Obesity is an epidemic in the western world. Many commercial companies are taking advantage of people desire to lose weight by offering magic diets and other programs that promise to lose weight. Understanding some facts behind weight loss can help you not fall for those products.
Extreme diets are not healthy nor do they help. Almost everybody that goes through an extreme diet and loses significant weight ends up regaining all the weight loss and more after a short while. The reason is that our weight is a result of our daily behavior over a long period of time. Going on a diet for a short while and then going back to our old bad habits just does not work.
Why do we gain weight? The core and basic reason is simple, we consume more calories per day then we burn. Calories are energy and if we consume more than we use the body needs to do something with the excess energy. Evolution programmed the body to turn energy into fat. Fat is the way in which the body preserves energy for days when it will be needed. Evolution wise fat is the way of the body to save energy for bad days, if the body one day consumes less calories than it consumes the body needs to get energy from somewhere and it does that by burning fat.
So the first and most important thing to remember is simple: if you eat more calories that you burn you will gain fat. If you eat less calories than you consume the body will burn the fat and use its energy. The amount of energy you consume daily greatly depends on your activity.
So according to that basic rule the only thing needed is to eat less calories than you consume. So can you just sit and eat junk food as long as it not too much calories? Well, theoretically yes but in order for the body to continue working as it is supposed to you should also make sure you get the right nutrition which means eating other foods than junk food.
So can you simply eat good food in the right amount and lose weight? The answer is yes, you will use weight but if you do not do any sport you will lose muscle weight first and fat after. If you go on a diet without any sports you will end up looking fat but weak. The solution is to do sports you do not need to be extreme but at least make the body work a bit. The body is programmed not to burn muscle mass if the muscle mass is needed. If you do sports the body knows the muscles are needed and it will choose to burn fast rather than muscle mass.
So losing weight is really pretty simple and straightforward: eat in moderation you can eat a bit junk food but make sure that your main intake is food rich in good nutrition. Make sure that you eat fewer calories than you consume and also do sports on a regular basis. Do not think of it as a diet that you need to follow for a certain time instead turn this into a life style that you continue following forever.
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