Almost always losing weight and maintaining weight at an optimal level turns into a severe test. Diets, pills, subscriptions to the gym, swimming section, products without sugar and a fridge that notifies an insidious burglar to the whole apartment is not a complete list of tricks that from time to time go from 60 to 80% of the adult population.

Not everyone comes to success: either there is not enough enthusiasm, time, then 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 so - fast food has not yet managed to capture anything and everything, but it is quite comparable.

Not a diet, but a trick.

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

To do this, it is enough to make one single thing - honest word! - a change that will come to your ideal weight and keep it forever.

So, all you need is to consume as many calories per day as you would consume at an optimal weight. Everything.

This method, the effectiveness of which has been repeatedly confirmed. By the way, this plan is also suitable for very thin people who want to gain weight. No matter how much you weigh now. If you eat as much as you need, then sooner or later you will come to your natural, healthy weight.

Determine the optimal caloric intake

How many calories you need depends on several factors: physique, height and level of activity. The figure, meaning the number of your extra pounds, you can forget 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 some time. There are many convenient applications for Android and iOS, in which standard portions with calories are already hammered. In addition, you can point the camera at a barcode, and the application counts it, after which it automatically loads calorie data. You may need electronic scales first to weigh portions. But after a month (and even less) you will be able to determine the portion size and know how many calories and in which product it contains.

1. What is your body type?

Measure the girth of your wrist (use a centimeter or a piece of rope, which will then easily be measured with a ruler).

2. What is your ideal weight?

These data differ in men and women. Find your height and physique in the table: there is a treasured number 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 everyday lifestyle. If you can not choose one thing and you have a lot of excess weight, it is better to stay at a less active version.

• Sedentary lifestyle:  the lack of regular physical activity, walking from case to case - physical activity, mainly characteristic of everyday life.
• Moderately active lifestyle:  a combination of various daily activities (work, rest, and so on) or a regular exercise program equivalent to a daily walk or run of 2.5–5 km, combined with physical activity characteristic of everyday life.
• Very active lifestyle:  a combination of various daily activities (work, rest, and so on) or a regular exercise program equivalent to daily walking or running more than 5 km away, combined with physical activity characteristic of everyday life.

4. Determine the optimal caloric intake.

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

Reducing calories is the key tooptimal in eCU and its conservation. Eat helpful and varied. Be healthy!

Body weight directly depends on:
  1) the amount of calories consumed with food;
  2) how intensively they are spent.

Increase calorie consumption can be with the help of physical activity - sports, dancing, swimming. If you do not have time to attend classes, you can choose a set of exercises suitable for independent workouts, or at least just try to move more, less often use an elevator, more often walk.

However, without reducing the number of calories from food can not do.

At the same time it is important to remember that a simple reduction of servings is unlikely to help. First, without having enough, you will experience constant stress; secondly, a sharp decrease in the amount of food will lead to a slowdown in metabolism - and if you return to the usual size of servings, you will start to gain weight faster than before.

Therefore, it is better to combine the use of less high-calorie foods with a decrease in the usual portion of food by about a third.

In fact, you have to completely rebuild the power system.

Down with calories!

First you have to give up  variety of fast food, soda drinks with sugar, ketchup, mayonnaise, butter, sweet chocolate bars with nuts and caramel. If you can not overcome the love of chocolate - choose a bitter one. It is less calories, and it is unlikely that you will be able to eat a lot.

Do not drink packaged juices.
  There are not so many vitamins in them, but there is an excess of sugar. If you can not do without them - cheat: dilute the juice with water. After drinking the same amount of liquid, you will use less sugar.

Do not add sugar to drinks.
  If the coffee seems bitter to you, add some skimmed milk (not cream!) It is best to switch to green tea - there is enough caffeine in it to provide you with energy.

