10 steps to lose weight quickly! Part 6

Diet

If you followed what we describe in our series of articles, you should have already gotten rid of several pounds of surplus. In this article we will deal with the diet itself. Don’t worry! It will be a reasonable, effective diet that won’t make you starve.

Reasons of overweight

Overweight might have several reasons. Just do not consider certain illnesses and hormonal problems this time – unfortunately there are people who have to face things like these, but here I have to mention that their situation is not hopeless either and the rules should be applied by them even more strictly.

The fist most important reason of overweight is always rooted in a bad nutrition. People just eat too much calories in most of the cases, more than the body is able to use. The unused calories will be stored by the organism, and it does it in form of fat. Ceasing and fighting it is a rather easy task then – we might be tempted to see it like this – as we have nothing else to do than eating less and the problem is solved then.

Unfortunately the formula is not that easy. There are some meals that are making more fat than others. If we just simply eat less, that might be a solution, but if we do not leave behind the most vicious of them, we might waste lots of energy, as we have to drastically decrease the amount of calories consumed in order to lose weight, instead of rather changing the quality of food. Plus, decreasing calories too drastically might even hit back, but we will come back to that later on.

What makes excessive calorie consumption? Rarely is it because someone eats huge amounts for both meals, and so that person runs to fat. It might occur, but it is quite rare – it happens more often that the „empty calories” eaten during the day almost unnoticed (unnecessary, useless food that provide a huge amount of calories) add up and leads to an obese situation. Foods like this:

-Soft drinks with sugar –fruit juices as well, even if they have a fruit content of 100%, their carbohydrate content is high as well.

-snacks, chips, salt sticks, popcorn, not to mention the sweet snacks

-Sweets, chocolates, and even muesli bars – they might contain cereals, but they are full of sugar!

-bakery products made of white flour, especially sweet bakery

-cookies – even cookies branded as whole grain unfortunately contain a lot of sugar

-Morning cereals, muesli – 90% of those are full of sugar! Do not believe the commercial lines about „added vitamins” and so on!

Nice company. And the worst is that there are some products in there which are said to be very healthy and supporting a diet.

The first step of a diet – define your daily calorie needs

Why is it important? You have to know how many nutrients your body needs. You will only be able to lose weight if there will be a calorie deficit, which means that you eat less than your body would need. If you are not aware of that, then you are only groping in the dark.

Here is how you can calculate how many calories your body needs. First you should calculate the energy need of the basal metabolic rate. It means that if you would do nothing, your body would need this much energy to stay alive. 

The formula of the basal metabolic rate:

Female: 11-18 years     12,2 x body mass (kg) + 746

Female: 19-30 years     14,7 x body mass (kg) + 496

Female: 31-60 years     8,7 x body mass (kg) + 829

Male: 11-18 years     17,5 x body mass (kg) + 651

Male: 19-30 years     15,3 x body mass (kg) + 679

Male: 31-60 years     11,6 x body mass (kg) + 879

For example: a 25 years old girl who weighs 60 kilo has the following basal metabolic rate:

14,7 x 60 = 882 + 496 = 1378Kcal / day. This means that if she would do nothing at all, her body would need this amount of energy to stay alive. 

How to calculate daily calorie needs:

In case of average exercise the daily energy needs of women is 1,6 times more and in case of men 2,2 times more than the basal metabolism.

If sticking to the above mentioned example, the energy needs of a 25 years old woman are: ca. 2 200 Kcal.

( 1378 x 1,6 = 2204 )

How many calories should I consume per day in order to be able to lose weight?

A bit of maths…

1 gramm fat contains 9 calories. A pound of fat contains 4 500 calories ( 500 x 9 = 4500 ). If you would like to lose a pound of fat every week, then you have to consume about 600-650 calories less on a daily basis, than your daily need would be. ( 4500 / 7 = 642 )  Looking at the above example again: the energy need of the 25-old woman is 2 200 Kcal / day. If she wants to lose a pound of fat a week, she must decrease this value by ca. 600 calories. That means that if she follows a 1 700 calorie-diet, then she will be able to lose a pound a week.

It is important to note that there is no point on decreasing the daily calorie consumption too drastically, as it will only hit back, as the organism then will slow down the metabolism extremely! But we will go more into detail on that in another article.

Diet

We did define how many calories we need to lose weight. Now let’s discuss how many, what and when you are allowed to eat. But don’t be afraid, I have good news as well! You must not give up on your favourite meal, you only have to follow the instructions on when you are allowed to eat it and of course you will have to take care of the amounts as well.

