Why a Calorie Deficit Doesn’t Work: 3 Everyday Mistakes That Are Keeping You From Losing Weight

Why a Calorie Deficit Doesn’t Work: 3 Everyday Mistakes That Are Keeping You From Losing Weight

Let’s make a reservation right away: indeed, a calorie deficit is the most effective diet for weight loss. But don’t forget about the pitfalls that interfere with weight loss. Evidence-based nutritionist Alexander Burlakov talks more about this in his new book In Harmony with Food. We present an extract.

When does a calorie deficit not work? This question can be answered in different ways. It all depends on the angle from which you look.

From the point of view of physics, as long as physical laws apply to the visible part of our universe, such a situation cannot exist. Well, if only the proponents of the keto diet, because they live in some kind of grease behind the mirror and they have their own fundamental disciplines. So if it’s a real calorie deficit, it can’t not work, just like there are no states in which the law of universal gravitation doesn’t work. It should be understood that this is not some kind of magical approach or some clever scheme, it is just a physical phenomenon.

But, alongside that, there is another statement, which, according to the people who spread it, is conclusive. And it goes like this: “My friend eats everything and isn’t gaining weight, so your calories are nonsense.”

I would like to start with the fact that it is far from always possible to put an “equals” sign between “eating everything” and an excess of incoming calories. You’re not with a friend 24/7, staring at her without blinking. Therefore, you cannot know how much and how she eats until you see. Add to this physical activity, if a friend plays sports. And if he is not engaged, there is also spontaneous activity, which you cannot follow either. What if she walks to the nearest supermarket more often than she does by car? Yes, it’s banal – she cleans her apartment more often, or her house is bigger and therefore she needs more energy for, for example, washing the floors. We do not yet take into account factors such as height, weight, age, amount of muscle tissue, etc., which distinguish the energy expenditure to support the life of a friend from your energy expenditure.

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<...> Don’t forget meals away from home. For example, a study published in May 2013 in the British Medical Journal showed that we grossly underestimate the calorie content of meals when we eat dinner, for example, in a café or at a party – in some cases around 20 %. Naturally, the calorie content is underestimated, in fact it is more.

And we haven’t yet addressed many other factors, such as the loss of motivation to control weekend eating. According to MyPlate.gov, LIVESTRONG.com resources, 15% of users stop tracking their diet these days .

Think about it: Saturday and Sunday make up nearly 30% of the week, an important time that can help or hinder progress. And then these people are running around and shouting on social media that a calorie deficit doesn’t work.

Well, the most common problem is, of course, eye calorie calculator and, in general, difficulty determining the calorie content of a serving.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a study in 2013 of more than 3,000 American adults and found that most of them had trouble interpreting labels. About 25% were unable to determine the number of calories in a container of food and 40% could not calculate the percentage of daily calories per serving.

But understanding the number of servings per container and the number of calories per serving is crucial when tracking calories. As a result, the denial of energy balance and the division of food into bad and good lead to the crazy popularity of the most incredible diets, the supporters of which are growing.

Source: The Voice Mag

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