Question

What advice would you give to someone that wants to lose weight by reducing their caloric intake, but isn’t sure where to start?  How did your results from the "Build Your Proficiency” Diagnostic reflect an understanding, or lack of understanding, about this content? How has your understanding changed this week?

Answer 1

To lose weight by just reducing the calorie intake is sometime confusing but can be tackled by eating smaller portions of food at mealtime, by skipping snacks and high-calorie drinks, or by swapping high-calorie unhealthy foods for lower-calorie nutritious foods for starters. And can also adds exercise to this.

Most of the time experts recommend to cut approximately 500 to 750 calories per day1 to lose one to two pounds per week.

But extremely low-calorie diets usually don't lead to permanent weight loss because:

- very low-calorie diets (VLCD) can affect the metabolism of the body. This is called as starvation mode in which the metabolism slows down to adjust for the lower supply of energy. In return to this the rate of weight loss slows down, too. You won't gain weight by eating less, but you might lose weight more slowly than if you eat the right number of calories.

- very low-calorie diets affect the daily energy level. By staying more active it results in burning more calories which is more likely for weight loss results. If you're exhausted from eating too little, you won't burn as many calories and weight loss can stall.

- the low-calorie diets are uncomfortable, unsafe and difficult to maintain.