If you want to lose weight, you must know these basic weight loss knowledge

You must know what "calories" and "metabolism" are to lose weight

What is heat? Heat is an expression of energy that makes the body functional. Every minute and second of our breathing, heartbeat, thinking, and movements are completed by generating heat through metabolism. The body must get enough calories. Insufficient caloric intake for a long time will deplete body tissues and eventually lead to death. But excessive calorie intake can lead to obesity and ultimately increase the risk of death.

Generally, we use the units of "large calories" to calculate the calories of food we eat. The nutrients that can provide calories in food include sugar providing 4 calories per gram, fat providing 9 calories per gram, protein providing 4 calories per gram, and alcohol providing 7.1 calories per gram. Other nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and water do not provide calories.

There is only one way the body can store a lot of calories, and that is to convert excess calories into fat storage. No matter how much sugar, protein or fat you eat, as long as the total calories you eat exceed the amount your body needs to consume, all of them will be converted into fat and stored. Gradually, more and more body fat accumulates, causing obesity problems.

1 kilogram of adipose tissue in the body contains about 85% fat, and the other 15% is water and a small amount of protein. Therefore, it can be calculated that the body needs to accumulate about 7700 calories to form 1 kilogram of fat. 1000 grams of adipose tissue × 85% × 9 = 7650 calories. A student who once participated in a weight loss class asked: "Why can some people gain weight quickly in a short period of time, but it is so difficult to lose weight in a short period of time?" The answer is that for the average person, it is very easy for the body to accumulate an extra 7700 calories. For example, rare milk and fried chicken are the option for many people for afternoon tea. However, drinking a 700cc cup of pearl milk tea costs about 600 calories, and a fried chicken leg is about 300 calories. You can accumulate 7700 calories if you eat it 8 to 9 times. If you go to another "all-you-can-eat" meal or a wedding banquet, you will accumulate calories even faster. Eat slowly one at a time. As long as you eat 10 dishes, it is conservatively estimated that the calories of a meal will be nearly 2000 calories, which often exceeds what we need for a day.

It consumes 7700 calories, but it is very hard. A 60-kilogram person riding a bicycle at a medium speed consumes about 300 calories per hour, and it takes 24 days to ride one hour a day. Therefore, it is best to be familiar with the calories of various foods, so that you will not eat easily but lose weight that requires hard exercise.

The body consumes calories every day on basic metabolism, physical activity and the thermogenic effects of food intake. The amount of calories needed by the body to maintain the most basic life phenomena such as breathing, heartbeat, body temperature and the functions of various organs is the basal metabolic rate. The basal metabolic rate is directly related to the composition of the body. People with more muscle mass have a higher basal metabolic rate. The basal metabolic rate will peak at the age of 18 to 25, and will decline with age after the age of 25, decreasing by approximately 5 to 10% every 10 years. The degree of decrease will be related to the loss of individual muscle mass. When measuring body composition using BIA, we can simultaneously estimate the body's basal metabolic rate and body caloric consumption, or we can also use Harris-Benedict's basal metabolic formula to calculate it.

Calculation formula for caloric consumption

Calories consumption = basic metabolism × activity factors × stress factors

Basic metabolism calculation formula

Male = 66 + 13.7 × weight kg +5 × height cm-6.8 × age

Female = 655 + 9.6 × weight kg +1.7 × height cm-4.7 × age

Most of the basal metabolic rates calculated using the formula are slightly higher than the actual measured values, with a difference of about 10%.

→ Calories consumption is the sum of the basal metabolic rate plus the amount of physical activity. The longer the activity time and the stronger the exercise intensity, the more calories you consume.

In addition, what consumes calories is the caloric effect of food intake, which refers to the calories consumed by the body's digestion, absorption, storage, metabolism and other actions of food after eating. The calories consumed by the thermogenic effect of food consumption account for about 10% of the total calories, and will vary depending on the nutrient composition in the food. Among them, the digestion and metabolism of protein consumes the most calories, followed by fat, and the digestion and metabolism of carbohydrates consumes the least calories.

Therefore, when controlling weight, you can use the caloric effect of food intake to increase the proportion of protein intake, reduce the intake of sugar and fat, and make the overall calorie consumption more efficient.

