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On the surface, it seems simple, and it actually is – but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to do.
On the surface, it seems simple, and it actually is – but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to do.
Do you want to lose weight?
Whether it’s due to a desire to be healthier, a matter of necessity for one’s health, or simply the wish to look good, millions of people around the world dream of losing weight.
What the industry promise you
Companies and online personalities promise you the world and quick fixes with all sorts of products and techniques—but the question is, do they even work?
From 100 kg to 65 kg
Before becoming a Journalist, I worked as a Personal Trainer and Dietitian for years, as well as dropping from a weight of 100 kg (220 lbs) to 65 kg (143 lbs) before bulking my way back up to my current 80 kg (176 lbs).
Long story short, I have experience with weightloss, and I have both good and bad news for you.
The good news
Weightloss is simple math: You need to use more calories than you take in.
So if you eat/drink 2000 calories in a day, you need to burn more calories than that i order to lose weight.
The bad news
The bad news is that even though it’s simple, it’s not easy – and it’s a grind.
Because burning a kilo (2.2 lbs) of fat requires a caloric deficit that you can’t obtain in a matter of days.
How many calories are there in fat?
1 gram om fat equals 9 calories. This means that you need to be in a caloric deficit of 9000 in order to burn off a kilo of body fat.
The average person use aroung 1800-2000 calories per day, so even if you didn’t ingest any calories, it would take you more than half a week to burn a kilo of body fat.
So why do weightloss drugs work?
Weightloss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro works by inhibit the feeling of hunger in the patient. This makes it easier to eat less and thereby ingesting less calories than what the patient burns during a day.
No quick fix
Unlees you’re willing to undergo surgery to have excess bodyfat removed, there’s no quick way to lose weight.
There are ways to make it easier, like with weightloss drugs, but it still takes time.
But what about the 7-day-diets?
You might have read about people being able to drop 4 kilos (nearly 9 lbs) in a week, but this has to do with the water in your body.
Up to 2/3 of our bodyweight is water, meaning even a small state of dehydration can make the needle on the scale change radically.
As soon as you rehydrate, the weight goes back up.
Build your muscle mass
The best tip I can give you is to increase your muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you will burn when resting (even while sleeping), meaning increasing muscle mass is important to keep you daily caloric spending up.
Embrace the grind
All of this might sound demoralizing, but it doesn’t have to be.
Embracing the grind instead of focusing only on the weight is an amazing journey, and I promise you, that you will feel empowered, more confident and get a feeling of succes, when you see the number on the scale going down even the slightest.