Low calorie trap! Lack of nutrition can make you fat instead of thin

With the trend of pretty girls in vogue, many young women deliberately pursue a "paper-thin" figure, strictly control calories and food intake, and sleep more to reduce energy consumption. In the long run, this causes malnutrition, fatigue, sunken skin and other annoying aging symptoms. Nutritionists remind us that weight loss cannot simply pursue low calories. Instead, it should be based on personal daily energy needs and a balanced intake of the six major food groups in order to maintain good physiological functions and metabolic capacity and promote health and ideal weight.

In order to lose weight quickly, many women adopt a low-calorie diet and sleep more, which can cause a low metabolic rate in the long run and may endanger their health.

Low-calorie diet ≠ weight loss, malnutrition may make you fatter

Most people who have experience in weight loss believe that as long as they eat less food and the calories they take in are lower than the calories the body needs, they will naturally be able to lose weight successfully. Therefore, weight loss recipes that emphasize low calories, such as the three-day diet, the honey diet, the fasting method, and the starch-free diet, are very popular. However, this low-calorie but nutritionally unbalanced approach may be effective in short-term weight loss, but may harm your health in the long run.

Nutritionist Yang Shangwen said that the low-calorie weight loss method mentioned above does not reduce body fat, but muscle, water, electrolytes and lean body tissue, which will only lower the body's metabolic rate and reduce the calories needed by the body, which means that you must eat less to lose or maintain your current weight. Even with super willpower to execute, the process is particularly prone to a "yo-yo effect", that is, weight loss stagnation and weight gain, and the weight may even be heavier than before the weight loss.

The failure rate of long-term low-calorie diets is high, and aging phenomena such as anemia, hair loss, and loss of skin collagen can easily occur due to malnutrition. What's more serious is that some women are too obsessed with losing weight and even induce vomiting after eating, which eventually leads to anorexia and requires the intervention of a psychological counselor.

If you want to maintain a good figure for a long time, you should follow the principles of balanced diet and calorie control when losing weight.

The winning method for weight loss: balanced diet first, calorie control second

Dr. He Xinwei from the Family Medicine Department said that a balanced diet is the most effective and healthy way to lose weight in the long term. In the world, there is no single food that can meet all the nutrients that the human body needs. In order for the human body to obtain complete nutrients to maintain normal physiological functions, it is necessary to consume a variety of foods, not in excess or without partiality, in order to enjoy health. Therefore, when losing weight, in addition to controlling calories, you must also pay attention to whether the diet is nutritionally balanced, so as not to lose weight but lose health.

When it comes to calorie control, you must not blindly pursue low calories. People who want to lose weight should estimate their daily calorie needs based on their current height, weight, age and lifestyle, and then reduce their dietary intake by 250 to 500 calories. They should gradually adjust their diet to a low-calorie but nutritionally balanced diet to truly and effectively lose body fat, maintain an ideal weight and be healthy.

On the other hand, if the daily calorie intake is 1,000 calories less than the required amount, or an adult only eats 500 calories a day, there will be a risk of long-term health damage due to malnutrition.

Different nutritional functions of food complement each other and reduce fat

More importantly, balanced nutrition includes grains, root vegetables and oils which can provide the calories needed for physiological operations, milk, beans, fish, meat and eggs which can build and repair body tissues, and fruits and vegetables which play the important role of regulating physiological functions, and none of them can be missing.

According to the daily dietary guidelines provided by the Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it is recommended that adults of normal weight should consume 1.5 to 4 bowls of whole grains and root vegetables, 3 to 8 servings of beans, fish, meat, and eggs, 3 to 5 plates of vegetables, 2 to 4 servings of fruit, 1.5 to 2 cups of low-fat dairy products, 3 to 7 teaspoons of oils and fats, and 1 serving of nuts and seeds every day.