Regardless of your intended weight loss goal and the method used, following a weight-loss diet is no small feat. There’s no need to cut out everything you love. However, you need to change your mindset about food and learn how to support your body’s transformation in a new way.
Excess weight is not a coincidence. It is partly the result of environmental factors , including dietary errors, a sedentary lifestyle, stress , pregnancy , etc. Asking yourself why you want to diet , choosing the right time, and pointing out your mistakes are the first steps toward change.
I want to lose weight: how do I start a diet?
Before starting a diet, it is important to observe your body , your dietary imbalances and adopt the most appropriate measures. To do this, keeping a logbook is very valuable. It involves noting everything you consume during the day, at what time, and with what level of hunger from 1 to 4. Very quickly, you realize that you eat too much sugar , or too much fat, or without hunger. The diagnosis allows you to correct your behavior without great deprivation at the start.
Then, to consider losing weight, you need to know your priorities and constraints . What’s the point of cutting out cheese, bread or wine if you know you won’t be able to do without them for long! You need to adopt a realistic diet from the outset . So, before you start, ask yourself the right questions.
What am I waiting for exactly
It is better to wait if you are depressed, overworked , have just suffered a violent heartbreak or are in a period of life change (promotion, moving). All of this requires so much effort from the body’s neurohormonal adaptation system that we cannot be vigilant about our diet as well.
Before starting a diet, measure your weight
Before embarking on a diet, you must determine a coherent weight goal . That is, a weight that takes into account morphology , the distribution between lean mass (muscles, bones, organs, water, etc.), fats and water volume, as well as the way in which calories are burned ( basic metabolism ).
Calculating your BMI can be interesting. Measuring body composition using bioelectrical impedancemetry is also a reliable, simple, and painless method. The test is performed on a couch: the patient is connected to the equipment by 4 electrodes (2 on the right wrist, 2 on the ankle) and an electrical cable that relays the computer to the electrodes. The result determines a weight target based on a normal range of 17 to 20% of total body fat in men, and 20 to 25% in women.
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Examples: A 50-year-old man weighing 72 kg and measuring 1.80 m has nothing to lose when he has 58 kg of lean mass (including 12 water) and 14 fat mass. A 54-year-old woman who weighs 72 kg and measures 1.63 m, whose lean mass is 48 kg and fat mass 24, will need to lose 10 kg.
However, don’t be obsessive about your weight . There will inevitably be some slip-ups from time to time. They don’t prevent you from losing weight, as long as you get back on track immediately afterward. Don’t weigh yourself more than once a week, and ideally every month. There’s nothing like trying on your clothes in front of the mirror to see if you’ve lost weight.
How to succeed in dieting?
You should know that there are two stages in weight loss: a serious start and dietary monitoring. There’s no avoiding a period of dieting with fewer calories, fats , and sugars. But it will be more or less long, depending on whether the weight gain is recent (for example, 6 kg in 2 years) or spread out over time (10 kg in 20 years). You shouldn’t set yourself big ambitions or impose too severe restrictions because without rewarding results, you’ll stop everything.
Dieting disrupts your habits. So, before you start, you need to be open to it in your mind and in your schedule. Before the big day:
Clean out your cupboards : replace biscuits, chocolate and other temptations with fruit, rice cakes, natural yogurts, etc.;
Abandon the traps and temptations of supermarkets. Fill your fridge with fruits, vegetables, and fresh produce that you can pounce on without remorse when you get hungry ;
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