As summer approaches, it is common to start worrying about our physical appearance, as we begin to wear lighter clothes and plan our vacations. That’s when we consider consulting with a specialist to help us lose the extra pounds we may have accumulated over the winter or over time. In fact, in Nutrition consultations we see a significant increase in the number of patients every year.
Generally they are more women than men, probably because the aesthetic pressure on them is greater. However, it is increasingly common that some men are also concerned about their weight and physical appearance.
The important thing to do when considering weight loss is to consult a specialist. Often people end up going on a diet that they find in a magazine, on social networks or that they learned about from a friend and the results are not good, as they gain weight again when they abandon the diet and do not really manage to control their weight.
The more dieting we do the easier it is for us to alter the functioning of our metabolism, so that there comes a time when dieting on our own does not help us lose weight.
Myths about dieting
One of the social beliefs that exist around dieting is that it involves “boring” eating or that we will starve ourselves. In reality, a diet in which we starve ourselves only increases anxiety, so it is not a suitable diet. For this reason, it is important to visit a specialist in Nutrition to design a personalized diet for each patient and follow up.
When we have been on many diets throughout our lives that have not yielded real results, it is important to “relearn how to eat”. That is to say, we must be aware that a young person does not eat the same as an adult or an elderly person, since the needs in terms of macro and micronutrients are different.
The role played by the Internet in all this is, in many cases, detrimental, since it contains a lot of information but not all of it is of quality. On the one hand, there is a lot of advertising of slimming or fat-burning products (spoiler: there is no such thing as fat-burning), and there are also influencers or websites of unknown origin that give dietary advice that can cause harm to people.
Faced with this, there are two important things: first, try to resort to official or reliable websites.
Secondly, we must know that, if it looks very nice and easy, it is probably not true. When it comes to weight loss, it is normal to lose between 0.5% and 1% of our weight in fat per week. For example, a person who weighs 80 kg may lose between 400 and 800 a week. Within this range, it will depend on how well you follow your diet and exercise, although it may also be more difficult if you have a disease that alters the processes of energy management such as hypothyroidism.
The important thing is to be clear that the success of our weight loss process will come if we follow the nutritionist’s instructions and apply common sense when we eat a meal that is out of our diet.
What is the best treatment?
The dietary treatment to lose weight will be different for each person, because your personal situation in terms of health, age and lifestyle should always be taken into account. While there are multiple hypocaloric diets, the best one will always be the one that gets that person to maintain the diet as long as possible. This in some patients will mean a Mediterranean style diet, in others an Atlantic or vegetarian style diet.
In conclusion, the diets that are successful are those that we can maintain in the long term and that are adjusted to the needs and conditions of each patient. In addition, the specialist in Dietetics and Nutrition must not only measure and weigh the patient, but also educate him/her so that, in the future, he/she will be able to make good decisions that will help him/her maintain his/her weight.