Everyone knows that in order to lose weight, you need to remove 300 kcal from the diet, gradually reducing the calorie content. However, not everyone can replace the usual diet with strict low calorie diet, and withstand it throughout the entire period. After the end of the diet, in addition, you also need to save the results, for this you need to eat less high-calorie meals, when choosing and preparing dishes, do not experience difficulties. That is why reducing the calorie content of food, due to a slight change in the composition of the dish and a change in the method of preparation, is the best way to lose weight.

How to do it
The simplest thing is to noticeably change the calorie content of your dishes, but not in any way change their taste and aroma, which gradually reduces weight, eating food that is quite familiar to you. First of all, you can replace your usual meat and dairy products with the same ones, but only with a lower fat content. Fatty varieties meat such as lamb and pork, replace lean beef and pork, turkey, chicken. When cooking, trim away the fat and skin, and baking or steaming the food will result in more lean dishes... You can eat milk with a fat content of 1.5%, low fat kefir, and yoghurts and cottage cheese are zero fat. They hardly differ from conventional products to taste, but their calorie content is reduced. If you eat meat, then you need to pay attention not only to leanness, but also to the size of the portion consumed, you need a piece of meat that weighs 80-100 g, and the size is half your palm. If you reduce the amount of food, then the total daily calorie intake also decreases.

Calorie neutralization
Important in nutrition is the rate at which food can raise blood glucose levels, fat and energy are formed from glucose. Responsible for this in products glycemic index(GI). If food that has a higher GI is digested quickly and the blood glucose levels increase dramatically, this forces the body to store it. If the glucose content then drops sharply, then this is perceived by the body as an attack of hunger, which makes us eat too much. You can eat sweet foods with a fairly high GI, but these calories need to be neutralized. Many nutritionists know that high GI foods, as well as fatty meals, are neutralized by vegetables and fiber, which is in them. Due to their low calorie content and high fiber content, vegetables quickly fill the stomach and intestines, slowing down the absorption of fats and carbohydrates. This leads to long-term satiety, resulting in a decrease in the total number of calories per day. First of all, you need to combine any food with vegetables, the more calories in the food, the more vegetables with fiber you need to eat. The ratio of fatty foods to vegetables should be one to two, but if they are rich in fats and carbohydrates, then one to three. In addition, vegetables have a neutralizing effect of different strength, the more fiber they contain, the better they work.

How the index goes down.
There is one more important rule to reduce the calorie content of dishes, this is a decrease in GI from breakfast to dinner. You can not eat in the morning a large number of sweets, pastries, potatoes, foods that have a high GI, add vegetables to them. For lunch, you need to eat cereals, vegetables, that is, foods with a low GI, and for dinner, do not eat carbohydrate foods at all, but eat lean meat, cottage cheese, and drink kefir. You should not constantly check the GI table, you just need to remember that a high GI is observed in sugar, chocolate, white flour baked goods, cakes, less GI in cereals, even less in sweet fruits. It is important to remember that a product will have a high GI and absorbency if it is thermally processed and heavily minced.

How to combine products
It is necessary to combine foods correctly in dishes, it is not recommended to eat meat with fried potatoes or with pasta... This combination has too high calorie content... It is worth replacing such a side dish with fresh, boiled or baked vegetables, but without potatoes. It doesn't provide a lot of calories all at once, but it does lead to satiety. Rice and other high-calorie cereals should also be combined with vegetables.

Change sauces
Many sauces add quite a lot of calories to the dish. Mayonnaise, cream and sour cream are the leaders, they are tasty and rich in fats, but have a lot of calories. Ketchup, because of the starch as a thickener, is also considered high-calorie. Vegetable oil a small amount must be added. High-calorie dressings replace with apple, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice or unsweetened low-fat yogurt, it will be healthy and tasty.

Watching drinks
Alcohol and sugar are added to the diet high in calories and added to tea, coffee and sweet sodas. Eat sugar-free coffee and tea, add milk, or drink sweet tea before lunch, when calories are spent on the vital functions of the body. Sugary soda should be discarded altogether, as they are high in calories and unhealthy, and alcohol should be chosen with a low sugar content and consumed in moderation, they strongly stimulate the appetite. Kvass should also be limited, it contains a fairly large amount of sugar, as well as calories.

