Eating right... (contd.)
I think I left my previous post incomplete. While counting calories and reducing intake works for weight loss, there can be wrong ways of doing it too!
Starving or drastically cutting down on your food intake isn't a good idea. I'm not a dietitian, but know that the body should gets its required nutrition. It should be easy to find good plans on a balanced nutrition on the web. Moreover, even if you do manage to lose weight by starving, unless you've changed to light eating forever, the lost weight will most probably come right back in a short time. And if your weight loss plan includes exercising in addition to watching your diet, a balanced diet becomes all the more important. Exercising usually results in fat loss and muscle gain, and without the proper nutrition to aid the muscle gain, things will not work as expected.
In short, I wouldn't advise losing weight by starving or "crash diet" plans. A changed lifestyle is the only way out, IMHO.
You may already be well aware of what metabolism is, and how it relates to weight loss. But let me briefly talk about it here.
All of us have friends who are thin or well within the healthy weight range for their height - without having to exercise regularly (or even at all)! There could be a few different reasons why things just magically work for them - may be they always eat light and even out their calories intake. Another reason could be that they have a high metabolism. Metabolism directly relates to the calories you burn during the day - either just doing day to day activities (including things like keeping your biological systems running), or physical activities, or the process of digesting food. While some parts are in our control (e.g., physical activities), some folks may just be lucky to have higher metabolism due to a variety of reasons.
That said, there are ways to increase your metabolism (even the "resting metabolism"). Muscles apparently have a much higher calorie burn rate than fat. In other words, if you gain muscles, your resting metabolism will increase and you'll burn more calories without having to exercise :). If you do plan on gaining muscles, supplement it with adequate protein intake. Some articles on the web claim that 0.5 - 1 gm of protein per kg of body weight is the recommended amount of protein. Apart from protein supplements, it's easy to find regular foods that are rich in protein - turkey, chicken, sea food, soy, milk, eggs and other very common foods are excellent sources of proteins. A whole bunch of protein supplements are easily available - I tried Twinlab's protein supplement and thought it was pretty good. The Premier Protein Bars are also pretty good.
Another thing I found out (though I haven't put it in regular practice yet) is that eating smaller portions more frequently is better than eating fewer large portions. The body starts digesting the food soon after eating (and burns calories in the process), and more frequent eating will help increase your metabolism. E.g., 5-6 small meals in a day instead of 3 large ones will help increase metabolism and you'll burn more "free" calories.
And talking about exercising and nutrition, from my web research, the post-workout meal is probably the most important meal of the day. The 30-60 minute "recovery" period immediately after the workout is when the body can greatly benefit from the required nutrition. This is when I usually took my protein supplements. And be careful to count the calories in the protein supplement if you plan on taking one. Some have very high calories content, while others, like the twinlab one that I tried, have reasonable amount. High calories content isn't necessarily bad - just make sure you count them towards your daily intake ;)
One surprising thing I learned was that not all fat calories are bad. There is a thing like "good fat" - typically all nuts (cashews, almonds, peanuts, pistachios, walnuts) have the good fat. So again - as long as you count them towards your daily intake, I guess the "good" fat calories won't hurt.
As for the rate of losing weight, a healthy rate of weight loss is not more than 1 - 2 lbs a week. Weight loss at a higher rate is apparently not something that the body can deal with. And if you are doing things *right*, you'll see that this range is easy to stay in (btw, this may be another reason to stay away from ads like "lose 20 lbs in 2 weeks" ;).. I've also experienced that weight-loss supplements don't really work by themselves. If you read the fine print, they often say that "for best results, use in addition to regular exercise and healthy diet". I did use the Weider fat-burners, but don't know if they helped or not. I know I tried a few supplements earlier on in my life, but I guess I was missing the "regular exercise and healthy diet" part ;).
(to be contd., i think)
Starving or drastically cutting down on your food intake isn't a good idea. I'm not a dietitian, but know that the body should gets its required nutrition. It should be easy to find good plans on a balanced nutrition on the web. Moreover, even if you do manage to lose weight by starving, unless you've changed to light eating forever, the lost weight will most probably come right back in a short time. And if your weight loss plan includes exercising in addition to watching your diet, a balanced diet becomes all the more important. Exercising usually results in fat loss and muscle gain, and without the proper nutrition to aid the muscle gain, things will not work as expected.
In short, I wouldn't advise losing weight by starving or "crash diet" plans. A changed lifestyle is the only way out, IMHO.
You may already be well aware of what metabolism is, and how it relates to weight loss. But let me briefly talk about it here.
All of us have friends who are thin or well within the healthy weight range for their height - without having to exercise regularly (or even at all)! There could be a few different reasons why things just magically work for them - may be they always eat light and even out their calories intake. Another reason could be that they have a high metabolism. Metabolism directly relates to the calories you burn during the day - either just doing day to day activities (including things like keeping your biological systems running), or physical activities, or the process of digesting food. While some parts are in our control (e.g., physical activities), some folks may just be lucky to have higher metabolism due to a variety of reasons.
That said, there are ways to increase your metabolism (even the "resting metabolism"). Muscles apparently have a much higher calorie burn rate than fat. In other words, if you gain muscles, your resting metabolism will increase and you'll burn more calories without having to exercise :). If you do plan on gaining muscles, supplement it with adequate protein intake. Some articles on the web claim that 0.5 - 1 gm of protein per kg of body weight is the recommended amount of protein. Apart from protein supplements, it's easy to find regular foods that are rich in protein - turkey, chicken, sea food, soy, milk, eggs and other very common foods are excellent sources of proteins. A whole bunch of protein supplements are easily available - I tried Twinlab's protein supplement and thought it was pretty good. The Premier Protein Bars are also pretty good.
Another thing I found out (though I haven't put it in regular practice yet) is that eating smaller portions more frequently is better than eating fewer large portions. The body starts digesting the food soon after eating (and burns calories in the process), and more frequent eating will help increase your metabolism. E.g., 5-6 small meals in a day instead of 3 large ones will help increase metabolism and you'll burn more "free" calories.
And talking about exercising and nutrition, from my web research, the post-workout meal is probably the most important meal of the day. The 30-60 minute "recovery" period immediately after the workout is when the body can greatly benefit from the required nutrition. This is when I usually took my protein supplements. And be careful to count the calories in the protein supplement if you plan on taking one. Some have very high calories content, while others, like the twinlab one that I tried, have reasonable amount. High calories content isn't necessarily bad - just make sure you count them towards your daily intake ;)
One surprising thing I learned was that not all fat calories are bad. There is a thing like "good fat" - typically all nuts (cashews, almonds, peanuts, pistachios, walnuts) have the good fat. So again - as long as you count them towards your daily intake, I guess the "good" fat calories won't hurt.
As for the rate of losing weight, a healthy rate of weight loss is not more than 1 - 2 lbs a week. Weight loss at a higher rate is apparently not something that the body can deal with. And if you are doing things *right*, you'll see that this range is easy to stay in (btw, this may be another reason to stay away from ads like "lose 20 lbs in 2 weeks" ;).. I've also experienced that weight-loss supplements don't really work by themselves. If you read the fine print, they often say that "for best results, use in addition to regular exercise and healthy diet". I did use the Weider fat-burners, but don't know if they helped or not. I know I tried a few supplements earlier on in my life, but I guess I was missing the "regular exercise and healthy diet" part ;).
(to be contd., i think)
posted by bhosle at 4:44 PM
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