Losing weight is very hard for me. My struggle took off when I entered adulthood. At my last year of high school, after moving to Italy, I gained 22 pounds.
The reason for my waist expansion was: I ate a lot of foods high in sugar such as ice cream, mozzarella di bufala, and bread like I'd never eat it again. Before school, it was normal to stop at a cafeteria and gossip over bomboloni and cappuccinos. Dinner usually was pasta, bread with cheese.
My life in Italy was very good. I like people here. I made friends and learned the language. I love Italian foods. I also got fat. It took about two years to return to my pre-size. And I had to avoid sugary drinks, fast foods and late meals, prepare food at home whenever I can, keep running calorie counts in my head or iPhone app, and regularly weigh myself. I try to figure out where I'm going wrong and re-focus when my weight goes up.I acknowledge that they're a necessary part of staying healthy. I did more than 20 interviews with nutrition experts, registered dietitians, physicians, and evidence-based thinkers on weight loss from across North America. I asked them some basic questions: according to the best-available evidence, what advice do you have for people who struggle with their weight? What do your patients who lose weight and keep it off have in common? Where do people go wrong? I distilled what they told me, as effective weight loss tips for you.
1) There's no "best diet"
The experts I spoke to all indicated that science has recently proved to us, pretty much obviously, that "all diets" - low carb, low fat, Atkins, Weight Watchers, etc. - have the same results in the long term, no matter their macronutrient composition.According to the findings of Dr. Mark Eisenberg, based on data from the research on Weight Watchers, Atkins, the South Beach, and Zone diets for his recent review. He and his co-authors found that through any diets, people tended to gain weight after losing that weight before.
These latest studies also led to the same conclusion. They examined on 300 women who are on either low-carb, low-fat diets, or high-carb. The researchers found that, while women on a low-carb diet (specifically Atkins) lost a little more, this weight loss diet was "likely to be at least as large as for any other dietary pattern." Other words, there was no "best diet or best weight loss tips"
Weight change on various diets over one year
(JAMA)
You can save your money, and adjust fad diets that will certainly come in and out of fashion. You don't have to change your habits and preferences to an unsustainable or unreasonable quick weight loss plan that time has shown will fail. The experts suggested cutting calories in an other way that you want and can sustain, and focusing on eating more healthfully, instead.
According to Dr. Arya Sharma, director of the Canadian Obesity Network, if you want to lose weight fast, the first thing you should do is eat regularly. If you're starving, you're not going to make sensible choices. That doesn't mean eating everytime, but just making sure you can control yourself at your next meal hungry. He also advised patients to eat more vegetables and fruits , instead of processed and sugary drinks snacks.
That's similar to the approach Matt Fitzgerald, author of the book Diet Cults, takes. One of effective weight loss tips that he told me is to eat these following kinds of food ranked from healthy to less healthy:
+ Vegetables
+ Fruits
+ Seeds, healthy oils and nuts
+ High-quality seafood and meat
+ Whole grains
+ Dairy
+ Refined grains
+ Low-quality seafood and meat
+ Sweets
+ Fried foods
Remember: Eat more foods on the top, and avoid foods above.
If you need to know more about healthy foods for weight loss, read here.
2) People who lose weight are good at tracking - what they eat and how much they weigh
Some of the best research on what works for weight loss comes from the National Weight Control Registry, a study that has analysed the characteristics, behaviors and habits of adults who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year. They are now having more than 10,000 members involved in the study, and these people answer to annual questionnaires about how they've managed their weight.
The researchers found that people who were successful at losing weight share a few keys in common: they measure their weights at least once a week. They exercise generally at different degrees of intensity with the most common exercise being walking. They constrain their calories, avoid high-fat foods, and watch their portion sizes. They also eat breakfast. But there's a ton of diversity that make up their meals. And they count calories everyday. Using a food diary is the way that help you know what you should change.
"The most important thing to start with is a food diary," Dr. Yoni Freedhoff said - obesity physician and Diet Fix author. "They are not really fun, but before you start a diet, you need to know where you’re at to know what you should change." Keeping a food diary in real time is one of effective weight loss tips that can help you stay focused by reminding you that you're trying to make changes.
3) People who lose weight identify their barriers and motivations
The National Weight Control Registry is not a controlled experiment; it does not experiment any weight-loss method to groups of people and then see which ones lose weight. In fact, it takes people who are already successful at losing weight and examines what they did to be so. The most important factor is that they're clearly highly motivated: they continued weighing themselves, keeping discipline, counting their calories, and sticking to their diet — long after they lost weight.
Most the experts I spoke to said the people they've seen always stay motivated for a long period so they can keep the weight off.
Cornell professor Dr. Brian Wansink said that when people ask him about how to lose weight, he counters with a series of questions. "The problem is whether someone really wants to lose weight," he said. He explained that people might think they want to lose weight, but when they actually reflect on commitment and the sacrifices required - realize they aren't ready.
Equally as important, said Dr. Sharma, is to acknowledge barriers of weight loss. "The first thing you want to figure out is the reason you can not lose weight. It could be your diet. It could be stress, having a chronic illness, a medication you're on."
