6 misconceptions about losing weight

Let me try to clarify this issue.

From the selection of the most popular articles for the year, I came across this one “how to lose 10 kg without sports at home”.

As usual, the article is not so interesting, but the comments to it, where everyone partially agrees with the author “but it’s obvious that to lose weight, you need to eat less”, adds something from their bell tower “but how can you lose weight if you have bad hormones / slow metabolism / sugar cravings /”, etc.

I train online and one of the most frequent requests from my clients is weight loss. I’m not a nutritionist, and I don’t make up a diet for people with gastrointestinal diseases, etc. I am not a nutritionist, and I do not make up diets for micronutrients to fill in deficiencies, etc. I am a trainer and I motivate (force) my clients to train under my supervision until it becomes a stable habit, and I help to adjust their nutrition so that the training is not accompanied by a loss of strength, injuries, and under-recovery. And bright results in training are possible only with a properly selected diet. When all these conditions are met, my client inevitably loses weight, even when no such task was set.

So the accumulated experience allows us to reflect in this direction and analyze common misconceptions about the weight loss process, which once again came up in the comments.

Why do we lose weight / get fat?

Introductory point.Because we disrupt the energy balance.

The body is an open system and it obeys the laws of thermodynamics. Energy in an open system cannot arise and disappear into nowhere. If the energy entering the system exceeds the consumption, it will not disappear, but will remain in the system.

If we eat more than we spend, the energy is stored in reserves.

The theory lends itself to the principles of determinism: the amount of carbon dioxide, water, and heat released can be used to determine how much energy a person has consumed over a period of time.

And it all works so well that by creating a calorie deficit, you can calculate the approximate rate and timing of weight loss. Why approximately?

There are two variables in the weight loss formula – energy intake and energy expenditure. But we are not metal or water, which can only be in three states. We are a living organism that goes through hundreds of states every day, they affect the functions of systems and organs, which directly affects both the amount of energy received (appetite) and the level of consumption (laziness, fatigue…). It’s almost like in a car – knowing the engine size, weight of the car, and the amount of gasoline in the tank, you can determine how many kilometers the car will drive. But there are many variables that affect the final consumption: headwind, tailwind, road quality, number of passengers, urban conditions or a straight route, some breakdowns. We have mood, memory (we forget the amount of food), hormone activity, physical activity, muscle strength – all of these variables affect both energy consumption and consumption, to varying degrees and over different periods of time.

But one thing remains the same: as long as you fill up, you will drive as long.

And the more data you have on the variables, the more accurately you can determine the consumption. How much you eat is about how much you activate, and knowing the additional variables, you can more accurately determine the rate and duration of weight loss. So scientists in clinical trials, under constant supervision of the subject, measuring the heart rate, depth of inhalation and exhalation, blink rate, amount and composition of exhaled air, determine the energy consumption of an individual very, very accurately.

1. What helps one does not help another

The commenter was absolutely right. But it’s important to use this recommendation in a certain context, so I’ll rephrase it: what helps one person maintain a consistent diet and calorie deficit is unlikely to help another.

That’s why we hear different things. For some people, only avoiding sugar and fast carbohydrates works, others “tried everything, but only avoiding fat helped,” others burn through sports, and others profess a binge lifestyle or “eat everything and count calories.”

Everyone is different, but this does not mean that the law of energy conservation works for one person, while the other does not, and only the amount of insulin secreted affects his or her obesity. The law works for everyone. In losing weight, consistency is important – that is, the ability to keep the deficit for a long time (4 months or more), smoothly changing eating habits, because short-term fasting and changing your diet just to lose weight will still lead to weight gain.

We are individual in our ability to maintain this consistency.

Since the ability to control hunger plays an important role in losing weight, a keto diet helps some people to tame the rumbling in their stomach, intermittent fasting helps others, and so on. But in my experience, the best method is conscious eating. That is, when you are familiar with what you eat. You understand well how many nutrients are on the plate and what each of these letters gives your body. You know something about micronutrients. You learn how to make the right proportions of the dietary nutrients from the foods you are already used to eating. If the basket is very tight and full of refined products, then add new items very gradually, first as part of an experiment, then permanently.

The presence or absence of sports affects the psychological comfort of compliance with new conditions, and they affect the success of the diet as a whole. But if sport doesn’t work at all, then it’s better to wait with it.

It is important to understand in which mode you can achieve better sustainability.

2. Calorie deficit works only for the healthy.

It may seem so, but it works for everyone.

As I have already written, there are many variables that affect the rate of weight loss. If we generalize these variables, they can be divided into several large groups:

• Obese or normal weight.
• Gender.
• Metabolic disorders or their absence.
• Hormonal disorders or their absence.
• Low level of activity, Medium, High.
• Reaction to calorie deficiency or lack thereof.
• Honesty.
• Psychological stability.

You can know something in advance and immediately apply tools that are suitable for this type. For example, people with insulin resistance are well suited to low-carb diets (keto or LCHF). The severity of the recommendations depends on the level of obesity – if the degree of obesity is 2 and above, you can make a very strict deficit of up to 50% of the daily norm, because being overweight is more harmful than dietary discomfort. It’s the same with sports – it’s extremely important for people with metabolic disorders to do weight-bearing exercises, and it won’t matter whether they like it or not. You can knock the coach on the back of the head for missing a workout, and remind them once again of the negative effects of fat ballast. And if a person is at a normal body weight but wants to dry out, then the approach is completely different – the key to success will be to find a tidal wave and create comfortable conditions in diet, regimen, and training.

