Jun 15, 2020
Weight loss 101
You opened this link that means you sure wanna lose some of that weight. You’ve come to the right place. I’ll tell you all the finding that I found out.
Before we start, What exactly is fat and muscle and why do they even matter?
- Body fat is simply an energy storage system. It has twice as much energy stored as carbohydrate. It’s there to help you survive when you don’t get food for a long time. It’s simply a defence mechanism for your body (in a way). Even a skinny, athletic adult carries about 130,000 calories in their relatively small amount of body fat! That much energy is stored in your fat glands.
- The muscles simply said are responsible for helping you move around. From holding your phone to lifting heavy weights and even standing still, all are done by muscles. They are the real deal.
Weight loss should always be done through fat. Weight loss through muscles is temporary and useless.
I gained a lot of weight and now I want to lose it but it’s a lot easier said than done. So I looked upon the internet on how can I go about losing weight in the most effective and least hard way.
Here are my insights:
- Exercise doesn’t really help.
Yeah, you heard it right. You don’t need to spend hours in the gym, running on the treadmill or lifting 20kgs. Why you ask?
around 60% of our daily calorie consumption is just to keep us alive. Around 10–20% in digesting food and the remaining 20% in physical activities such as walking, running etc.(the human body is a complex machine right?)
For example:
if you consume 3000 calories a day. Around 1800–2100 is consumed even if you are lying on the couch all day. The rest 300 on digesting your food and about 700–900 in when you stand up, go to the washroom or kitchen.
Now, what happens when you exercise?
You lose about 200–400 calories after a very very intense workout.
Not much is it? That’s the reason exercise can’t help you lose weight. It has a numerous benefits but losing weight is not one of them.
PS: a light breakfast of 3 roties is about 400–500 calories.
2. Crash dieting is the worst thing, never do it.
The fat stored in your body takes time to be converted to energy. When you are starving during a crash diet, the fatty acid required to convert fat into energy gets depleted and takes time to regenerate, during this time your body turns to your other tissues such as muscle for energy. This results in a lot of muscle loss resulting in sharp weight loss but that’s not we wanted. We wanted weight loss using fat not muscles.
So what happens when you stop crash diet?
All the lost muscle is gained even quicker than it was lost and you are back to 80Kgs from your hard-earned 65Kgs(just an example, not like I weight that much).
3. What to do?
Research suggests using a rule of thumb to burn 1% of your body weight in a week as fat. Cause that max amount of body fat you can burn, if you try more it’ll be muscles not fat.
As most of us know the way to lose weight is being a calorie deficit.
Net Calorie = Calorie Intake — Calorie Consumed < 0
Net calories in a day should be negative.
4. What can I do?
Proper dieting and realising weight loss is a gradual process just like JEE preparation. Cannot be done in one day, week or month. Without dieting you can’t lose weight, doesn’t matter how many times you hit the gym or how many kgs you lift.
5. How many calories should I consume in a day?
research suggests you should consume
body_weight(in kg)*13*2.2 or body_weight(in lbs)*13 calories in a day to maintain your weight.
For 80Kg weighted person : 80*13*2.2 = 2288 calories.
That person will require 2288 calories per day to keep their weight the same.
To lose weight take a max of 500 fewer calories a day. You’ll lose around 0.7–1 Kg a week. Try to have a high protein diet. It has numerous benefits which I’ll mention in the next part of the series.
6. Any information about calories in rice and wheat?
So that’s about it for now. I’ll write about the importance of protein, exercise, glycemic index and dieting types in the next blogs. Please do point out if something is incorrect or could be added.
If you like it then clap clap :)
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXTiiz99p9o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA00ZctGz50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep9j7YaTfMg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxktmQ3zJOA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMWkXbDU2A