Semi-finished products, especially products from minced meat, will have to be excluded from the menu.
  Meat in them is usually of poor quality, but fat. In addition, unscrupulous manufacturers often increase the volume of minced meat by adding bread or potatoes.

How can this be replaced?

To reduce the calorie intake can be without sacrificing the love of delicious food. A large number of products can be replaced by less high-calorie, without much damage to taste.

Instead of mayonnaise in salads, you can use natural yogurt, in extreme cases - low-fat sour cream.

It is better not to choose mayonnaise marked "light" or "low-calorie": there is actually less fat in it, but the chemical composition is far from natural, and the taste qualities leave much to be desired. It is best to make a dressing of a small amount of vegetable oil and apple or balsamic vinegar or lemon juice.

Instead of bread, eat wholegrain or diet bread.

Instead of sugar, choose fructose or a natural substitute - stevia.Fructose is not less caloric than glucose, but it is sweeter, and therefore less needed.

If you find it difficult to refuse sweets, let it be candy, marmalade or marshmallow, preferably cooked not on gelatin, but on pectin or agar-agar. You can also sweeten some dishes, for example, cottage cheese or porridge with apple, you can also use cinnamon - it will give a sweetish taste and will hardly add calories.

Replace whole milk and plain cottage cheese with skim.

Choose less calorie meat:not pork or lamb - but lean beef, horse meat, chicken. And try to eat those parts where there is little fat, or remove fat and skin from meat before cooking.

White rice, if possible, replace brown  or cook as a side dish rice with vegetables - peppers, tomatoes, corn.

Instead of ice cream, try freezing yogurt,adding fresh fruits and berries to it, or fruit puree whipped in a blender.

Cooking healthy food

Soupsit is better to cook not in rich broth, but in vegetable or water, in extreme cases - in secondary broth. Pay attention to the mashed soups - they are nourishing enough to eat in one portion.

Instead of frying  any products - bake them, boil or simmer in a small amount of water or steamed. In extreme cases, fry without oil: use a non-stick frying pan.

Of all the options for the preparation of a product, choose the one that will give the least high-calorie "result". So, it is better not to fry or boil potatoes, but bake them in their skins; omelets make from some proteins.

If you make a salad, get along less oil.  You can buy a special spray for the oil - it will help control the amount of refills.

As side dishes  for meat or fish, choose vegetables, brown rice. If you are cooking pasta or potatoes - let them act as an independent dish.

Abandoning sandwiches is optional - just make them less calorie. Put salted low-fat cottage cheese and a slice of tomato on a slice of a diet loaf - it is both tasty and more useful than white bread with butter or sausage.

Lose weight in a restaurant?

If you often have to dine and dine outside the home, it is better to choose not one main course, but two servings of vegetable salad - even with obviously more food its calorie content will be lower. Do not hesitate to ask the waiter to serve you a salad without mayonnaise, if the menu includes a rich sauce in the menu.

If time allows you, do not make the entire order at once - it is quite possible that you will already have enough soup or salad, and you simply will not need meat and dessert.

Remember that the exact calorie content of dishes prepared in a restaurant is hard to figure out. Try to choose familiar dishes, the composition of which you can roughly determine how many calories per serving.

Alcohol is better to exclude or use in minimal quantities. And let it be a glass of dry wine, and not beer with chips or crackers. Salty and spicy snacks are high in calories by themselves. In addition, they cause thirst, forcing you to drink more.

We take into account everything

If you are cooking for the whole family, and not just for yourself, think over the menu more carefully.

Support for loved ones is very important for those who want to lose weight! Discuss with households whether they are ready to go on less calorie foods with you, or you will have to cook for yourself separately. If family members demand hearty, heavy meals, and sweets and meat and potatoes are on the table every day, it will not be easy for you to keep.

Exit can be found from any situation.

