For modern women (and for many men), there is no topic more relevant than weight loss. Actually, it is on this basis that we are divided into two unequal parts: lucky people who do not need to lose weight, and everyone else who cares about this problem with varying degrees of severity.
What kind of magic diets are not offered today by fashion experts and ladies’ magazines, what kind of expensive drugs and treatments for those who want to become slim do not fill the market with pharmaceutical and medical firms! But no one has invented anything better than the formula of a ballerina who was once asked about the secret of her slimness. “You need to eat less,” she said without embarrassment.
But in fact, this formula has a second half – “and move more”, which did not occur to her simply because she had been practicing daily on a ballet machine all her life. But for most urban residents, lack of movement is the second most important cause of overweight after improper or excessive nutrition.
Twenty years ago, it was believed that the diet of a modern citizen should contain 3,500 kilocalories per day for a man and 3,200 kilocalories for a woman. It was calculated based on the energy costs that a person had to bear. However, over the years, many devices that make everyday life easier appear in our homes; most of us move less and less on foot and more and more by car; working conditions are improving; there are fewer problems with buying necessary goods. In short, modern scientists believe that energy demand has decreased – up to 2500 kilocalories per day for the average man, up to 2200 for a woman. And some experts call the numbers even less – 2000 and 1800 kcal, respectively!
But despite this, we eat much more high-calorie and refined foods with an excess of fats and carbohydrates than our moms and dads. Fat is deposited on the figures, leading many to true despair. But the main thing is not even that, but the fact that excess weight is a risk factor for cardiovascular, endocrine, oncological and other diseases.
If you seriously decide to get your health and appearance in order, you need to remember that you can find out your ideal weight using a formula called “body mass index”. It is calculated as follows: the weight in kilograms should be divided by the square of your height in meters. If, for example, your height is 1.6 meters (5.9 ft) and your weight is 70 kg (154.3 lb), then first multiply: 1.6 x 1.6, we get 2.56. And then divide 70 kg (154.3 lb) by 2.56. We get 27.3. This means that you have something to fight with, because the norm is from 20 to 25. If it’s between 26 and 30 – there is excess weight, and more than 31 – it’s just obesity.
And then everything becomes clear. If you consume less energy than you spend, the weight will begin to decrease. This is a slow way, rather boring, but effective without any DNA codes and other fashionable things that give an effect, perhaps faster, but it passes just as quickly. Besides, fashion is expensive.
Well, now it’s enough to roughly calculate the calorie content of your diet and compare it with energy costs. You spend about 1000 kcal a day to maintain the basic vital processes (breathing, blood pressure, digestion, body temperature, etc.). So, everything else should be spent through movement – work, sports, just walking, etc. Gardening is a great way to part with extra calories, and even with pleasure.
Most of the energy is spent on such types of work as digging the ground and planting trees – 7-8 kcal per minute. Planting seedlings, loosening, weeding, lawn cleaning, etc. Burns 5-6 calories per minute. Thus, digging up the beds for an hour, you will spend 420-480 kcal, and, doing the same time planting flowers, you will burn 300-360 kcal. In much the same way, you can calculate everything else by figuring out how much energy you spend per day.
Now it remains only to compare “expenses” with “income” – eaten in the same day. It is quite simple to calculate calories now, because they are indicated on the packaging of many products. The general recommendations of nutritionists are to ensure that vegetables, greens, everything low-fat and everything unsweetened belong to less high-calorie foods. It has a lot of calories – fatty, sweet and refined.
Leave a Reply