Nutritionist Alla Manaykina told how the “sweet Sunday” rule is useful and explained how to correctly calculate the calorie content of the diet. A detailed scheme of losing weight in 4 months - at BeautyHack!
Alla Manaykina
Nutritionist (@your_figure_designer)
20 kg in 4 months is more than a real figure. On average, you will lose 3-5 kg per month, and if you correctly build a weight loss scheme, it is completely safe for the body.
According to statistics, a person can lose 200 g of pure fat per day. An important point: the more weight, the easier it is to lose weight (due to the rapid loss of fluid). If you weigh about 70 kg, it will be more difficult to lose weight, because the body does not consider these kilograms extra and is reluctant to part with them.
But before starting to lose weight, I recommend consulting with a specialist, because there are many individual characteristics. And then there are diseases that involve a certain diet.
Don't treat your new eating pattern like a diet
This is one of the main problems of those who want to lose weight by a large number of kilograms in a short time. And it leads to the fact that immediately after losing weight, the weight returns.
There are even statistics: only 5% of those who have lost weight manage to maintain a new weight for 12 months.
There is no need to treat the new diet as something temporary: "I will eat so that I will lose 20 kg, and then I will start eating as usual." Will not work! Even if you lose weight by returning to your normal diet, you will gain weight very quickly.
4 months is the time during which you should change your eating habits and reconsider your own nutritional philosophy. The new diet is the system that you will continue to adhere to.
Calorie content of the daily diet
There are many formulas for calculating the number of calories. They take into account weight, height, gender, age, coefficient of physical activity, but do not take into account the most important thing - the rate of metabolic processes. And this is the most important thing in the process of losing weight. I advise you to first calculate your metabolic rate using the Harris-Benedict formula.
For women: 447.593 + (9.247 x weight in kg) + (3.098 x height in centimeters) - (4.330 x age in years)
Then multiply that figure by your activity quotient to get your daily calorie intake. But this is not the final number: you will eat taking into account a calorie deficit so that the body spends more than it receives.
Important: the total reduction in calorie content should not exceed 15-20%. Otherwise, you are at risk of increased levels of stress hormones, a slowdown in metabolism, and loss of muscle mass, not fat. You can't starve!
Fitness bracelets help in calculating the individual calorie content of the daily diet. I also advise you to keep a food diary at least for the first time in order to visually assess how much and what you eat. To do this, you can use applications: they discipline and show how many calories are in a certain amount of a product.
Recalculate your daily calorie intake every month.
Focus on feelings of fullness and hunger
It happens that, according to all calculations, 1600 kcal was obtained, but for you this is too little, you feel hunger, not appetite. So the calorie needs to be increased A normal meal should be saturating for 2-3 hours.
Also with water: if you are thirsty, drink! If not, you don't need to force yourself. It is good if you manage to drink 1.5-2 liters of water a day.
Three main meals a day + 1-2 snacks
This is more than enough. Try not to eat too often (at intervals of 1-1.5 hours). This provokes an increase in blood glucose levels and increases the production of insulin, which in turn slows down the process of fat burning. Long intervals between meals (about 3-4 hours), on the contrary, trigger this process. During this time, you can drink water, but do not snack.
Breakfast is 25% of the total calorie intake, lunch - 30%, dinner - 20%, snacks - up to 20%.
Breakfast
Choose foods that are good for filling. For some, this is protein food (scrambled eggs, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt), for others - carbohydrate (cereals). I recommend starting your morning with a glass of water and then making a fruit and vegetable smoothie (like spinach, banana, and kiwi). Then after 30-50 minutes you can start a full breakfast. After it, you will not want to eat for 2-3 hours.
Breakfast option: scrambled eggs with tomatoes and broccoli (you can add a little grated cheese), whole grain crisps.
Snack
Fruit is a good option. But it is better not to combine them with other products, otherwise digestion is inhibited and the fermentation process starts. You can add half an apple to the curd, but a fruit salad or smoothie is a separate snack.
You can satisfy your hunger with nuts and fermented milk products.
Dinner
Lunch should contain proteins, fats and carbohydrates. And it's better to start it with a salad, because it is a source of fiber (gives a feeling of fullness). Typically, you will eat less afterwards.
If you are accustomed to eating soup for lunch, then choose vegetable light dishes, avoiding fatty, rich borscht, broths, hodgepodge, etc. And also be careful with cream soups - they are very high in calories.
I recommend dishes with animal or vegetable protein as a side dish. The combination of products is of great importance here. Red meat is best eaten with vegetables, brown rice or quinoa with fish.
After lunch, there may be a second snack, then you will not have a wild appetite for dinner.
Lunch option: brown rice, fish and fresh salad seasoned with unrefined vegetable oil.
Dinner
Dinner can be vegetables (cooked or raw) and poultry, fish, or legumes - a mix of fiber and protein. I advise you to have dinner 3 hours before bedtime. Also at this time, you need to give up carbohydrates so as not to increase insulin levels and not interfere with the production of growth hormone - in adults, it is responsible for fat burning. The peak production of this hormone is 1-2 hours after falling asleep.
Dinner option: turkey breast and vegetable stew.
The Sweet Sunday Rule
Allow yourself any meal out of your diet once a week. When a person knows that he has such indulgence, it is easier for him to keep himself in good shape. Otherwise, the probability of a breakdown is high. Moreover, one dish per week will not globally affect the process of losing weight.
Weight loss may slow down after two months
This is called the "plateau effect" - the weight stops at one point. There are several reasons: you stopped adhering to the regime or the body is used to physical activity, and metabolism - to the energy consumed.
Reboot! For example, arrange an "energy swing": eat more than usual for a couple of days, and then eat less for a couple of days. Or practice protein and carbohydrate days.
The body will experience mild stress and the weight loss process will resume.
Important: if the nutrition scheme I described above suits you, and you continue to lose weight, you do not need to experiment with nutrition.
Consider the phase of your menstrual cycle
In the second phase and during menstruation, weight usually increases due to the accumulation of fluid and the redistribution of hormones. This is a physiologically normal phenomenon, and a slowdown in the process of losing weight may be associated with it (for other facts about menstruation, read the link - ed.).
Fasting days - once a week
This is a good reboot of the body! It is advisable to choose light days without training and eat vegetables, herbs and fruits, avoiding animal products.
But if fasting days provoke you a terrible feeling of hunger after, it is better to refuse them. This means that this method does not suit you.
Workouts
Aerobic exercise should be a priority. Cardio training increases calorie expenditure, strengthens the cardiovascular system, and improves performance. During training, the pulse should be at around 60-70% of its maximum frequency. The latter is determined by the formula: 220 - (your age). This is necessary for normal fat burning.
The duration of the lessons is also important - 60 minutes (3-4 times a week). It can be light running or brisk walking.
For 2-3 months, you can connect strength training (start with circular exercises for all muscle groups) - 1-2 times a week. Losing 20 kg is stress for the body, therefore, to prevent stretch marks and sagging skin, I advise you to regularly do massages.
