Many people work towards losing weight, but it’s vital to consider that it happens without affecting the body negatively and leading to a healthy body and lifestyle.
Weight loss means lowering the total body by a mean loss of fluid, body fat (adipose tissue) or lean mass (bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon and other connective tissue). There are numerous reasons for weight loss:
A) Malnourishment or an Underlying Disease
B) Obesity/Obese state.
Weight loss is primarily for obesity treatment, and it prevents progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes with a 7-10% weight loss.
It raises health risks, comprising diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NASH), to name a few. A 1-kg loss of body weight is directly proportional to a nearly 1-mm Hg drop in blood pressure.
Following are the ways to reduce weight loss:
- Cut on refined carbs: One way to reduce weight loss is to cut the sugar, starches and carbohydrates levels and replace them with whole grains.
- Don’t sit at a particular place for long hours: For every 30 minutes spent sitting, stand or move around and stretch for nearly two minutes. ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) research reveals that moving more during the day, including 150 minutes per week of exercise, is vital to reduce one’s risk of diseases and lose weight.
Diets and their structure to reduce weight
Any diet could work if taken in fewer calories. Diets occur in two important ways:
a) It gets you to eat certain good foods by avoiding bad ones.
b) It changes how one behaves and the ways one thinks or feels about food.
The best diet for reducing weight is suitable for all parts of your body, from your brain to your toes, not just for the waistline.
A usual diet consists of multiple servings of fruits and vegetables a day, whole-grain bread and cereals, and healthy fats from nuts, seeds, and olive oil lean protein from poultry, fish, and beans.
If someone wants weight loss to be permanent, significant diet and lifestyle changes must also occur for a more extended period. It is a documented discovery that counselling or exercise alone does not show weight loss. In contrast, dieting alone has an outcome in significant weight loss, and a combination of dieting and exercise offers the best results.
Intermittent fasting
Science-backed research suggests that Intermittent fasting (IF) reduces weight. It is an eating pattern that includes regular short-term fasts and consuming meals within a shorter period during the day.
Short-term intermittent fasting, which is up to 24 weeks in time, leads to weight loss in overweight people.
Ways to follow intermittent fasting:
a) Alternate day fasting: Fast every other day and normally eat on non-fasting days. It comprises eating just 25–30 % of the body’s energy needs on fasting days.
b) The 5:2 Diet: Fast on 2 out of every seven days. On fasting days, eat 500–600 calories.
c) The 16/8 method: Fast for 16 hours and eat only during an 8-hour window. For most people, the 8-hour window would be nearly noon to 8 p.m. A study on this method revealed that eating during a restricted period resulted in people intaking fewer calories and losing weight.