For example, cook for dinner meat with a side dish and a light salad. You can limit yourself to a portion of meat with salad - and the rest will be happy to eat a full dinner. To reduce the amount of salad dressing, serve it separately. Those interested can fill their own portion, and you eat a salad without dressing or dip in a bowl with sauce as much salad as you took with a fork - so you eat less sauce than if you mixed it with vegetables at once.

If you cannot refuse bread, eat it not fresh, but slightly dried - you should chew dry bread longer, so you will get rich faster and eat less.

Read the labels carefully when buying food, paying attention to the nutritional value and the content of fats and carbohydrates.

Note that the caloric content of the same product in different tables may vary.

How to eat less?

Pick up new dishes.
A small portion on a small plate will appear smaller. Consider the color of dishes - it is believed that plates of blue, green or purple reduce appetite.

Eat slowly.
  Take pauses while eating - for example, between the first or second course. Do not put everything on the table at once - if you have to get up from the table every now and then, your appetite will quickly decrease.

There is one trick to significantly reduce the rate of food intake: after you put a piece of meat or a spoonful of soup into your mouth, put a cutlery. After chewing and swallowing food, again take a spoon and eat another slice.

Before the main meal, drink a glass of water,  eat a savory apple or some green vegetables, only after that start eating. You will be surprised to see how much less you eat.

All these measures will help you reduce the calorie intake, without reducing the quality of life, without sacrificing the taste of food. You will not feel hungry - but you will notice results in a month or two.

Especially useful ways to reduce the number of calories will be for those who were able to lose weight on a more severe diet and now wants to consolidate the effect achieved.

Of great importance calorie foods consumed by us. Our well-being, our weight depends on them. The more calories - the greater the chance of gaining extra pounds.

The energy value of dishes can be reduced by resorting to simple rules.

Nutritionists say: while reducing calorie intake by 100 per day, we prevent the appearance of 1 extra kilogram of weight per year!

Our weight directly depends on it. The more high-calorie foods we eat, the greater the likelihood of gaining extra pounds. But the energy value of food can be reduced.

By consuming only 100 calories less per day than usual, we can prevent 1 kilogram of excess weight per year, nutritionists say. And to lose weight, you need to consume 500 calories less daily. In a week you will be parted from 500 grams of excess weight.

So how can you reduce calorie foods? There are several ways. And note, you do not have to go on diets and suffer from the constant feeling of hunger. By reducing the energy value of the products, you get the opportunity to eat the products you are used to and lose weight.

Calorie accounting

Studies show that most people have no idea how many calories they consume per day, or they diminish their number. It turns out, we consume a large number of calories, and do not even realize this report.

Scientists have shown that if a person writes down daily the products that he ate, and their energy value, then willy-nilly begins to monitor the number of calories consumed. Accounting for calories helps you identify your weaknesses.

For example, if you have a habit of eating in front of a TV, then when analyzing records, you will notice that while watching your favorite programs you eat 2 times more.

Also often increases portions of food during stressful situations.

In addition, listing every day consumed foods, you can easily identify how useful the food you eat. Harmful foods will be easier to eliminate from the daily diet or replace them with healthy foods - vegetables and fruits.

Know everything about food

Taking it into your habit, you can easily learn to choose foods that contain fewer calories. Thus, you will learn to reduce the daily dose of calories consumed by 100-200 units.

Low Calorie Versions

Perhaps the most effective way to reduce the energy value of products is to replace them with less calorie versions. For example, replace whole milk with low-calorie milk. If you are used to drinking 1 glass of milk per day, then this replacement will allow you to reduce your daily calorie intake by 56 units.

Also, it will save 6.5 g of fat. For the year it will save you more than 2 kilograms. Such arithmetic is pretty simple, but it is incredibly effective.

According to this principle, you can replace:

* high-calorie mayonnaise (600 kcal) - low-calorie (less than 300 kcal);

* high-fat yogurt (200 kcal) - low-fat (80 kcal);

* French fries (220 kcal) - boiled potatoes (70-100 kcal);

* bread (1 piece - 100-120 kcal) - for bread (1 piece - 40 kcal).

