Finally lose weight in a healthy way!
This year everything will be different? Easier said than done. Because diets are at least as many as pitfalls on the way to the dream figure.
We explain how it still works this year.
The three diet principles
Low carb, food combining or chocolate diet. There are countless diet programs to lower one's own body weight in the long term. Who wants to lose weight, loses here fast the overview. Most diets work according to the same three principles.
1. Absorbing less energy
The most important basic principle of most diets is calorie restriction and that means: you take in less energy than you burn off. Then your body falls back on existing fat reserves and the pounds tumble down.
Not only the classic calorie counting or the popular interval fasting work mainly according to this simple mechanism. Because even if diets are designed according to complicated, scientifically supported rules: eating less than you burn is the effective principle behind every successful diet.
2. Avoid or prefer certain nutrients
Behind many diet concepts is the idea that certain nutrients are real fatteners. The best example of this is the low-carb diet: foods containing carbohydrates in particular, such as bread, pasta, cereals and sugar, are avoided and replaced by foods containing protein or fat. The low-fat diet, on the other hand, relies on fewer fats. Diets such as the Paleo diet (Stone Age diet) or the Mediterranean diet (traditional diet in the Mediterranean region) recommend a certain historical or regional dietary style in which certain nutrients are given preference on the plate.
3. Eating in a certain combination
Some diet concepts promise weight loss through the intake of certain nutrients in a particular order. The most famous example is the separation food Dit: The simultaneous consumption of carbohydrate-rich and particularly protein-containing food, is forbidden in the separation food Dit, a steak with roast potatoes is forbidden. Whether the principle of separation diet actually leads to weight reduction is scientifically disputed. Nevertheless the separation food helps many humans to a more balanced, more conscious nutrition as well as more moderate meal and can therefore also on the way to the desire weight help.
The most common diet mistakes
Diets are no walk in the park. Because even if the pounds tumble at the beginning: To keep his desired weight in the long term, is a challenge beyond the crash diet. If you know exactly what behavior to avoid, you can prevent the famous yo-yo effect.
1. Too fast, too much
As a general rule of thumb, extremes are unhealthy. In the long term, eating too few calories is more likely to lead to weight gain than to the dream figure. If you reduce the energy content of your food too quickly and too much, you also reduce your metabolism. The result: muscle mass is lost. Cravings are likely. As soon as the initial euphoria of the new Diatversuchs flew away, the relapse threatens into old patterns.
2. Too one-sided nutrition
A diet that is too one-sided increases the likelihood of failure. A balanced diet that contains all the important nutrients is the be-all and end-all. Because if your body does not get what it needs, it will get it: in the form of ravenous hunger, which you cannot resist permanently.
3. Too much focus on the scale
If you believe your scales, you've already lost – at least when it comes to the small differences. In the course of a day and over the course of a week, your weight is subject to natural fluctuations. The body weight depends, for example, on the current stomach and intestinal contents, the fluid balance and the muscle mass. Maybe you should move a little more. Have already built up muscle mass? This can be the reason for an observed weight gain.
4. Too little exercise, too little sleep
Actually, dieting is nothing more than a temporary calorie deficit: you burn more than you take in, and your body melts your love handles as a result. In addition to the reduction of absorbed energy, it is therefore appropriate to burn more energy. Anyone who spends the day on the couch worrying about the right diet is on the wrong track. In addition to activity, restful sleep is a key factor in diet success. Because when we are tired, we often eat too much.
Better, lasting, healthy weight loss!
The bad news: there is no such thing as the miracle diet. Extreme dietary approaches, which significantly limit the intake of nutrients, can lead to weight loss in the short term. However, scientific studies repeatedly prove that people usually gain as much weight after an extreme diet as they have lost – or even more. Nevertheless: a diet program can be the initial spark for a fundamental change in diet and behavior.
Once a weight has been reduced, it can only be maintained if the metabolic balance is balanced, i.e. if approximately as much energy is supplied through food as is burned through the basal metabolic rate and physical activity. Sports and exercise are therefore just as important for the development of body weight as a conscious diet.
Those who manage to balance a conscious diet with an active lifestyle have the best chance of maintaining their ideal weight. A sustainable change then has positive consequences for people with overweight, which go far beyond the dream of a bikini figure: for example, a stronger immune system, lower probabilities for cardiovascular and cancer diseases, mental well-being and a higher life expectancy.