Obesity can be reversed, it requires effort and some sacrifice, but the health results are many.
Breaking out of specific patterns of sedentary lifestyles and poor diet is not easy with the lack of nutritional education.
Even from an early age and as a general rule, we are rewarded with processed and highly palatable foods when we behave well, and we are punished for eating vegetables when we misbehave. This only leads to a desire to eat processed foods from adolescence onwards, when we have the autonomy to buy our breakfasts and snacks, and to a bad relationship with food.
Depending on the upbringing at home and eating patterns, these situations will occasionally occur, understanding that it is not possible to eat what we eat regularly. But if it is not given the importance it deserves, making it understood from an early age that eating should be based on real food, it can end up becoming a problem when we are adults.
Why is it a problem?
- More or less overweight after a certain age, as a result of little or no physical activity.
- Excess carbohydrates in the diet: lucky if they are of good quality. The biggest problem is when they come from processed carbohydrates.
- As we have been led to believe that losing weight means eating little and dull, it will be unsustainable over time.
- Anxiety derived from excessive calorie restriction.
- Added to the anxiety of seeing our possible environment usually enjoy food.
When you get into this vicious circle several times a year, and the results are a mirage due to the rebound effect of a bad nutritional strategy, you get into the frustration that can have a terrible impact on your self-esteem because you may think that you are not made to be healthy, half-fit, and throw in the towel.
Leaving aside specific pathologies or less privileged genetics that may find it more challenging to lose fat, the truth is that a correct approach will undoubtedly lead to results in practice.
WHAT IS THE WINNING COMBINATION FOR GAINING HEALTH AND LOSING FAT?
- Controlled calorie deficit!
- Strength training!
- NEAT, or expenditure on daily activities beyond training, such as walking, cleaning the house, shopping, climbing stairs, if our work is dynamic. ....
- Adequate rest.
Concerning point 3 and if our work is sedentary, we must not forget that we should not be sedentary people who train for one hour a day, but that the rest of the day and the activity we do counts for a lot.
And certainly patience. Depending on the starting point for losing kilos, it will take more or less time, so the approach must be that of a long-term project.
The problem with wanting to lose fat through dieting alone is that this fat loss will also be associated with a loss of muscle mass. This will not only have negative repercussions on our health in the long run, but we will also be much more likely to regain that lost weight.
On the other hand, diet + strength training will undoubtedly improve our muscle quality with positive repercussions on our health.
In a progressive overload of training, it is logical to increase the complexity and loads of the exercises, and we will be able to eat a diet with an adequate and bearable amount of calories, as our energy expenditure will be more significant, whereas if we try to do it based on diet alone, what are we left with, cutting out more and more calories? This approach is unsustainable and impractical because reality shows us the number of individuals who suffer the rebound effect and dietary restrictions during the process.
Maintaining weight loss can be very complex, so the key is to change habits, and this usually involves changing the chip of mental patterns that have been in place for many years. But with good arguments, it is possible to eliminate these erroneous ideas gradually.
Understanding the part of the professional that each individual is unique, with his or her particularities, tastes, schedules, fears and concerns, is vital to make adequate progress.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SMALL CHALLENGES
Challenges adapted to each individual are significant in people's daily lives. A challenge allows us to:
- Do a simple exercise that we have never done before.
- Add two extra glasses of water a day. Or even better, Hydraforce.
- Walk for 20 minutes.
- Add small portions of vegetables to our plates.
And so we can go on adding small details that, when the person feels capable of doing them due to their low complexity, add a tremendous sense of satisfaction. This leads to the feeling of improving and, therefore, the capacity to add complexity little by little, in a progressive overload, just as we would do with training.
With this capacity for improvement, we undoubtedly make progress, and with the associated sensations and the small physical changes that we perceive, we improve our self-esteem, and that on a day-to-day basis is fuel.
WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF WE DO NOT HAVE THE CORRECT SLEEP ROUTINE
One of the most neglected aspects of this process is rest, without which we will not progress at the desired speed. Insufficient rest over a long period will lead to a hormonal imbalance that can upset the balance between the hormones that control hunger and satiety. When this happens, our body tries to compensate for this lack of rest with food and usually asks for highly palatable foods; processed foods full of calories do not provide any type of nutrient and do not satiate us.
Add to this a stressful job, busy schedules, lots of coffee...you can't add food cravings to lifestyle anxiety.
A more or less demanding intervention is necessary and adapted to each specific case so that even if it is at an ant's pace, progress can be made towards a comprehensive improvement in health and reverse this obesity.
Cristina Lopez
Nutritionist and personal trainer