But remember that low-fat foods are not always less calorie. Therefore, carefully look at the packaging energy value of the products.

Reduce portions

If you are not able to replace the products with their less calorie versions, then at least just reduce the portion of the meals you eat.

For starters, try to reduce the portion of dishes by 1/3. To do this, simply eat more slowly - chewing food thoroughly, you will learn to feel a feeling of satiety while you are still sitting at the table. After a week you will get used to eating less and will not experience hunger.

To reduce the portion of the dish, psychologists advise to eat from the blue plates - this color suppresses the appetite. But British experts say: in order to reduce consumed portions, you need to eat in front of a mirror, and best of all, naked. This method will allow you not to change your taste preferences, enjoying your favorite dishes and products, but at the same time lose weight.

Cook at home

The energy value of food cooked at home is lower than that of a restaurant. Hence the conclusion - you need to prepare food yourself and try to eat exclusively at home.

At home you have the opportunity to cook more balanced and healthy dishes, tracking the calorie content of ingredients. In the restaurant or in the diner you do not know what products of energy value were used in the preparation.

Also at home you independently regulate portions of meals, eliminating the possibility of overeating.

Another "plus" in favor of homemade food - you can independently invent recipes for healthy, low-calorie dishes that will suit you individually.

Cook properly

It is very important how exactly you cook: on what to fry products, than seasoning salads, whether you add spices.

First of all, pay attention to how much oil you pour into the pan when you fry foods? In most cases, its amount can be reduced by 1/3 with ease, which is what needs to be done. Especially if you use a non-stick frying pan. Take note of the fact that different ways of cooking differently affect the calorie content of dishes.

Cooking methodsthat reduce calorie foods:

* traditional cooking

* steam cooking,

* grilling.

Reduce the amount of added to the products and dishes of butter, salad dressings, cream. Add them only "for taste", do not overdo it.

Also, nutritionists are advised to add spices and seasonings to dishes. For example, red pepper helps to quickly get enough, which means - to eat less.

Correct snack

During the meal, before starting to the main dish, have a snack. Proper pre-lunch snack will not allow you to overeat. It is best to start each meal with a green salad. It has very few calories and besides, it is incredibly useful. It is best to fill it with lemon juice and a small amount of olive oil. Also perfectly suited vegetable cream soup.

Scientists from Pennsylvania conducted an experiment involving 22 women. Experts have shown that if every time 20 minutes before the main course a woman eats a plate of green salad, the number of calories consumed daily is reduced by 10%.

Before eating, many nutritionists advise to drink a glass of pure water. It also helps to quickly get enough - and therefore reduce the daily energy value of products.

More fruits and vegetables

You can not deny yourself a snack between meals? Then give up fast food and snacks in favor of vegetables and fruits. Eating large quantities of fruits and vegetables not only helps to reduce the energy value of the diet, but also has a positive effect on human health.

Fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins and minerals, they will be an excellent alternative to high-calorie high-fat foods. These wholesome foods help to quickly get enough and "kill" the appetite between meals.

So, boiled potatoes are much more useful and contain less calories than chips or french fries, and an apple is more useful than a piece of apple pie.

What should you drink?

Recently, scientists have proven that those who want to lose weight need to pay great attention not only to the caloric content of food consumed, but also drinks.

Few know that our favorite and familiar drinks contain quite a lot of calories.

For example, an average person can drink a day: a glass of orange juice for breakfast (72 calories), a cup of coffee with sugar for lunch (20 calories), a glass of coca-cola in afternoon tea (129 calories), 2 glasses of wine for dinner - 200 calories.

A total of 420 calories! If most of these drinks are replaced with clean water or at least reduce their volume, the number of calories consumed per day will drastically decrease.

It is also better to give up alcohol. Moreover, it increases the appetite. If you eat any kind of alcoholic beverage during the meal, you will eat more than usual.

