Updated September 4, 2020
Obesity is one of the leading causes of a variety of diseases worldwide, including, diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, etc. However, due to poor lifestyle choices, such as eating too much of calories, obesity is becoming more and more common.
“In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese.” (sic ) -WHO
In fact, a few years ago, I used to be overweight, consistently weighing about 88 to 90Kg. My BMI often touched 30! This situation had continued for over a decade. I didn’t care much about my body weight, and treated myself as a healthy being.
However, in early 2019, I was detected with a very high level of diabetes. My blood glucose level was unexpectedly too high. Since diabetes is closely linked to obesity, I had no other option than to control my weight. I discovered simple and natural methods of losings weights. As such, I didn’t go to the gym, no yoga, no aerobics. Still, I lost weight, and reversed my Type 2 Diabetes.
How Did I Lose Weight?
Naturally!
I wrote a book (Kindle on Amazon) summarizing key secrets of losing weight and reversing diabetes at home.
Let me share some fundamental ideas about how to lose weight naturally at home.
Calorie Deficit
Well, obesity is almost always preventable. Losing weight is a lot about calorie management. If you want to lose weight, you have to create a calorie deficit.
How do you create a calorie deficit? Here is a simple formula:
- Calories deficit = calories added to your body – calories burned
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
In order to understand your calorie deficit, you have to understand the Basal Metabolic Rate.
BMR is the amount of energy your body needs at rest. In other words, BMR is the energy required to sustain body’s basic life functions (such as your heart requires emery to pump blood).
Generally, a person weighing ~80Kg has a BMR of ~1700 calories/day. It means, this person will lose 1700 calories on a daily basis, without doing any work intentionally.
However, most of us do some extra work, and hence, lose extra calories daily. For example, I go for walking every day. I lose calories while walking.
Again, a 80Kg person will lose about 100 calories for every 1.5km of walks.
If he walks about 8km a day, he’ll lose nearly 500 calories.
How much calories does he burn daily? Add these 500 calories to BMR.
He is losing ~2,200 calories/day.
Calories Intakes?
Well, we receive calories from the macronutrients (energy giving food: fat, protein and carbohydrates) that we eat. How many calories? Here is the simple list:
- Eating 1g of fat gives you 9 calories,
- Eating 1g of carbohydrates gives you 4 calories, and
- Eating 1g of protein gives you 4 calories.
Basically, you can track your calorie intakes. Just don’t eat too much of the macronutrients. If you want to lose weight, subject to the advice of your physician, restrict yourself to a ~1700 calorie/day diet.
How much is the calorie deficit of this 80Kg person? If he eats 1,700 calories and loses 2,200 calories daily, the energy deficit is ~500 calories/day.
Here is a very important scientific relation between calories and body weight. In general:
- 3,500 calories = ~0.5Kg weight.
In other words, if you create an overall energy deficit of 3500 calories, you’ll lose 0.5Kg.
If you lose 0.5Kg per week, you lose about 2Kg/month. In one year, you lose ~12Kg weight, naturally. Not bad, right?
In fact, I followed these simple ideas for losing weight, and lost over 10Kg within a span of a few months. Not to mention, I successfully reversed my diabetes. 🙂
Carbohydrates And Weight Loss
Further, for a healthy and sustained weight loss, you should restrict your carb intakes. Don’t eat more than 50g carbs/day. Eat more fats and proteins. Why?
Well, out of the three macronutrients, carbs are digested the fastest. That’s why you don’t feel satiated despite eating too much of carbs/sugar rich food, such as chocolates, candies, and bakery products (cakes, breads, muffins). Moreover, sugar is addictive! You always feel like eating sweets, without ever feeling satiated. In the long term, this will harm you badly. Eating too much of carb/sugar is the root cause of diabetes.
I have elaborated numerous examples for understanding food and calories in the book I just mentioned. Feel free to browse more on Amazon. Here is the paperback edition:
How is your experience of losing weight naturally at home?