Give up eating semi-finished products
In cutlets, meatballs, meatballs from stores, the calorie content is overestimated, because in many semi-finished products low-quality meat, bread, cheap fats are added for a greater product yield. Semi-finished products with dough, such as manti, dumplings and pancakes, also contain more calories because of the test.
If you want cutlets, then buy a piece of meat or fish, pass it through a meat grinder, and make cutlets yourself from the minced meat obtained.
Do not use widely advertised drinking yoghurts"For weight loss". One bottle contains the calories of a meal because of the additives and sugar, and one bottle is hard to eat for long.
It is worth excluding salty and spicy cheeses from food, replacing them with low-calorie ones, give up sausage, it is better to eat a piece of meat cut into thin slices.

Try not to eat just out of boredom or for the company, choose natural dishes from the proposed dishes, such as salads from fresh vegetables... For snacks, choose unsweetened fruits, all of which will help reduce the calorie content of your diet.

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Losing weight and maintaining optimal weight is almost always an ordeal. Diets, miracle pills, gym passes, a swimming section, sugar-free food and a refrigerator that notifies the whole apartment about an insidious burglar are far from full list tricks, which from time to time go from 60 to 80% of the adult population.

Not everyone comes to success: sometimes there is not enough enthusiasm, sometimes there is not enough time, sometimes there are other obstacles on the way to the dream of becoming a ballerina.

If you take statistics on Americans, you can see that in 2004 they consumed 2,750 kcal daily, which is as much as 500 kcal (imagine 500!) More than in 1970. In our country, the scale is not the same - fast food has not yet managed to capture everything and everyone, but it is quite comparable.

Not a diet, but a trick

Fact: 97% of people who have ever been on a diet go back to their old way of life. And most of them eat up even more kilograms than they lost during their experiments. There is only one way to solve this problem - to change the diet for life.

To do this, it is enough to add one and only - honest word! - a change that will allow you to come to your ideal weight and keep it forever.

So, all you need is to consume as many calories daily as you would at your optimal weight. Everything.

This is a method that has been proven effective many times. By the way, this plan is also suitable for very thin people who want to gain weight. It doesn't matter how much you weigh now. If you eat as much as you should, you will sooner or later come to your natural, healthy weight.

Determine the optimal calorie intake

How many calories you need depends on several factors: body type, height, and activity level. The number indicating the number of your extra pounds, you can forget it as a bad dream - it will not be useful to you.

And do not be afraid that you will have to write down what you eat for a while. There are many handy applications for Android and iOS, which are already hammered into standard portions with calories. Alternatively, you can point the camera at a barcode, and the application reads it, and then automatically downloads the calorie data. You may need an electronic scale first to weigh your portions. But after a month (or even less), you will be able to determine the portion size by eye and know how many calories and which product contains.

1. What is your body type?

Measure the circumference of your wrist (use a tape measure or piece of rope, which can then be easily measured with a ruler).

2. What is your ideal weight?

These data differ between men and women. Find your height and physique in the table: the coveted number stands at the intersection of these columns. This is what you will strive for.

3. How active are you?

One of the most popular classifications today proposes to divide people by activity level into three groups. Choose the one that best describes your daily lifestyle. If you cannot choose one thing and you have a large excess weight, it is better to stay on the less active option.

• Sedentary lifestyle: lack of regular physical activity, walking from time to time is a physical activity mainly characteristic of everyday life.
• Moderately active image life: a combination of various daily activities (work, rest, etc.) or a regular exercise program equivalent to walking or running 2.5–5 km daily, combined with physical activity typical of daily life.
• Very active lifestyle: a combination of various daily activities (work, rest, etc.) or a regular exercise program equivalent to walking or running more than 5 km daily, combined with physical activity typical of daily life.

4. Determine the optimal calorie intake

In the first column of the table, find your ideal weight(what you wrote down in the second paragraph), and then look for the number that corresponds to your level of activity - sedentary, moderately active, very active. Voila! Now you know how many calories you need each day. Do not forget that you cannot cut calories too much: men should consume at least 1,200 kcal per day, women - at least 1,000 kcal. And these are very low values ​​- do not aim for quick results so as not to harm your body.

Reducing calories is the key to optimal in Yes and its preservation. Eat healthy and varied. Be healthy!

One of the surest ways to lose weight is to reduce the calorie intake. But, you see, counting calories can seem tedious. In fact, you can reduce the calorie content of the diet imperceptibly and without tedious calculations.

If you are looking for a way to easily lose weight without dieting, try reducing the calories of your food automatically with some tricks. Just follow these simple tips.

