[Here’s another guest post from Dave Banko on healthy diet and lifestyle.]
This may sound counter intuitive, but the worst thing you can do to lose weight, particularly to burn fat, is to starve yourself.
Your body has a primitive defense mechanism for self-preservation to protect fat reserves in the event of actual starvation, going back to days when the availability of food was cyclical. When no calories are coming in, your body slows the metabolism down to conserve energy (making you feel lethargic and moody) and consumes muscle and organ tissue along with the fat to protect reserves and supply the brain and red blood cells.
You will lose weight, but not all of it will be fat, and this method can have serious negative effects on your overall health. As soon as you start eating again, most of the weight comes back on as your body rebuilds.
Consuming calories, even a small amount, stimulates the metabolism and releases fat reserves. This is also another reason breakfast is so important, as you haven’t been consuming calories for 8-12 hours overnight.
In ‘What’s the Right Diet for You?‘ scientists stress 80% of successful dieters start with breakfast.
A good breakfast including protein (eggs, fish, poultry, other lean meat or high protein legume) and complex carbohydrates in fruit and whole grains, and, of course, one or more glasses of water, is the perfect way to kick-start your metabolism and fat burning for the day.
Adding a cup of tea or coffee isn’t the end of world, unless you are also cutting down on caffeine. 🙂 I would avoid fruit juice as it has a high concentration of sugar without the fiber naturally found in whole fruit to slow down its hit to your blood stream. Also be careful of hidden sugar in spreads, commercial cereals and even muesli.
However, you don’t need a lot of calories to trigger the fat burn which is why the 5 and 2 diet can keep the calorie content on the fasting days to 500-600 total calories. But even the 5 and 2 diet encourages breakfast on fast days to get you going, and regular eating on non-fast days.
Be sure not to fast on consecutive days, and eat properly on the days in between fasts.
According to the National Institute of Health, women should consume a minimum of 1200 calories per day and men should consume a minimum of 1500 calories per day for a healthy metabolism, appropriate balance of protein, fat, fiber and carbohydrates, and avoidance of malnutrition.
If intermittently fasting (this should only be for 2, at the most 3, non-consecutive days per week and for no longer than 12 weeks) the minimum should be 500-600 calories per day on fasting days, and 1500-1800 calories on the non-fasting days.
When aiming to lose weight, average women should aim for a weekly total of 8,400 to 10,500 calories per week and men, 10,500 to 12,600. If you are heavier or very active, this target should be higher.
When I started this new healthy eating lifestyle (I prefer not to call it a diet, because I will be eating this way for the rest of my life), I weighed 351 lbs (having peaked at 365 lbs) and consumed around 5,000 calories per day.
I tried and failed with numerous starvation and detox diets.
Eating to lose weight made absolutely no sense to me, but I tried it anyway, and my successful weight loss convinced me.
Eating the right foods, in the right combination and at the right time of the day made me feel better, gave me plenty of energy, and made it easier for me to eat less (you may not feel ‘full’ but you will feel ‘satisfied’ and for longer), and the weight melted off.
At the time of this writing (17 months after starting to change the way I ate), I’m down to 218 lbs and working to lose the last 8 lbs to get down to my military weight of 210 lbs.
Every now and then, I still have bad days where I blow the diet, and it shows on the scale the next morning. My natural inclination is still to stop eating to counter my binge from the day before, but I remind myself how my body works, and then go cook my 2 whole egg cheese & veg omelette to have with my morning fruit, full fat natural yogurt, whole grain toast, lemon water, and tea (no sugar), and I’m right back on the program. The weight keeps coming off.
For more information on eating to lose weight, here’s a good blog post from My Fitness Pal.
Feel free to contact me at daveb.uk@hotmail.com with any questions or comments. [Crew Dog: Or comment below.]