By adjusting your lifestyle it is possible to loose excess weight and establish a healthier way of living. It is important, however, to be careful in choosing your weight loss program.
If you are planning on loosing more than five to seven kilograms it may be advisable to consult your doctor before embarking on a diet and/or fitness regime. If any of the following apply to you, you should consider a diet plan supervised by a doctor:
-You hope to lose more than 7 kg
-You have been overweight for most of your life and need help in changing your lifestyle
-You are pregnant
-You are a child or teenager
-You suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol
-You are suffering from emotional stress
-You experience dizziness, nausea, depression or fainting during your diet.
Dieticians can be very helpful in helping you plan your diet. An eating plan should be considered as a guide toward eating in such a way as to provide fuel for the body to perform at its best, no more and no less. Your dietician should take the amount of exercise you get into account, as well as what kind of food you like to eat. It is no use setting out on a diet which consists of food which you strongly dislike, as this makes it so much harder to stick to the plot. There are normally a variety of foods which would do the job just as well.
If you should decide to develop your own diet plan, the following rough guidelines may be useful. Your daily kilojoule intake should not be below 5 000, as less than this can result in nutritional and metabolic deficiencies. The difference between the kilojoule intake of your regular eating pattern and the kilojoule intake of your new diet will decide how quickly you lose weight. Remember that you should aim for sustainable changes in your eating plan, slow and steady approaches to weight loss will prove superior to attempts at fast weight loss.
Your weight loss strategy should be well thought out in that you should eat a variety of foods, gaining from each of the five basic food groups; grains, vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy products all play a role in maintaining a healthy balanced diet.
Protein is important, because if you do not get enough protein in your diet, your body will feed off your muscles. Carbohydrates too play a vital role; less than 3 400 kilojoules of carbohydrates per day results in your body breaking down lean tissue as a substitution, it may result in weight loss through urine. This is not loss of fat though, it is dehydration. The intake of 15 to 30 grams of fat per day is necessary to allow the body to carry certain vitamins.
Adjusting your lifestyle and planning a weight loss meal plan go hand in hand. Indeed you may find short term success in celebrity weight loss programs or fast weight loss diet plans, but long term benefits and a sustainable improvement in your standard of living will only come from changing bad habits and adopting a healthier lifestyle for the long run.
Good luck with your diet for weight loss