By fewer calories products

Imperceptibly reduce the calorie content of the diet without calorie counting very easy. Try to eat fewer products with high calorie content... In this case, we are talking about fatty and sweet foods, as well as delicacies.

The satiety of food does not depend on its fat content. For example, a lard sandwich and the same sandwich with lean meat give approximately the same feeling full... But the calorie content of the first is 2.5-3 times higher. The transition to low-fat food allows you to reduce the calorie content of the diet by 15-20% and lose weight by 1-2 kg per month without diets.

The second step is to limit or refuse such high-calorie foods like sweets. Sugary foods stimulate appetite and overeat. If you reduce the consumption of sweets, then the calorie content of the diet will be reduced by 5-10%. To reduce the amount of sugar in your diet, eat sweets not like regular food rather slowly, and enjoying the taste. Gradually reduce the usual amount of sugar you put in tea or coffee. And for lovers of sweet soda, I would like to remind you that a can of Coca-Cola and Pepsi contains 6 teaspoons of sugar.

Treats such as smoked sausage or nuts are also very high-calorie foods. Like sweets, these foods are not suitable for everyday food... The job of the treats is to have fun, not get enough. You don't have to give up such foods - just eat them full, slowly, savoring and savoring the taste.

Dietary fiber instead of high-calorie foods

(fiber) gives food volume and increases its residence time in the stomach. In other words, they keep you feeling full. In addition, fiber slows down the absorption of glucose in the intestines, reducing the rate at which blood sugar levels rise and insulin release. It also contributes to the feeling of fullness and prevents overeating.

Foods rich in fiber include cereals (especially oat and buckwheat), vegetables and fruits, berries, bran, flour bread coarse... This technique will help reduce the calorie content of the diet by about 5%.

Eating speed affects the calorie intake

Tested: If you eat slowly, you can get satiated with fewer calories. According to various estimates, this technique helps to reduce daily calorie content by 10-15%. And this is without any calorie count!

To eat more slowly, but not fall asleep in the process, try taking a "multicomponent meal." Place a few different side dishes, each in small quantities. You will eat such a dish more slowly than, for example, just mashed potatoes with a cutlet. Because “multicomponent food” will make you taste a different mix of flavors.

It will help to eat more slowly and a tasting approach to food. Taste every bite and try to concentrate on the variety of flavors.

Reducing calories through frequent meals

Frequent (fractional) meals can reduce the calorie content of the diet by 10-15%. The more time elapsed between meals, the more the "appetite hormone" ghrelin is produced. Accordingly, the more we want to eat. And with the "wolf appetite" not at all to counting calories. Therefore, eat more often and little by little, then you will not want to pounce on food.

How easy is it to lose weight by changing dishes?

Try replacing regular plates with dishes smaller... It turns out that eating from smaller dishes dessert spoons, a person is satiated with less food. It has been proven that the same portion of food in a small dish is perceived by us as more abundant than in a large plate.

This technique allows you to reduce daily ration by 5-10%.

To lose weight easily, do not sit down hungry.

If you drink a glass of tea with milk 10-15 minutes before the main meal, or, for example, low fat milk with a slice bran bread, then the feeling of hunger will be interrupted. As a result, you will be able to eat much less during the main meal, and it will decrease on its own.

If you manage to follow all these rules, then your weight will slowly but surely decrease without any dieting and calorie counting.

Elena Kukuevitskaya

The key to weight loss is that to start losing weight, you need to consume fewer calories than you spend. And here everything is not as simple as it seems.

Three important points:

1. Weight is not just hated fat. It is also bones, and muscles, and internal organs including brains. The main task of losing weight is to get rid of excess fat, and not weight in kilograms, because with diets, kilograms can become less, and fat will not decrease by a single gram.

Ideally, of course, before starting a diet, it would be good to know the "composition" of your body: how many kg of the total weight are bones, organs, muscles, and how many are fat. If you take two people of the same weight, height and age, one of them may have five pounds of excess fat, and the other not a drop. This is because muscles weigh more than twice the fat. For example, if you look at the BMI tables, then Brad Pitt is clearly overweight and needs to lose weight)) All bodybuilders with almost completely "fat-free" bodies also have colossal excess weight according to the BMI tables.

Weight almost never means anything. It means only the amount of excess fat (fat is still not superfluous at all).

2. Fat for our body is the main strategic reserve, on which (in the understanding of the organism) its chances of survival depend. For the sake of preserving and increasing this important reserve, the body is ready to sacrifice the rest of the components (muscles, tissues, and so on).

