There is a very common and poisonous idea: if you are overweight, and let’s not say obese, it is because you do not take care of yourselfBecause you don’t care enough about your health and appearance to curb the urge to eat high-calorie foods. It is a derogatory idea that some say and many think, and it is based on an unfair belief.
Because yes, modifying our eating habits seems very difficult (although it does not have to be), and it takes a lot of willpower to achieve it, but sometimes that is not enough because sometimes our body makes it especially difficult for us. There are many reasons why despite wanting it with all your might, for some people losing weight is not just a matter of willpower.
Calorie restriction
On paper, losing weight is relatively easy: you just have to eat fewer calories than we consume. This is called creating a caloric deficit, and the objective is for the body to extract the calories that we are not giving it through food from the fat reserves that we have accumulated in the body.
To do this, you can take two measures, which should actually be complementary: burn more calories increasing physical activity we do and consume fewer calories rethinking our diet. The combination of both is what creates that caloric deficit which, on paper, is the way to burn fat and lose body weight.
How many fewer calories to lose weight
I cannot give a universal recommendation, but there are some basic parameters that work for everyone. We begin by remembering that for an average adult, basic caloric needs, without adding physical activities, are between 1,800 and 2,000 calories a day.
To that should be added those that burn while exercising. Each exercise is different, but to calculate, we will say that an hour of intense cardio is between 500 and 700 calories. This means that an adult who exercises one hour a day would be approximately 2,500 calories a day.
When calculating the deficit, it is necessary to take into account the needs of each person, the speed at which they want to lose weight, etc. It is important to create the deficit necessary to notice results but not overdoing it to the point of causing a health problem. Also, keep in mind that an excessive reduction is unsustainable for a long time, and that it can cause a strong rebound effect in which the lost weight is regained at a high speed.
As a general recommendation, we can fix around 500 fewer calories a day to lose weight, a very affordable figure simply by making a few adjustments, such as swapping soft drinks for water, switching from processed ones to fresh foods, and ditching alcohol.
How the body boycotts us
But all of that is just on paper, because in practice, while that is still the main recommendation, there are many other factors that go into this process. Some affect the calorie burn of our body, others to the impulses that lead us to eat more or less, and some even to everything that surrounds us conditions the decisions about what we eat and what not.
Metabolic diseases
As we say, some of these factors affect the metabolism of our body, which is the process by which food is converted into the units of energy that the body consumes. People with hypothyroidism, for example, produce low thyroid hormone levels, involved in metabolism, which causes it to slow down and the person gain weight, even if they reduce the amount of calories they consume.
Also, these people generally have a lower body temperature, and are less efficient in the use of calories stored as fat.
Other genetic diseases
There are several pathologies that directly affect weight. One of them is the Prader-Willi syndrome, a complex genetic syndrome that affects many parts of the body. Early in childhood, affected people develop a insatiable appetite, leading to chronic overeating and obesity, as well as a high risk of obesity.
Some mental illnesses
It is time for us to get used to treating mental pathologies for what they are: diseases like any other that should not be subjected to stigma and that like the others require medical attention and treatment. In some of them, being overweight and obese are common symptoms.
It occurs especially in all those related to stress and levels of cortisol. When the presence of this hormone in the blood is higher than usual, the body feels that it is under a state of chronic stress, and therefore increases appetite and fat accumulation levels.
That means that not only people who suffer from it have a much harder time reducing what they eat, but the body converts what they eat into fat much more effectively. It is a double boycott of the body to the goal of losing weight.
Give up smoking
It is not just about “not knowing what to do with your hands”, it is that there are several mechanisms by which to cut off the body’s supply of nicotine makes weight loss difficult.
A study carried out by Spanish scientists explained at least one of the causes of this happening. According to their conclusions, nicotine acts on an enzyme called AMPK, inactivating it in certain regions of the brain. When this happens, less is eaten and more energy is expended. When that action wears off, your appetite is increased and less fat is burned.
Social and economic causes
It is very tempting to think that all power over our health and nutrition is in our hands, but more and more voices point out that, at least in part, there is also a collective, social and economic responsibility.
This is especially so in the case of children and adolescents. The WHO itself recognizes that the growing prevalence of childhood obesity is due to social changes. Childhood obesity is fundamentally associated with an unhealthy diet and low physical activity, but is not solely related to the child’s behavior, but also increasingly with social and economic development and policies on agriculture, transportation, urban planning, environment, education, and food processing, distribution and marketing.
Unlike most adults, children and adolescents cannot choose the environment in which they live or the food they eat. They also have a limited ability to understand the long-term consequences of their behavior.
This article was originally published by Rocío Pérez in January 2018 and has been revised for republication
Images | Unsplash, iStock
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