How much am I allowed to eat?

It is important to know how many calories certain foods contain. On the internet you can find the calorie values of many food products. Download a table and study it. You will understand soon that you will be able to easily consume 1 600 calories in just two meals – so you will be forced to eat meals that contain less calories.

You must stick to 6 meals per day! Getting back to the previous example – a 25 years old woman has to eat 1 700 calories during the diet. If we divide the 6 meals into equal portions, then she would be allowed to eat 280 calories for every meal. I suggest that the first meals of the day should contain more calories (350-400 calories), and the further ones during the days proportionally less. Your organisation will get the needed energy then, so that we can do our tasks of the day without getting tired.

What and when can I eat?

The essence of the diet is that it puts meals into 3 categories, and helps defining based on these 3 categories what you can eat and at what time you can do it:

1 category meals can be eaten between 6:00-22:00. 

2 category meals can be eaten between 6:00-15:00.

3 category meals can be eaten between 6:00-11:00.

During the diet it is suggested to only eat 1 and 2 category meals, and to keep the predicted time periods anyhow. Once you succeeded in losing weight, you are allowed to eat anything, but only within the time and reasonable amount limits.

During the diet you will be allowed to eat 3rd category meals maximum twice a week. And you must of course keep the defined time periods and amounts.

That means that you can eat twice a week what you would really like to have (not during the whole day, just for one meal!!!). For example a bit of chocolate, a slice of pizza, but do not forget to keep the time and do not stuff you with thousands of calories, otherwise the whole diet will be worthless. You have to be self-denying!

Meals and their category:

Vegetables and fruits:  2 – apple, 3 – banana, 2 – peaches, 2 – potatoes, 3 – dates, 2 – melon,3 – figs, 1 – mushrooms, 1 – onions, 1 – cabbage, 1 – curly flower, 1 – cucumber, 2 – pear, 1 – raspberry, 1 – sour cherry, 1 – paprika, 1 – spinach, 1 – tomato, 1 – radish, 1 – soya beans, 3 – grape, 1 – pumpkin

Cereals and bakery products: 2 – Abonett, 1 – wheat sprouts, 1 – wheat grains, 3 – refined flour, 3 – cookies, 3 – white bread, 3 – crescents, 3 – pizza, 3 – scones, 1 – rice crisps, 1 – wheat crisps, 2 – rice, 2 – rye bread, 2 – rye flour, 2-whole grain bread, 3 – pasta, 3 – toast, 3 – rolls

Dairy products: 2 – Edam cheese, 2 – Camembert, 1 – feta cheese, 1 – Sheep cheese, 3 – whipping cream, 1 – yoghurt, 3 – yoghurt drink, 3 – coffee cream, 1 – kefir, 3 – margarine, 1 – blue cheese, 1 – mozzarella, 1 – parmesan, 1 – milk, 1 – sour creme, 1 – eggs , 2 – trappist cheese, 1 – cottage cheese, 1,5%, 3 – butter

Meat and fish: 1 – chicken, 2 – meatball, 1 – ham, 2 – grill chicken, 2 – welt, 2 – sausage, 1 – beef meat, 1 – carp, 1 – turkey, 1 – crab, 3 – wiener schnitzel, 2 – pork meat, 2 – sardines, 1 – clod, 1 – hot dog, 2-steak

Other: 3 – chocolate, 3 – chips, 3 – sugar, 2 – walnut, 1 – sweeteners, 2 – white wine, 1 – coffee, 2 – ketchup, 3 – marmalade, 3 – Martini, 3 – honey, 1 – mustard, 1 – olives, 2 – champagne, 3 – Red Bull, 2 – beer, 3 – Whisky, 1 – red wine 

Keep the diet, do not cheat with the time periods and ensure that your daily calorie consumption should not exceed the planned amount by more than 10%!

You can eat 3rd category meals (or what you just desire) 2 times a week, until you do not lose weight. I would suggest not planning those 2 days after one another. It could be for example Tuesday and Saturday, or Wednesday and Sunday.

Check the scales! If you do not take any metabolism driver or fat burner products, like Regenon or Adipex, and you lose more than 1,5-2 kilos per week, then you it is likely that you did calculate the daily calorie need far too low. In this case it would be on purpose to raise it, as in a few weeks your process of losing weight will stop completely, as your body will just slow down metabolism.

We wish you stamina and good luck!

Our recommended articles:

10 steps to lose weight quickly! Part 5 – A simple trick how you can quit snacking!

10 steps to lose weight quickly! Part 1