metabolic rate has not returned to normal. Remember, your metabolic rate slows down with your caloric deprivation. Since your metabolic rate is still slow, this means that during your post-diet period you will need fewer calories than before.
5. Increase Your Metabolic Rate
For you to lose fat weight, it is important to do as much as possible to protect your metabolic rate and, if at all possible, to increase it. To do this, you must trick your body’s starvation protection mechanism, through careful manipulation of your daily calorie intake, use cardiovascular exercise to increase the caloric deficit, and by implementing resistance training to stave off the loss of muscle mass.
It all boils down to the fact that the average man or woman must reduce their intake of calories by at least 500 per day to lose 1 pound per week. As in everything else, there are variables that must be taken into consideration. Every person and their body are different.
If you are watching your calorie intake to reduce your weight, you must also keep in mind the nutrients that you intake. One simple method to keep in mind is to eat a colorful array of vegetables. Red-green and yellow vegetables provide a rich assortment of nutrients that are vital to your body to maintain your health.
The following are a few tips to help you lose weight:
1. Drink water and forget the rest
If weight loss is your goal then apart from tea and coffee, cut out all of the beverages. Drinks are extremely high in sugar and full of calories but do not fill you up. This includes fruit juices, while high in nutrients they are also high in calories. You should eat your fruit to include fiber. Vegetables are an exception. You can juice your vegetables without increasing sugar intake.
2. Choose goats cheese over cow’s milk cheese
The calories in cheese vary widely. Cheese made from goat’s milk contains approximately 40% fewer calories than regular cheese.
3. Eat Monounsaturated Fats For Weight Loss
Eat foods rich in monounsaturated fatty acids (M UFA), such as nuts, olive oil, and avocados. They not only aid in weight loss, but they also trim belly fat.
4. Add Caffeine to Your Diet
Drink coffee or even better, antioxidant-rich green tea. 2 cups of coffee per day will boost your metabolism, and there’s evidence that daily coffee intake protects against Alzheimer’s disease. Consuming 5 cups of green tea per day increases metabolism by 20% helping you burn fat and lose weight.
5. Add Mustard For Weight Loss:
Scientists have shown that by simply adding a tablespoon of mustard to your meal you can reduce belly fat by a whopping 20%.
6. Shopping For Weight Loss:
When shopping chooses to hold natural foods with ingredients, you will find in nature. You’re just going back to basics.
7. Eat More Protein:
Protein is very filling but relatively low in calories. Eating plenty of lean protein means that you can cut back on calories and lose weight without feeling hungry. Your best choices for protein are lean cuts of meat, fish such as salmon, etc., and eggs.
Conclusion:
A major guideline for selecting food choices is if the ingredients contained on the label are something you can’t pronounce or understand, don’t eat. Kiss prepared foods, processed foods, and fast foods goodbye to watch your waistline shrink.