No sugar

Try to give preference to products without sugar. Giving up sweets is an easy way to reduce the calorie content of food in your diet. It is necessary to exclude from the diet not only sugar, but also products containing it.

Some nutritionists advise to replace sugar with fructose. They are the same in calories, but fructose is much sweeter than sugar. This helps to reduce the energy value of sweet foods by almost 2 times.

If you find the strength to give up sweets altogether, you can find a substitute for them in the form of sweet and juicy fruits - apples, pears, citrus.

But to use artificial sugar substitutes is not worth it. They are very low-calorie, but, according to scientists, they can cause serious harm to health.

Everyone knows to lose weight, you need to smoothly reduce the calorie intake and daily clean about 300 kcal from it. However, not everyone can drastically switch from a normal diet to a strict low-calorie diet and sustain it from beginning to end. In addition, after the diet, it is also necessary to preserve the results, eating less high-calorie meals, while not experiencing difficulties in the choice of dishes and their preparation.

Refuse semi-finished products

Cutlets, meatballs, meatballs from stores - these are products whose caloric content is too high, as bread is added to many semi-finished products for a higher yield of the product, cheap fats and low-quality meat. Semi-finished products with dough (manti, dumplings and pancakes) calories contain even more due to the dough and flour.

If you want cutlets - buy meat or fish, grind in a blender and make the cutlets themselves.

In addition, it is better to abandon the widely advertised drinking yoghurt "for weight loss". One bottle of calories they have is like a whole meal because of sugar and additives, and one bottle of food will not work for a long time.

It is necessary to exclude from the food strongly sharp and salty cheeses, replacing them with low-calorie ones, abandon the sausage in favor of meat cut into thin slices.

Try not to eat for boredom or for company; choose from the offered dishes the most natural - for example, salads from fresh vegetables; snack on savory fruit. All these methods will help reduce the calorie content of your diet.

Do you watch how many calories you consume?

Alena PARETSKAYA

I don’t know if there was such an article or not, but I really want many people to read it, whose rations I have seen here.

Dear slimming, in pursuit of a small WEIGHT, do not forget that you need to reduce it at the expense of FAT, and not MUSCLE! Read, I bold highlighted a specific example, why so and not otherwise! Think before torturing yourself and those around you with your senseless hunger strike and bad mood!

  "The basis of weight loss: to start losing weight, you need to consume fewer calories than you spend. And then everything is not as simple as it seems.

Three important points:

1. Weight is not only hateful fat. It is also bones, 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 gram.

Ideally, of course, before starting a diet, it would be good to find out the “composition” of your body: how much kg of the total weight is in bones, organs, muscles, and how much is in fat. If you take two people of the same weight, height and age, one of them may have five kg of excess fat, and the second - not drops. This is because muscles weigh over two times more fat. For example, if you look at the tables of BMI, then Brad Pitt has obvious excess weight and needs to lose weight)) All bodybuilders with almost completely “fat-free” bodies also have enormous excess weight according to the tables of BMI.

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

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

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

4. Our body still lives in the realities of the Stone Age. When he feels that he is no longer fed or is not being fed, he launches protective mechanisms that helped him survive in conditions where food was not enough. It is with these mechanisms that the majority of those who lose weight are confronted and lose in the battle with them.

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

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

When the body begins to regularly enter fewer calories, the body goes into emergency mode "It is a famine!" and taking steps to reduce their spending. Pay this main attention - it does not start to get rid of fat, it reduces its costs. In an average person, the level of basal metabolism is about 1200 calories.

The daily body need for calories is the level of basal metabolism + calories for other expenses (walking, sitting, mental work, physical activity). An average healthy person needs 2,000-3,000 or more calories per day.

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

On a specific example, with explanations.

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

1. To lose weight, you need to spend more calories than you consume - everyone knows that.
  Losing weight goes on a diet of 1500 calories per day, thus creating a deficit of 500 calories.

