It is said that people who have successfully lost weight do these 3 things every day

There are a huge number of obese people in the world, and most of them have the ambition to lose weight, but most of them end up failing. However, in the army of weight loss, there are still about 1%~5% of people who have succeeded.

Gaining weight is a survival advantage for humans, and fat has played an important role in the long evolutionary process. How do you fight your body's "fat instinct" and what do those who succeed in losing weight do?

"Life Times" invites experts to interpret and give you tips on how to lose weight scientifically.

Experts interviewed

Zhu Weimo, academician of the American Academy of Sports Sciences and tenured professor at the University of Illinois

How to define "weight loss success"

Storing fat is the evolutionary advantage of human beings, and losing weight is to "fight" against their own advantages, and the difficulty can be imagined, and it is reasonable for most people to fail to lose weight.

How to tell if you have failed to lose weight?

The criteria for successful weight loss are to lose 5% or more of your body weight and maintain it for more than a year.

There are many theories about the reasons for weight loss failure, such as lack of willpower, unbearable hunger, difficult to change eating habits, and low metabolic rate in old age, but none of them are to the point.

The famous "Minnesota Hunger Study" in 1944~1945 helped unravel the mystery of weight loss failure, and the research results at that time still have lessons for today's obese people to lose weight:

1. Dietary restriction has a huge impact on people's physiology (a 40% decrease in basal metabolic rate, a sudden "aging"), psychological (depression), social interaction (becoming withdrawn), and food cravings.

2. After stopping the restriction of food for 15~20 weeks, the weight will be restored.

3. After stopping the restriction of food, you will be hungrier for a long time, and it will be difficult to restrain the desire to binge eat.

4. For 13 weeks after the cessation of food restriction, the subjects ate in addition to sleeping, and the daily caloric intake per person was as high as 5218 kcal.

5. When you stop restricting your diet, the first thing you get back is fat, and it takes a long time for your muscles to recover.

Why is it so hard to lose weight

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that two hormonal indicators in the body play a dominant role in weight change.

A group of subjects with an average weight of 94.05 kg were recruited for 10 weeks with a low-energy (500~550 kcal per day) diet, followed by a one-year "maintaining weight loss" intervention, and the researchers tested hormones related to hunger and appetite.

Leptin: Tells the body how much fat it has

Leptin levels decrease, appetite increases, and basal metabolic rate decreases.

After 10 weeks of intervention, it decreased by about 67%. After one year of intervention, its level was 33% lower than at the start of the study. As the subject gains weight, leptin levels slowly return.

Auxin: Stimulates hunger

The level of auxin increased immediately after the intervention, and after one year of intervention, its level was higher than before the intervention.

These hormonal changes suggest that people are very sensitive to body fat and weight loss. As soon as you notice a significant drop in both, you can immediately stimulate your appetite to remind your body to eat more food to maintain your original weight.

This phenomenon of "selfishness" manifested by the human body should be understood from the perspective of evolutionary theory:

In the long course of evolution, food sources are often insufficient, weight loss is a major threat to survival, and the function of maintaining or increasing body weight and body fat has been gradually preserved in the course of human evolution.

As a result, these evolutionary dominance functions that determine the survival of a species have made today's obese people less and more hungry and weightless, and ended in failure.

Successful weight losers do three things every day

According to a survey of people who have successfully lost weight, researchers have found that their success is related to doing three things every day:

Eat breakfast every day

A study from the University of Lübeck in Germany said that when the content and total calories of a day are exactly the same, eating more breakfast will increase the body's energy expenditure, produce a stronger sense of satiety, reduce the craving for sweets, and make it less likely to gain weight.

A healthy and qualified breakfast should include at least three food categories:

1. Cereals, such as noodles, steamed buns, bread, etc.;

2. Animal foods, such as meat, eggs, dairy products, etc.;

3. Fruits and vegetables that are rich in vitamin C and can supplement dietary fiber, and it is better to eat nuts such as pine nuts and almonds.

Weigh yourself daily

Once fat is stored in the body for a period of time, the body will treat it as a "normal" standard, and it will be difficult to lose it again. This phenomenon is known as "Set Point" – "only in but not out of point".

However, it takes time for the body to memorize weight, so it is necessary to observe the weight change at any time, find that the weight is gained, and immediately control it through diet and exercise, and quickly eliminate the fat in the bud.

Some studies have found that people who are also preparing to lose weight can lose 3% of their body weight every day in a year, while those who do not weigh themselves often have almost no change. People who weigh themselves every day are still able to maintain the weight they lost after a year.

In addition to weighing, another experience is that if you feel that your clothes are tight, you must not change into loose clothes immediately, but adjust your diet and increase the amount of exercise to eliminate weight gain in the bud.

Exercise for one hour a day

The most basic principle of weight loss is energy balance. With a controlled diet alone, the hunger is strong, losing weight is too painful, and it is not easy to stick to it, so it is very important to combine exercise.

In addition, studies have found that exercising in the morning is more effective for weight loss. If you do 45 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise in the morning, you can help your body burn 190 kcal more in a day.

Weight loss advice from exercise experts

According to weight loss-related research and observations on people who fail to lose weight, experts put forward three suggestions for Chinese people to lose weight.

01

Don't easily join the weight loss army

Many people, especially young women, are not fat, and join the weight loss army in pursuit of skinny beauty, but the result is self-defeating, and the more they lose weight, the fatter they get, or lead to anorexia.

A certain amount of fat is very important for good health, especially for women's health. Many women with normal weight or slightly plump weight are affected by aesthetic anxiety and blindly engage in weight loss behaviors that are contrary to health.

02

Lose weight slowly

The extra dozens of pounds of fat are not eaten in one meal, and they must not go too fast.

If you lose weight too quickly and violently, the body will get the signal of "great famine". As a result, the body initiates a natural protective response – a decrease in basal metabolic rate and an increase in hunger, which inevitably leads to weight loss failure.

In addition, after the age of 45 for women and 50 for men, the basal metabolic rate will decline significantly, which is also an important reason for people to become fat in middle age.

03

Science fights "hunger"

Unbearable hunger pangs are the most common cause of weight loss failure. The most sensitive to hunger are blood sugar levels and stomach satiety, so ensuring a stable blood sugar level and stomach fullness is key.

Here are a few tips to control hunger:

1. Breakfast must have a certain amount of protein, so that it is slow to digest and has a continuous supply of energy throughout the day.

2. Ensure a certain amount of crude fiber in each meal, and the stomach is easy to get full.

3. Eat some fruit or nuts between lunch and dinner, and don't overeat before dinner because you feel too hungry.

4. Drink soup before eating, so that the stomach can feel full and eat less.

5. Try to eat less processed foods, one is too easy to digest (causing blood sugar levels to rise and fall quickly), and the other is that most of these foods contain excessive amounts of sugar, oils, coloring, etc.

6. If you are exercising in the afternoon, try to put the exercise time before dinner, drink some water after exercise, your appetite will not be too strong, and it is easier to "eat less at night".