5 Steps for Weight Loss, Diet Plans & Weight Management

weight loss diet

healthy diet

Weight loss is not something hard, I don’t know why people take it in a hectic way, it’s a little bit harder at first but results are worth it at the end. Mostly, obese people tend to lose weight faster than ever. For example, if you’re 80-100 KGs or above, you will lose 5 KGs a month easily and if less, you can go down at 3-4 KGs per month or maybe more if you apply all elements which are mentioned below:

1. Cut Down all those Diets

weight loss diet

I hate the word diet, seriously I don’t think this diet word should even exist, I feel like it’s a prejudice word, people assume different crash diets can help, but in actual these diets are way more dangerous for you.Initially they would make you lose weight faster and you will feel good, but actually, they are destroying your metabolism and your healthy lifestyle on the long-term basis. Apply a healthy diet which includes all the 5 food groups, you can take examples from the Food Guide Pyramid (for a whole day meal plan) and My Plate (for a meal), which clearly shows the actual amount of servings required by a healthy individual. I will further tell you how to count your calories easily regarding the serving sizes.

healthy diet pyramid

2. Modify Your Lifestyle Habits

Your lifestyle is the biggest thing to consider while trying to lose weight. Consider the hours you’re being sleeping, sitting, working, standing or walking. Your health seriously depends on the lifestyle you’ve chosen.

a) Identify your caloric needs: You have to calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate)by using Mifflin St. JeorEquation.

For men:  (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) – (5 x a) + 5
For women: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) – (5 x a) – 161

Where:
• w = weight in kg (1 pound = 0.45359237 kilograms)
• h = height in cm (1 inch = 2.54 centimeters)
• a = age (in years)

Next, multiply the resulting number by the factor that best fits your personal activity level.

Activity Factor Category Definition

1.2 if sedentary, little or no exercise and desk job
1.375 if lightly Active, light exercise, or sports 1-3 days a week
1.55 if moderately active, moderate exercise, or sports 3-5 days a week
1.725 if very active, hard exercise, or sports 6-7 days a week
1.9 if extremely active, hard daily exercise or sports and physical job

A healthy and active lifestyle can make you lose weight faster. Every 1 Kg you lose makes your health risks go down by 10%, how good is that.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy required to maintain the body’s normal metabolic activity, such as respiration, maintenance of body temperature (thermogenesis), and digestion. Specifically, it is the amount of energy required at rest with no additional activity. The energy consumed is sufficient only for the functioning of the vital organs such as the heart, lungs, nervous system, kidneys, liver, intestine, sex organs, muscles, and skin.

Source: Losing Weight with Basal Metabolic Rate: The Mifflin-St Jeor Method by Dr. Tyrone A. Holmes”

b) Leave bad habits behind, limit drinking alcohol, caffeine and avoid smoking as much as possible.

3. Modify your diet

Now that you have taken out your caloric requirement/day, you should cut down 500 kcal from your caloric requirement to lose 1-1.5 lb. a week, for example, you’ve got 1800 kcal, try eating 1300 kcal instead. An easy way of calculating how much calories you are eating per serving sizes is to have a check on food exchange list. A food exchange lists help you to check out serving sizes for each group of foods and to see what other food choices are available for each group of foods. Get American Dietetic Association Food Exchange List and start working on it.

The main thing which is very necessary for losing weight is to limit 5 things which are mainly the root cause of obesity and almost all health risks, these are:

i. Oil(limit intake to no more than 2 tbsp. of oil per day)
ii. Sugar(try to avoid table sugar as much as possible and if can’t then limit its intake to 2 tbsp. per day)
iii. Salt(avoid use of table salt especially, limit the usage of salt in your cooking to 2 tbsp. per day)
iv. White flour(modify white flour with whole wheat flour, use whole wheat bread and buns instead of white bread)
v. White rice(exchange white rice with brown rice and eat rice only once or twice a week)

If you opt these 5 modifications in your diet for 3-4 months at least, I guarantee you that you will lose weight much faster than ever.If you are living alone and is unable to cook a proper diet plan then you can always rely on online food delivery services like Dinnerly and use their vouchers to get the extra discount.

4. Exercise 5 days a week

exercise 5 days a week

Exercise is as much important as eating, it never means going to the gym or Zumba, yoga or any other. What’s more important is an active lifestyle, you can lose weight by just being active for 30-45 minutes per day, with food modification I have mentioned above. What I meant by being active for 30-45 minutes is playing any kind of sports, swimming, playing tennis, basketball, jogging, running, dancing, aerobics, weight lifting, gym, yoga, Zumba etc. Any kind of activity which increases your heart rate burns calories, the more the heart rate is, the more you burn your calories.

Hydration is also a major factor, drinking 1.2-1.5 liter water/day is essential for you to lose your weight.
Exercise also helps you release stress or any kind of workload on your mind, many types of research have suggested that exercising 3-5 days a week for at least half an hour releases your stress which is the major cause of many diseases like DM, CVD, Cancer etc.

5. Don’t Give up on Your Favorite Foods

stress

Never ever give up on your favorite foods. Yes, you can eat all those junks, chocolates, ice creams, fast food, pasta etc. I never restrict anyone to anything, But once in a week. Make a cheat day for yourself as you start losing after 2 weeks of losing weight. A cheat day in a week will help you remain satisfied throughout another week, you can eat whatever you like on that cheat day and it won’t affect your weight management, how beautiful is that!!!

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