Statistics indicate that more than a third of the country is overweight and obese. You are considered overweight when your Body mass Index is more than 25 and obese when the BMI is over 30. The good news is that regardless of where you are on the BMI scale, it is possible to make a complete lifestyle change and drop all those extra pounds. You have probably watched the TLC tales of 400 pounds or heavier men and women following a diet and exercise program and dropping hundreds of pounds. The problem with modern day dieting is that very few people think about the facts behind a fad before they start following it with the hopes of dropping a few pounds. Here are a few of the diets to avoid and those to have if you want to lose your weight.
Limit your carbohydrate intake
There is one simple thing that people do not understand about weight gain in general, it is not the fat which makes you fat, rather, it is the carbohydrates when they are converted from sugar and stored either in the liver or in the adipose tissue. If you want to slow down this conversion, you need to limit the amount of carbohydrates that you are eating daily. This is also the premise that most low carb foods and keto diets are based on.
When you limit the carbohydrate intake, your body will have to look for another source of energy for metabolism. The first reserves to go are usually the glycogen reserves in the liver. Then, the glycogen stored in the muscles goes next. Then, an interesting thing happens, for the body to store glycogen in the muscles, one gram of glycogen is bound by between three and four grams of water. When you start the weight loss process and the glycogen is used up, your face stops looking swollen due to the loss of the extra retained water. However, it is important to make sure that you do not go below 500 calories of carbohydrate intake daily because this could have very adverse health effects.
Increase your protein intake
There is one part of weight loss that people do not understand, as you are losing the excess fat, the body will also be breaking down a small percentage of muscle mass and metabolizing it for energy. When your muscle mass reduces, so does your metabolism. To prevent this from happening, you have to increase your protein intake. If you are working out in addition to dieting, the extra protein in your diet will be good for repairing the muscles which have gotten torn during the workout. By the end of the day, this will help you increase your muscle mass and your body will become a more efficient metabolic machine.
Stop taking soft drinks
Another mistake which people make when they are trying to lose weight is eating right, but forgetting the destructive effect that soft drinks can have on a person’s diet. While the process of cutting out soft drinks from your diet completely could seem close to impossible to achieve, you may want to think about reducing the intake gradually. Also, replace soft drinks with water whenever you can because water actually has an effect of increasing your body’s metabolism and removing toxins, which further boosts your metabolic prowess. Needless to say, taking alcohol will derail your weight loss goals a lot because of the calorie load in alcoholic drinks. Still on alcohol, did you know that a wine parks more calories per unit than the regular beer? Take time and learn about the calorie load of all your alcoholic beverages before you indulge.
These are some of the most important tips on the diets to follow and those not to when you are trying to lose weight and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Ensure that you have a qualified nutritionist advising you every step of the journey because online fads will leave you more confused than you were before.
Read our full review about one of the best bodybuilding supplements: Crazy Mass >>