It is impossible to predict something in advance, for example, the last 3 points.

I’ve had people who went from being optimistic to being close to depressed in two weeks, even with a small calorie deficit and a perfectly balanced diet. Rigidity such as “come on, sack, drag your body to training” towards such people can push them away from the desire to get in shape for a long time. And there are those who are depressed in life and come to train like this – with them, the Major Payne regimen works very well.

Deficit works for everyone. But each of us has our own set of variables that will affect the success and rate of weight loss.

3. Excess weight is in the head.

No matter how much you lose weight, a childhood trauma will still make you bite off a sausage – another common parable of unsuccessful weight loss. I’m not denying the problem as a whole. My point is that it most likely applies to a very small number of people with real diagnoses. Otherwise, “I have a craving for sweets, I was forbidden to eat sweets as a child”, “I have a craving for fat”, “I can’t lose weight, probably a problem from childhood makes me eat”, “I’m afraid to be slim, Caucasians will steal it” – the client really had such a fear. But most cravings and the inability to control appetite are the consequences of a crooked diet and lifestyle.

There are 3 pillars that affect our ability to control our appetite and even make healthy choices: sleep (quantity and quality), physical activity, and alcohol, or rather the lack of it. It just so happens that at least one of these things haunts everyone. Many people collect all 3. A little research.

1. Poor sleep distorts our eating habits. For example, here they found that lack of sleep increases appetite, and it is very difficult to lose weight with constant thoughts about food – breakdowns will become more frequent, preventing the result from showing up. Poor sleep causes overeating. While a good quality and long sleep can make you make a choice in favor of healthy food. Poor sleep is something that will constantly lead you astray.
2. The higher the activity, the more food you can afford to eat without getting fat. Your stomach will fill up more, which means you’ll stay full longer. Here, many people will give an example that the stomach will stretch and still ask for food, but no. Fortunately, it doesn’t work that way. It is surprising that increased activity leads to increased consumption, but decreased activity does not lead to decreased consumption. So if you move less, you won’t eat less. The lower the activity, the worse the appetite control, the more frequent overeating and weight gain. Similarly, activity affects the quality of sleep – the higher the activity, the better you sleep.
3. Alcohol increases cravings for fatty and salty foods. Fat is the most high-calorie nutrient – 9 kcal per 1 g. The combination of fat + salt (burger, French fries, pizza) is the most powerful and desirable texture and flavor combination for the tongue and brain (I can’t find a link to this study right away). Regular alcohol consumption will only increase cravings, which are most likely already formed due to low activity and lack of sleep.

Someone else might mention stress, but sleep and training relieve it well, so it’s more likely a consequence.

As you can see, lifestyle both creates weight problems and prevents you from getting rid of them. Try to fix the points above first before going to a therapist. This will give a bonus not only for body composition, but also for the quality of life in general.

4. Losing weight is not good for you.

If the degree of obesity is 2 and above, it is very useful. Obese people can be strictly deficient, fat people can easily maintain it because of the large amount of stored energy. They may even not care about the proportions of the BJU, because they hardly lose muscle when losing weight. They may not care about the quality of food in general, because being overweight is a greater health hazard than an unbalanced diet. But it is still worthwhile to work on your diet and habits, because the task is not only to lose weight, but also not to gain it back, and good eating habits will help with this.

Those who are of normal weight do not need to lose weight. Girls often experience menstrual problems when trying to lose weight. When losing weight from normal to lean, a lot of muscle is lost, and hormonal levels are disturbed.

As a rule, losing weight is accompanied by low protein intake, which is why a combed-out clump of hair will become a daily occurrence. The skin will lose its tone, brittle nails, and poor health. Men lose their libido, especially when they do not monitor the amount and variety of fats in their diet. In general, if you do it badly, then of course it is harmful. If you do it wisely, then the consequences are minimal.

For those who are not overweight, it will be more important to monitor the amount of muscle mass, because today such a disease as metabolic obesity is increasingly appearing in the literature. This is when the body weight is normal, but there are very few muscles. Such proportions give diagnoses in the outpatient chart as if they were a copy of a fat person – high blood pressure, poor insulin sensitivity, glucose above normal, poor sleep, snoring, dizziness, and so on.

It is more important not to be thin but to have a lot of muscles. To do this, you need to train.

5. Most obese people eat the same amount as everyone else.

There are two variables in the weight loss formula. You can eat as much as you want, but move around ugly little.

The fatter a person is, the less they move, because it causes discomfort, thus accelerating weight gain even more, despite the fact that they no longer eat.

6. My thin friend eats like a man, while my other friend pecks at bread crumbs and is fat.

From experience: if you take control of each of these individuals, you will find that the first one eats a lot only when you are present. The rest of the time, he will forget, turn away, eat a cucumber, have a cup of coffee, and generally move around a lot. And the second specimen eats little only when asked. Obese people are often embarrassed to eat in front of others, which can give the impression that they always eat little. Obese people often forget what they have eaten. They consciously or unconsciously lie about the amount of food they eat. Even if they keep a food diary and know that it will be checked, they under-report the number of calories. A study in which 9 out of 10 girls lied in their reports, even though they were trained and told that everything would be verified.

In this cool study on pairs of identical twins, in which one of the twins was obese, it turned out that the fat ones lied in their food diaries by 800 kcal per day towards underreporting, and the thin ones by 400 kcal.

In general, fat people usually underestimate the calorie content of the diet, and thin people overestimate it.

As you can see, losing weight is a minefield. Give me a plus if you managed to shed more light on this topic.

Roman Rodin