Basic knowledge about weight loss: Should you lose weight and can you lose weight?
Basic knowledge of weight loss
I. Things to Know Before Losing Weight
Anyone can lose weight, even quickly.
By enduring hunger and taking medication when necessary, you can absorb excess nutrients in your body like a sponge and achieve your weight loss goals.
Alternatively, taking unserious measures such as inducing diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration can also achieve the goal of weight loss.
However, this only works for a period of time and is detrimental to health, affecting the quality of life.
Therefore, the scientific way to lose weight should be to lose weight slowly and persistently over a long period of time, while maintaining the original body shape and living a life that is basically the same as that of an ordinary person.
However, while the principles of weight loss are simple to explain, they are quite difficult to implement.
Without hardship, effort, and tears, or a negative attitude, you cannot achieve your weight loss goals.
Losing weight requires a minimum level of discipline, willpower, and perseverance.
Therefore, before persuading a friend to make a weight loss decision, you should clarify the following questions: ① Should I lose weight? ② Can I lose weight? Before voluntarily making the decision to lose weight, each friend should also ask themselves: Am I interested in losing weight? Do I have the willpower necessary to lose weight?
(I) Should I lose weight?
After seeing the dangers of obesity, you will definitely answer without a doubt that you should lose weight.
However, after you confidently start losing weight, you may see some results in the first few days, with your weight dropping rapidly. But this doesn't last long, and your weight stops decreasing or even increases. At this point, you will definitely feel confused about the huge price you have paid for losing weight.
Indeed, the relapse rate of obesity is extremely high, and it is just as difficult for an obese person to lose a few pounds as it is for a thin person to gain a few pounds.
Moreover, once obese people fall into a vicious cycle of "fat-thin-fat", the harmful effects on their bodies are extremely serious, sometimes even greater than not losing weight.
People who experience the "fat-thin-fat" effect usually use incorrect weight loss methods, such as extreme dieting, "starvation therapy," diarrhea, dehydration, etc.
In this way, the weight lost contains both fat and muscle, and once the weight is regained, the vast majority of the new weight gain will be fat.
Therefore, after each cycle of "fat-thin-fat", the body fat will increase.
This is one of the reasons why people who repeatedly lose weight are more likely to develop coronary heart disease than the average person (or even those who don't lose weight) after adulthood.
At this point, you might have even more questions: Should I lose weight?
Not only are obese people puzzled by this issue, but even veteran experts who have been engaged in obesity research for many years still debate it.
However, upon closer analysis, it's not hard to see that those who fail at weight loss either fail to follow the basic principles of scientific weight loss or blindly use improper methods, which will inevitably cause significant damage to their bodies.
Setting unreasonable goals is a common mistake made by dieters and even medical professionals, and it is also a major reason for weight loss failure.
For an obese person, setting a realistic weight goal is influenced by many factors.
Factors such as the patient's age, gender, duration of obesity, family history of genetic factors, and current physical condition.
Therefore, the ideal weight loss goal varies from person to person.
The goal of obesity treatment is not only to reduce weight, but also, more importantly, to prevent and treat various serious health complications, eliminate the metabolic disorders caused by these complications, and eliminate the various adverse effects on the body and mind.
In this sense, scientific weight loss is more beneficial to people.
A scientific weight loss process involves learning a wide range of comprehensive methods, including dietary nutrition, exercise, and behavioral changes, to correct unhealthy eating habits, thereby achieving the goals of reducing weight, preventing disease, and ensuring health.
The nutritional guidelines, exercise principles, and behavior modification programs for scientific weight loss are highly consistent with some strategies for reducing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.
Scientific weight loss is essential for obese individuals.
For most healthy individuals, learning about diet and nutrition, exercise and fitness, and behavioral health can be very helpful in preventing obesity and reducing disease.
(II) Can it help with weight loss?
Can it help me lose weight? Yes!
Can the weight loss effect be maintained in the long term? Not necessarily.
Patients, including some doctors, often go to extremes. Pessimists believe that some people are born fat and there's nothing we can do about it; others believe the exaggerated advertisements that claim "something" will make people lose weight effortlessly and then they can rest easy.