The health impact of wrong weight loss

There are many weight loss methods that emphasize rapid weight loss. Whether they are food, medicine or diet, they all have health risks. During the nutrition consultation process, it was found that most people have lost weight, and there are hundreds of methods, ranging from the early popularity of Sanwrens diet, Thai diet pills, fasting diet, meal replacement weight loss, high-protein weight loss, cocktail weight loss, etc. There are countless.

These methods may help you lose weight quickly, but they can also easily return to weight. Improper diet can lead to a lack of nutrients in the body, especially when fasting and losing weight. Due to the lack of various important nutrients and insufficient protein intake, the body's protein is decomposed, causing serious loss of muscle tissue, leading to decreased immunity, and may even cause organ atrophy. Such weight loss effect cannot last long, so many cases come back for nutrition consultation after regaining weight.

The health risks of using drugs to lose weight are greater, especially illegal diet drugs, such as the popular Thai diet drugs in the past, which contain fentamin, laxatives, diuretics, thyroxine and other ingredients. Before 2003, the US FDA had not banned the use of ephedrine in diet foods, many people could buy back a bunch of diet foods containing ephedrine in American supermarkets. In fact, there have been many deaths from the use of these drugs and are not legal in Taiwan. In some cases, after taking these drugs, it is easy to cause adverse reactions, such as excitement, insomnia, headache, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, palpitations, muscle weakness, mental confusion, renal failure, weakness, paralysis, and irregular heartbeat. Even after stopping using these drugs, many sequelae still occur and lifelong regrets are caused.

If weight loss is the result of loss of body muscles and lack of bone, it is also inappropriate weight loss. Muscle tissue is one of the human body's amino acid pools and can regulate the body's utilization of proteins and amino acids. Muscle deficiency can indirectly affect immunity, hematopoiesis and other functions.

The support of muscles for the body can maintain balance, allowing people to easily cope with changes in various postures. When the body muscles are insufficient, the support also deteriorates, which is prone to problems such as backache, aggravated arthritis, and osteoporosis. The older you get, the more you need to worry about maintaining muscle mass. Therefore, evaluating the results of weight loss should not only look at the weight reduced, but also evaluate the weight maintained or increased by muscles.

Maintaining your ideal weight is far better than constantly losing weight

After finally losing weight, what I am most afraid of is getting fat again. A doctor once counted more than 2,000 cases and found that the rate of regaining weight among people who used non-medical professional methods to lose weight was as high as 76%, while the rate of regaining weight after successful weight loss in a medical institution was only 27%.

Many people fail to lose weight because they mistakenly estimate the calories of the food they consume, especially after losing part of the weight. Because weight loss, the body's basal metabolic rate will change and calorie consumption will decrease. Therefore, the so-called "plateau period" occurs during the weight loss process. It is not easy for weight loss. This is an adjustment period necessary for the body to adapt to the new metabolism.

The plain period and weight loss period will alternate, and the weight loss curve will be like a ladder. Moderate weight loss can stabilize the body's metabolism and make it less easy to regain weight. After weight loss, calorie consumption will decrease, and the calorie intake of the diet will also decrease. Many people do not learn to calculate their suitable calories during weight loss, resulting in a short period of weight loss, and the diet will return to the pre-weight pattern. Of course, the weight will return to the same weight as before, or heavier.

I believe everyone is familiar with the "slimming syndrome", which describes the phenomenon of regaining weight after losing weight, and then regaining weight after losing weight and constantly cycling up and down like a slimming ball. The best weight control is to make a maintenance period after losing weight, especially for adults after the age of 25, because the body has stopped growing. If there is a lack of exercise, the weight gain will be mostly fat, and there is little chance of muscle gain. But once we lose weight, we will naturally metabolize part of our water and protein, so when we lose weight, we will definitely lose fat, water, and protein.

The ideal weight loss result is to lose the most fat and lose a small amount of water and protein. However, if you lose weight improperly, you lose too much water and protein in lean muscle tissue. Once you regain weight, the weight you gain is fat again, resulting in poor body composition and a decline in metabolic rate. If you continue to lose weight, you will regain weight again, which leads to a vicious cycle. The more you lose weight, the more you lose weight. Therefore, a good way to lose weight should be one that is easy to implement and sustainable, so that the hard-won weight can be maintained well.