Whenever people talk about weight loss, most people will recommend cutting back on calorie intake is the fastest way to lose weight.
Why?
It’s because when you take in more calories than your body burns, the left-over calories are converted into fat. 3,500 unutilized calories accumulated in your body are stored as 1 pound of fat in your body. You can burn calories by exercising or eating fewer calories.
Let’s say a 43-year-old woman weighing 200 pounds needs roughly 1,600 calories a day to maintain her current weight. If she takes in only 600 calories a day, her body will experience a “calorie deficit” (ie energy deficit) of 1,000 calories a day. Her body will then convert roughly 0.3 pounds of stored fat into energy every day to make up for the energy deficit, thus causing her to lose about 2 pounds a week.
Therefore many dieters find out how many calories they need, and how many calories are in the foods and drinks they consume every day to make sure they have a “calorie deficit”. This is calorie counting. This seems to be a good way to lose weight, right?
Well, this is not exactly true.
Firstly, you should eat not less than 1200 calories per day if you are dieting for long periods. If you consume less than 1200 calories per day your diets are expected to be deficient in certain nutrients. This will not be good for your health over a period of time. Bear in mind that carbohydrates and proteins are healthier sources of calories than fats.
Secondly, if you get into a low-calorie diet for too long, or reduce your calories too much by, for example, skipping meals or starving yourself, you will quickly go into “survival or starvation mode” that will lead to one of the following conditions:
How fast you slide into “survial or starvation mode” depends on how overweight you are. The more overweight you are, the lower your metabolism, and so the longer you can stay on a low-calorie diet without getting into “survival or starvation mode”.
This is because fat utilizes fewer calories to maintain itself than muscle. Therefore people with a higher percentage of body fat have lower metabolism — and therefore burn calories at a slower rate — than those who are more muscular.
To lose weight, following a low-calorie diet to create a “calorie deficit” alone is not effective enough. You should exercise to burn away the extra calories to prevent them from being converted to fat. Your metabolic rate climbs up while you’re huffing and puffing on the treadmill. However, your metabolism does not return to its normal rate the moment you stop exercising but continues to burn calories at a higher level for about 2 hours thereafter.
But if you, like many people, don’t like to exercise regularly and still prefer losing weight with dieting, then understand that you body needs all the 3 types of calories (protein, carbohydrate and fat calories) to some degree.
Here’s the tip for you: you can lose weight fast and seriously only by giving your body the right types of calories at the correct times each day.
This technique also eliminates calorie counting. You can begin this new technique right here:
http://ourbestdiet.com/nocaloriecounting
Next: Low-carb high-protein diets are hard to stick to