2. A sharp decline in the amount of food consumed gives the body a signal that starvation times have come. The body includes automatic survival mechanisms and learns to function at 1500 calories per day.

3. The body adapts, getting rid first of all of water and muscles (as maintaining muscle mass consumes the most calories), and the second from fat. Fat is the most valuable reserve for further survival, so the body leaves it in the most extreme case. Studies show that in general, for every 5 kg of weight lost through the diet, there are approximately 3 kg of muscle and 2 kg of fat.

4. As the muscles became smaller (therefore, the cost of maintaining them decreased), the body adapted to 1,500 calories per day and the weight loss ceased.

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

6. The body gets rid of muscle and fat again to adjust.

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

Results for this moment:
Weight: 62 kg (minus 11 kg from the original, of which: 5 kg of fat, 6 kg of muscles)
  Body fat content: 30% (of total body weight) (- 2)
  The number of calories to maintain the body in its current state - 1000 calories per day (- 500)

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

There is nowhere to go. Reduce calorie intake is impossible. There is also nothing to burn calories too - muscle mass has decreased significantly, metabolism has slowed down, the endocrine system is slow. In these conditions, it is almost impossible to lose weight, but you can gain very easily: the feeling of hunger at this moment becomes intrusive and difficult to control.

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

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

Fat increased, but now you have to diet so that it does not increase even more!

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

What to do? Two key concepts - 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, the higher the level of basal metabolism.

Olympic swimmer Phelps consumes 25,000 calories daily. This is ten times more than an ordinary person. And while he has not a drop of excess fat. But not so much because he trains every day, but also because he is a solid muscle. With so much muscle mass, he can lie on the couch all day and watch TV, and he still spends more calories on it than an ordinary person who has been 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 kind of stress helps burn more calories, increases lung volume and improves heart function. At the same time, all this type of load can reduce the amount of muscle mass.

2. Power. This is all sorts of weightlifting (dumbbells, simulators, pushups from the floor). This kind of load 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 power loads and 45 minutes to cardio loads (in this sequence). This will help burn more calories, as well as strengthen muscle mass. Not as much as you would grow it, doing only power, but still enough for slimming purposes.

To those who are afraid of “becoming like a Schwarzenegger”: for women it 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 substantial muscle mass. Female bodybuilders are people who have devoted years of life 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 45-minute power exercises, you will not see the result at all in the form of any visually identifiable muscles for the first six months (but you will feel how your body has strengthened and tightened).

The maximum that you can achieve in a year of such training is an improvement in the proportions of the body (where there used to be fat, there will be more muscles).

If we talk, then die out diets excess fat is impossible. Excess fat can only be burned by physical exertion.

2. Eat more often, but in small portions. I already wrote that at the first signs of hunger the body begins to destroy muscles, at the same time slowing down the metabolism. It can be a little deceiving, if you distribute your diet so that there is 4-6 times a day, every 3 hours in small portions. This will give the body a signal "Food is enough! You can not fight for fat!" and he is more willing to part with nothing. In addition, between meals you do not have time to get hungry. It turns out a wonderful effect: you seem to be chewing something all day, you do not feel hunger, and at the same time lose weight.

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

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

There are also the fourth and fifth components - water, adequate sleep, and skills to reduce stress in life. About this, too, in a separate post.

Summing up. In order to successfully get rid of excess fat, the following is required:

1. Slightly reduce the daily calorie intake and at the same time increase the level of physical activity. Be sure to include power loads.
  2. To choose an effective ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
  3. There are often 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. The alternation of calories.
  3. Boot (not unloading!) Days.

In the end I want to emphasize once again:
  1. Without the presence of sufficient muscle mass to lose weight so that without harm, seriously and for a long time - almost impossible.
  2. In order to lose weight, you need to eat, not starve. It is necessary to eat properly and enough. "