In fact, treating obesity is like mastering a foreign language; anyone with the ability, guidance, and willingness to invest effort can achieve their goal.
Weight loss must be guided by science, and weight loss measures should be comprehensive.
These measures should include the following six aspects, none of which can be omitted.
(1) Daily calorie intake should be lower than calorie expenditure, resulting in a negative calorie balance.
Based on this, and after a considerable period of effort (at least six months to one year), the body is gradually induced to lower its fat metabolism level and establish a new energy balance.
Please note that dieting should never be excessive to prevent insufficient intake of various nutrients.
(2) Weight loss should not be too fast or too drastic. It should be done gradually, and the weight loss per month should not exceed 2 kilograms.
(3) The diet provided for weight loss should be acceptable to overweight people in terms of eating habits, local ethnic customs, color, aroma and taste, and food price so that they can stick to it in the long term and avoid "sporadic efforts".
(4) Through behavioral guidance, help obese people change various bad eating and lifestyle habits that easily lead to obesity.
The diets and eating habits that obese people prefer are often the very same diets and habits that lead to their obesity.
Therefore, you should patiently explain it to them.
(5) Incorporate regular aerobic activities (such as walking, running, cycling, dancing, etc.) into your basic lifestyle.
(6) Strive for full support from the external environment.
The core of the above can be summarized into three key points, or twelve words: "A balanced diet, daily exercise, and behavioral changes."
Experts at the University of Pennsylvania have condensed the above comprehensive weight loss measures into a single English word: "Learn".
Here, L stands for Lifestyle; E stands for Aerobic Activity, i.e., Exercise; A stands for Attitude, meaning that only with the right attitude and strong desire towards weight loss, exercise, nutrition, and behavior can one persevere in weight loss and truly achieve the goal; R stands for Relationship, meaning that only when weight loss activities truly gain the understanding and support of family, colleagues, etc., can they be effective.
N stands for Nutrition, referring to weight loss achieved through nutritional intervention.
The word "learn" is well chosen. It not only summarizes the essence of scientific weight loss measures, but also, as its meaning reflects, weight loss itself is a learning process.
(III) Develop a weight loss plan
Most obese people have a strong desire to lose weight, but turning this desire into reality is not an easy task, and consolidating the weight loss results requires long-term hard work.
Weight loss is a systematic process that cannot be rushed or done blindly; there are no magic pills or miracle cures.
Otherwise, haste makes waste; the faster you lose weight, the faster you regain it.
Therefore, before you start losing weight, I hope you will carefully consider and make a practical plan.
Please consider the pattern shown in the image below.
The first step in developing a weight loss plan is to establish weight loss goals that are appropriate for your actual situation, namely: ① how much weight you should lose; ② how long you should take to achieve this; and ③ what main weight loss methods you should adopt.
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To ensure that your weight loss plan is truly implemented and achieves results on schedule, you should also have "skill learning" and "self-commitment" as guarantees.
Before introducing specific weight loss methods, each of the following chapters contains some basic knowledge. It is hoped that those who want to lose weight will study it carefully, learn to apply it to other situations, and flexibly apply it to their own circumstances.
Self-commitment means that once a plan is made, you must be determined to complete it, persevere, and have patience and perseverance.
A plan is like a mirror reflecting your own commitment, which needs to be constantly checked against. Conversely, without a steadfast commitment and execution throughout the weight loss process, even the best plan is just empty talk.
When it comes to specific weight loss methods, each method has its own advantages.
A balanced diet is the foundation of all weight loss plans. Once patients have mastered basic nutritional knowledge, they can freely choose foods, cook them properly, and eat them in moderation to achieve the goal of maintaining health through a balanced diet.
Describing unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits helps patients establish a healthy lifestyle.
Aerobic activity aimed at increasing aerobic activity is an important part of weight control. Although exercise has little immediate effect on weight loss, it is very important for long-term weight control.
External support, including the attitudes of doctors, teachers, family, friends, and even strangers.
The effects of ridicule and sincere help on obese individuals are worlds apart.