Weight Loss vs Fat Loss
Walking into an average health shop you can’t really miss numerous boxes and bottles with so-called “diet programs’, “trimmers” and “cleansers”. TV commercials and the Internet are overrun with such products as well. Usually they promise you to loose something about ten kilograms in two weeks. So before you will waste your money and health with such stuff ask yourself first how it works and what actually happens.
1 gram of fat gives you 9 calories of energy. In other words, to burn 1 gram of your own body fat you would need to either spend these 9 calories with physical activities or make a daily deficit of 9 calories by cutting off your ration. Most nutritionists agree that for an average person daily ration should be about 2.000 calories or 8700kj (that is exact number you can find on any food label), balanced with adequate amount of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. (To calculate your own daily need of calories, you find a sum of your BMR and calories you burn in daily activities). Imagine now what would it take to loose 500 grams of fat weekly. 500 grams x 9 = 4500 calories you would need to burn in a week, or 4500/7 = 643 calories daily. That means you would need to cut off 1/3 part of your daily ration, it you are trying to loose body fat with dieting only. Basically it is possible, assuming that the rest 1357 calories of your daily ration will consist of quality nutrition components.
Now imagine a goal of loosing 2 kg of body fat. 2000g x 9 / 7 = 2571 calories of daily shortage you would need, which is already more than an average adult diet of 2000 calories. Even if you consider the fact that a person who tries to diet is initially overweight and usually consume more that 2000 calories with food, such a fat loss attempt would put that person in a position of starvation.
What about 5 kg of fat loss in one week? 6400 calories of daily deficit is impossible for most people even theoretically (it is already 3 times more than an average daily diet), otherwise it would be health damaging and eventually life threatening.
Now let us go back to those claiming products. Some of dealers provide you “documentary proof” of their products miracle work. Is it possible to loose 5 kg a week? Yes it is, but the question is “5 kg of what?” And the answer will be: definitely not body fat. The secret will become revealed if you will give a detailed look at their ingredients. Products claim to provide a guarantied loss of 5 kg weekly have a good amount of laxative and diuretic ingredients. Both of them provide first of all a fast water reduction – you will be losing water out of your muscles, organs and blood. In addition being on calories deficit you will quickly loose blood sugar (which in turn will lead to even more water loss), some muscle tissue and some fat. Unfortunately the amount of fat lost in such a way will be really minimal.
The weight loss effect of such products is very similar to the effect of starvation: it is fast, it is temporary, it has a minimal fat burning effect and in the long term it is health damaging. That is a reason why most “diet plans” go no further than two weeks, because after that time people would need to go back to their normal food and as result – to their normal weight as well.
The fact is: in order to loose fat and make the effect stable, your plan should be to loose 0, 3 - 0, 5 kg weekly for most people, and about 1 kg (initially only) for very overweight ones, relying on a combination of healthy eating and physical activities.
The most common dieting mistakes are highlighted here.