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Calorie deficit: Lose weight by consuming fewer calories than your body expends

Benson Kua/Flickr

Losing weight has always been a hot topic mostly among women and especially now that many have gained weight during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

According to health experts, for you to lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit.

You can achieve a calorie deficit if you consume fewer calories than you burn. Since you get calories from the food and drinks that you take into your body, this means that you have to be careful about your calorie intake.

Each gram of carbohydrates and protein yields four calories, while one gram of fat yields nine calories.

Losing weight should not be done drastically, and neither should you cut out any of the food groups because this might cause you health problems.

Health experts say that, ideally, you have to lose 0.5 to 1 kilograms per week, and to do this, you have to make sure that you get nothing more than 600 calories per day.

For men, this means they have to make sure to consume only 1,900 calories a day, while 1,400 a day is the requirement for women.

As earlier said, cutting out any of the food groups is not a good idea. However, there is a lot of healthy food that is tasty and that you can swap with your food choices, which could be unhealthy or provides you with more calories.

For a diet to be healthy, it should be balanced, meaning it should have carbohydrates, fats, and protein, of course, with enough portions.

It should have plenty of fruits, vegetables, potatoes, bread, rice, pasta, and other starchy food of the whole grain variety.

You can also have milk and other dairy food but have plenty of non-dairy sources of protein like meat, fish, and other seafood and beans.

You have to limit processed food in your diet as not only are they high in sugar, fat, and salt. They also make these types of food more palatable; thus, you will crave more. Not only that, but too much of these food will also not be good for your health in the long run.

While making sure that you have a healthy diet, complementing this with a daily exercise will help you lose weight faster. Just 30 minutes a day will do, and you don’t have to do the hardcore exercises, you can just do walking, jogging or swimming.

Image credit courtesy of Benson Kua/Flickr

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