Hello, I am 23 years old, female. I weigh 78.5 kg , height is 165 cm. Last year, I didn't have a job so I used to spend 3-4 hours at the gym and with that, I lost 10 kgs in 4 months. Now I have a non stop 9-5 desk job with no breaks what so ever, so I am basically pinned to the chair all these hours. In addition, my house is so far away it takes me a whole hour to go home. I go back home, workout for 60 minutes (mixed between jogging and walking) and using my polar watch, it indicates that I burn around 500 calories in that workout. My daily calorie intake ranges between 1100 to below sometimes. I need to lose about 10-20 kilos. I really appreciate your help.
Note: I have asthma and an ankle injury
Regards,
Reem
Note: I have asthma and an ankle injury
Regards,
Reem
Answered by Roman Footnick
In general people say they are trying to lose weight, and are convinced that the scale is a good indicator of progress. However, unless you need to make weight for work or competition nobody else care what you weigh. The scale does not tell you how you look, and IN GENERAL people are trying to look better (slimmer, more fit, athletic, muscular, healthy, etc.) So first, throw away your scale and avoid using them in unless absolutely necessary. Use the mirror, or even better photos. Every phone has a camera on it, so it's pretty easy to do monthly or possibly weekly progress photos (Do not do daily. That is the other problem with the scale - people use it way to often - sometimes multiple times a day.) If you can't handle photos, many people also use the clothes they wear as indicators of success (i.e. waist band becomes loose, dropping dress sizes, etc.)
To lose fat, since I'm assuming that is the problem and not "kilos", one should understand that in general the way a person's body looks is 80-85% based on what they eat. How much you eat is important, but since your calories are already low... let's focus on what you are eating. In general, people who have difficulty losing body fat have problems with insulin resistance and do not process carbohydrates efficiently. Instead, the energy consumed from carbs are basically stored as fat. Also, when they do exercise their body does not readily metabolize already stored energy (fat) for the fuel of their workout. Rather they are simply using the sugars they ingested earlier. So, if your carbs exceed 100g/day, then I would start by reducing your carbohydrate consumption to 100g/day or preferably 50g/day.
If your carbs are low enough, then you should be replacing the calories with fats and proteins. Ideally, your caloric ratio would be 60-75% from fat, 15-30% from protein, and 5-10% from carbohydrates. This is commonly known as a ketogenic diet. There are numerous books and websites dedicated to ketogenic diets, not to mention substantial medical research validating its effectiveness.
As far as training, a person can train long or a person can train hard, but you can't do both. Far more effective than training for a long duration (more than an hour), is training with intensity. This means training very hard for a very short period of time (10-45 minutes.) Resistance training is your most efficient and effective tool in terms of exercise (i.e. lifting weights/ or body weight with a high intensity routine.) Running, jogging, walking, are fine if you enjoy it, but they are long duration training and do little to stimulate your body to mobilize fat for energy. Sprints up a hill on the other hand would be great, and most people only need 10-20 minutes of sprinting before they are exhausted and done. This usually known as High Intensity Interval Training.
To summarize:
- Throw away your scale
- Restructure what you are eating. 60% calories from fat, 20% calories from protein, and 10% calories from carbs
- Train with INTENSITY (sprints, weights, kickboxing, spinning, etc.)
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