3. There is such a thing as your basal metabolic rate. This is the amount of calories that the body spends on its main functions: breathing, heartbeat, digestion, the creation of new cells, etc. It is calculated in calories. On average, this is one calorie per hour for every kilogram of weight. This is how many calories you will burn if you lie still all day. If you start to reduce the calorie content of your diet below this figure, you will provoke your body into self-defense.

4. Our body still lives in the realities of the Stone Age. When he feels that he has stopped feeding or is not being fed, he triggers defense mechanisms that helped him survive in conditions when there was not enough food. It is with these mechanisms that the majority of those who lose weight face and lose in the battle with them.

I will give an example of such a battle in the next post.

Summing up:
1. You need to get rid of excess fat, not excess weight.
2. Fat is perceived by our body as the most important reserve, therefore, to get rid of excess fat, it is necessary to understand the "psychology" of the body and create the right conditions.

When fewer calories begin to enter the body regularly, the body goes into emergency mode "Hunger has come!" and is taking steps to reduce spending. Pay the main attention to this - he does not start to get rid of fat, he reduces his costs. The average person has a basal metabolic rate of about 1200 calories.

The body's daily calorie requirement is the basal metabolic rate + calories for other expenses (walking, sitting, mental work, physical activity). The average healthy person requires 2000-3000 or more calories per day.

So a typical story typical weight loss with a typical outcome.

On specific example, with explanations.

Initial data:
Weight: 73 kg.
Body fat: 32% (based on total body weight)
The number of calories required to maintain the body in its current state is 2000 calories daily.
Goal: to lose weight up to 57 kg.

1. To lose weight, you need to spend more calories than you consume - everyone knows that.
The slimmer goes on a 1,500 calorie diet a day, thus creating a 500 calorie deficit.

2. A sharp decline in the amount of food consumed gives the body a signal that the times of hunger have arrived. The body turns on automatic coping mechanisms and learns to function at 1,500 calories a day.

3. The body adapts by getting rid of water and muscles in the first place (since maintaining muscle mass spends the largest number calories), and in the second - from fat. Fat is the most valuable reserve for further survival, so the body leaves it to the last resort. Research shows that in total, for every 5 kg of weight lost through the diet, there is approximately 3 kg of muscle and 2 kg of fat.

4. As muscles become smaller (hence the cost of maintaining them has decreased), the body has adapted to 1500 calories per day and weight loss stops.

5. To continue to lose weight, losing weight must again reduce the number of calories consumed. From 1500 it goes to 1000 calories per day.

6. The body sheds muscle and fat again to adjust.

7. When the body has adjusted to 1000 calories per day, weight loss stops.

Results so far:
Weight: 62 kg (minus 11 kg from the original, of which: 5 kg of fat, 6 kg of muscle)
Body fat content: 30% (based on total body weight) (- 2)
The number of calories to maintain the body in the current state - 1000 calories per day (- 500)

At this point, the situation looks like this. Since the body is in a state of chronic starvation, it includes additional means to conserve energy - the functioning of the endocrine system decreases. In addition, since almost half of the weight lost is from muscle, metabolism is reduced and lethargy and drowsiness appear. Lethargy leads to inactivity, and the body burns even fewer calories than before.

There is nowhere else to go. You cannot reduce your calorie intake. There is also nothing to burn calories with - muscle mass has significantly decreased, metabolism has slowed down, endocrine system works slowly. In these conditions, it is almost impossible to reduce weight, but it is very easy to gain weight: the feeling of hunger at this moment becomes intrusive and is very difficult to control.

Since the body has adapted to 1000 calories a day to keep the body in its current state, at its current level physical activity(very low) then extra calories will inevitably lead to weight gain, which the body will convert to fat. Since the feeling of hunger at this moment became unbearable, sooner or later a person breaks down and a period of intense gluttony begins. The amount of fat in the body will increase to the original and higher, as the body gains in reserve, in case of the next unexpected hunger strike (namely, diet).

What we have in a year:
Weight: 78 kg (+ 5)
Fat: 38% (+ 5)
The number of calories to maintain the body in the current state: 1500 (- 500).

Fat has increased, but now you have to go on a diet so that you don't gain even more!

For those who often and for a long time sit on all sorts of restrictive diets, the metabolism can decrease to such an extent that they begin to get fat even looking at the cakes. They find themselves in a hopeless situation: either they eat only cucumbers, suffering from hunger, or get fat from every crumb of bread, and at the same time they all still have a lot of excess fat.

