It is widely considered a good thing to be dieting and losing weight yet the truth, from a physiological perspective, is not as favourable. The only ‘natural’ occurrence of regular weight loss is starvation or sickness.
As you lose weight you lose a lot of water which is the single biggest component you are made of ( https://water.usgs.gov/edu/propertyyou.html ). Furthermore, it is very difficult to lose weight without losing lean mass…muscle you desperately need to keep your metabolism young.
Diet, nutrition, weight loss etc are very much a mental/emotional issue thus it is no surprise people become either illogically attached to diets or super frustrated with body image, fat problems and so forth.
Gain perspective
If you can track you calorie intake using simple counters like the ‘myfitnesspal’ app you can find a week where you didn’t gain weight. Now divide the amount of total calories you ate in that 7 days by 7. The resultant number is a rough estimate of what you can eat each day without gaining body fat.
Now keep tracking and you will get pretty darn good at knowing if you are going over your basic maintenance number without even looking at the numbers. You don’t need to micro manage just back off and eat leaner if you see you may be headed to getting excess calories in your week. Say you ate somewhat heavy for 3 or 4 days then you just back down a bit for the next few days based on your weekly target.
Should you want to drop some body fat just go slow, knock your daily calories down gently. The actual specific amount will vary person to person based on many factors but always keep it mild (100-300 calorie deficit) you don’t want to set yourself up for backlash appetite spikes.
The idea is to avoid head trips, placebo effects, obsessing and the like. Just have a solid sensible ‘sense’ of yourself and appetite. You don’t even have to think of adjusting the amount you eat you can often just eat more natural food focusing on vegetables and lean sources of protein for a few days to bring weekly calorie load back in line. Bottom line keep it real and avoid over thinking and becoming overly emotional about this basic fundamental physiological process.
Be well, be strong,
Andrew and Tierney
wefit.ca 