4) Diets often fail because of unreasonable expectations
The message I heard from doctors was completely consistent: people who go on diets often fail because they expect results too quickly, stick to "a quick weight loss plan" that doesn't fit their lifestyle or may be impossible to maintain.
Dr. Maria Collazo-Clavell, a Mayo Clinic obesity specialist, said people go wrong when they look for a quick weight loss plan: an upcoming wedding, for a summer holiday. "These short-term approaches do not work," she said.
"The biggest mistake is trying to lose weight too fast," said Canada's Dr. Sharma.
Fastest effective weight loss tips are not healthiest weight loss tips.
Dr. Freedhoff said he sees people "over-exercise, under-eat, or both at the beginning of weight loss process. It's seems to be they will be successful at weight loss." But they finally fail at maintaining an unrealistic and impossible regimen.
Again, these insights should be liberating: change a little at a time, and think long term. Patience, these doctors promised, will pay off.
5) People who lose weight know how many calories they're consuming — and burning
Many researches showed that people tend to overestimate how many calories they burn during exercise and underestimate how many calories they eat. This affects to weight loss effectiveness.
"The halo effect"
(Journal of Consumer Psychology)
These researches found most people misjudge the sugar content of fruit juices, and believe they are good for weight loss. Dr. Frank Sacks said he's seen people get wrong about weight loss when trying to lose weight again and again. He had a friend who were trying to lose weight. But his friend still complained about his recent weight gain. When Dr. Sacks asked him about what he was eating, the friend said that he was drinking orange juice every day. That means he consumed about 1000 calories a day.
(Eating fruits instead of drinking them - Read more)
To make clear about what you're truly eating, measure your food for a period, by measuring cups and using scales in your kitchen. Use your hand to help you estimate portion sizes at restaurants or anywhere before your meal. So you'll quickly learn how much calories you're actually consuming. And it'll make sure you are not delaying the results of your efforts and wasting your time with that food diary.
6) There are ways to hack your environment for health
The weight loss experts all told me the ways they cheat themselves and engineer their environments in order to keep their weight off easier.
"In the home, I’ve gotten rid of anything that I'm likely to overeat. I try to keep them away from myself." said Dr. Sacks.
According to Dr. Freedhoff believes in hunger prevention: he often pre-eats before a meal - usually a small serving of protein instead of carbohydrates - that can help him avoid over-indulging later. He also keep alcohol away from himself before starting a meal, since there's a study found that alcohol stimulates appetite and make people overeat.
We might not have control over the temptations we face outside the home but making small changes to our environments - keeping sugary drinks, fast foods out of sight, serving ourselves off the stove instead of the dinner table - can nudge us in a healthier direction.
"It's easier to become slim by design than slim by willpower," Wansink said. "Design you change once; willpower you have to do every day for the rest your life."
7) Exercise is surprisingly unhelpful for weight loss
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This issue happens because of the fact that people develop "compensatory behaviors" when they exercise, thinking they can have those extra treats because of all the work they did, said Tim Caulfield, author of the Cure for Everything. "They go to fitness centers, and then eat a high-calorie muffin after exercising, and completely neutralize that run. So they are not going to lose weight.
This doesn't mean exercise isn't hugely beneficial for health: it increases resistance, raises mood, boosts energy, and improves sleep quality, just to name a few well-documented benefits.
But science has shown us that losing weight by exercising alone is not effective for most people. Physical activity is more important for weight maintenance than for weight loss, and it helps to controlling calories intake rather than reducing them.
8) Weight loss medications aren't very useful. Neither are "metabolism boosting" supplements.
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Dr. Sharma said the medications might be helpful for people who are having other health problems as a result of overweight, and that interested patients should discuss the benefits and harms with their doctors.
As for supplements that claim to "boost your metabolism" for weight loss, you can just ignore these immediately. Nothing you eat can speed up your metabolism. In addition, overweight people don't necessarily have slower metabolic rates than thin people, so that whole notion is bunk.
Although you can't control the speed of your metabolism, you can decide how many calories you eat and how many you burn through physical activities. When people ask Dr. Jensen how to boost their metabolisms, he tells them "go for a walk." That's something stimulate your weight loss process like green coffee beans or raspberry ketones just won't do. And it's completely free.
9) Forget about "the last 10 pounds"
Dieters don't quite make it to their goal often complain that they can't lose the last 10 pounds. Surprisingly, the obesity doctors I spoke to said you should just forget about them if they are that hard to take off."If you feel the last 10 pounds are more difficult to lose than the rest, it is a signal that you will regain," warned Dr. Freedhoff. "If you need to try harder to lose that weight ... the pounds will just come back."
"You’ve gotten almost all of the health benefits and probably most of the social benefits of losing weight if you’ve got two-thirds of where you’d like to be. So It’s not worth it for the last 10 pounds. " said Dr. Cheskin.
He said even losing five percent of your body weight is great for your health. "People should be very pleased with getting par tway there."