What to do? Two key concepts are metabolism and muscle mass. Metabolism can be accelerated and muscle mass can be increased.

1. Gain muscle mass. Muscles are the main consumer of calories in the body, the more of them, the higher the level of basal metabolic rate.

Olympic swimmer Phelps consumes 25,000 calories daily. This is ten times more than an ordinary person. And yet he has not a drop of excess fat. But not so much because he trains daily, but also because he is solid muscles. With so much muscle mass, he can lie on the couch all day and watch TV, and still burn more calories on it than the average person running around the city all day.

There are two types of physical activity:

1. Aerobic (cardio). This is all sorts of jumping and running. This type of exercise helps you burn more calories, increases lung capacity and improves heart function. At the same time, all this type of load can reduce the volume of muscle mass.

2. Power. This is all sorts of weight lifting (dumbbells, exercise equipment, push-ups from the floor). This type of exercise allows you to increase muscle mass.

As you can see, the effect of them is different and in some places the opposite. The golden mean is to combine one with the other. For example, if you go to the gym for an hour and a half, then devote 45 minutes to strength training and 45 minutes to cardio (in this sequence). This will help you burn more calories as well as build muscle mass. Not as much as you would grow it, doing only strength, but still enough for weight loss purposes.

For those who are afraid of "becoming like a Schwarzenegger": for women this is almost impossible. Ask this question on any bodybuilding forum and they will laugh at you with the whole rocking chair. It is generally difficult for women to gain and maintain any significant muscle mass. Women bodybuilders are people who have devoted years of their lives to their hobbies and spend five hours or more in the gym every day. If you go to the gym three times a week and do strength exercises for 45 minutes, for the first six months you will not see the result at all in the form of at least some visually identified muscles (but you will feel how your body has strengthened and tightened).

The most you can achieve in a year of such training is to improve body proportions (where there used to be fat, there will be more muscle).

Speaking of which, it is impossible to wipe out excess fat with diets. Excess fat can only be burned by physical activity.

2. Eat more often, but in small portions. I already wrote that at the first signs of hunger, the body begins to destroy the muscles, while simultaneously slowing down the metabolism. He can be fooled a little if you distribute your diet so that there are 4-6 times a day, every 3 hours in small portions. This will give the body a signal "There is enough food! You don't have to fight for fat!" and he is more willing to part with more. Plus, you don't get hungry between meals. It turns out a wonderful effect: it seems that you chew something all day, you don't feel hungry, and at the same time you lose weight.

Ordinary dieters skip breakfast, eat something dietary for lunch, and attack the refrigerator for dinner and chew until nightfall.

3. Experiment with the ratio of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the diet. Sometimes the effect of weight loss can be achieved only by this, without reducing calories. It especially helps when weight loss has stopped (a plateau has come). An increase in protein and a decrease in carbohydrates can give the effect. I will write about this later.

There is also a fourth and fifth component - water, adequate sleep, and skills to reduce stress in life. This is also discussed in a separate post.

Summing up. In order to successfully shed excess fat, you need the following:

1. Slightly reduce calories daily diet and at the same time increase the level of physical activity. Be sure to include power loads.
2. Choose an effective ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
3. Eat often and in small portions.
4. Drink enough water.

There are two more methods that can be applied from time to time (especially when the weight is stuck):
1. Carbohydrate alternation.
2. Calorie alternation.
3. Loading (not unloading!) Days.

At the end, I want to emphasize once again:
1. Without sufficient muscle mass, it is practically impossible to lose weight without harm, seriously and for a long time.
2. In order to lose weight, you need to eat, not starve. You need to eat right and enough.

We know that we need to eat less (and we feel too - extra pounds remind us of ourselves every day). But to know and to do are different things. There is an easy way to cut back on portions and figure out your ideal diet. This is suitable for those who are losing weight and those people who want to gain weight. Very thin people, of course, do not need to cut calories, but there is good advice and for them.

And arm yourself with a centimeter tape before you start reading :)

A little about sad

Almost always, losing weight and maintaining weight at an optimal level (although someone needs to get better for this, on the contrary) turns into an ordeal. Diets, miracle pills, subscriptions to gym, a swimming section, sugar-free food and a refrigerator that notifies the whole apartment about an insidious burglar - this is not a complete list of tricks that from time to time go from 60 to 80% of the adult population. Unfortunately, not everyone comes to success: sometimes there is not enough enthusiasm, sometimes there is a lack of time, sometimes there are other obstacles on the way to the dream of becoming a ballerina.