Experts agree that weight loss happens in two stages. The
first stage is the losing stage and it’s all about food restriction, rather
than exercise. It has to do with individual preference and what you can live
with. They use 10 percent as a realistic goal, which means you shouldn’t set
impossible goals for yourself, or it will certainly lead to failure. They feel
that after six months, if you have lost 10 percent of your body weight, than
you’re a success story. The second stage is maintenance, where exercise becomes
much more important. Burning a few hundred calories a day allows you to eat a
little bit more, which makes the diet easier and more tolerable to maintain.
Successful dieters exercise between 60 to 90 minutes a day and do more than
just a short walk. Weight-bearing exercises burn more calories and use a lot of
the big muscle groups and experts agree that aerobic activity is the best when
it comes to loosing weight because you burn more calories.
Successful dieters also weight themselves regularly to help them stay on track. They keep food diaries and count calories as well as eat breakfast seven days a week. Eating a meal first thing in the day helps people manage hunger. Obese people tend to not eat breakfast, eat a light lunch and eat a lot from late afternoon and on. Successful dieters monitor when they fall short of a goal and develop solutions to common problems. For instance, if you raid the refrigerator every day when you get home, then you have to come up with a plan to deal with that.
Genetics also plays a role in weight loss as it determines how quickly we feel full when we eat, how inclined we are to stay physically active and how much energy we burn at rest. Stress also plays a role and experts are just starting to realize it’s full impact on this area of our health. They do know that stress prompts the body to release cortisol, making cells more resistant to insulin. Excess insulin in the blood causes more calories to be stored as fat, especially in the abdomen area. More research is being done and by understanding the biology of weight regulation, the better experts are to design drugs to target specific problems. The drugs available now are not subtle or precise and have only modest effects. With more research they should be able to develop drugs that target hormones that regulate satiety, appetite and metabolism.
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