Several rules should be followed in order to successfully lose weight.
First of all, one has to consume less calories than are burnt which will result in a weight loss – which works every time without fail. If you aren’t losing pounds, you are either miscalculating or burning less calories than you think. The rule of the thumb here is better to burn more than consume less. Semi-fasting will increase the risk of nutritional deficiencies, anemia and even emotional issues. Summing up: eat similar amounts of food but move more.
Secondly – do not go for crash diets as the risk of the jo-jo effect increases and the appearance of the skin can become dramatic. Effective slimming down means a permanent change in the lifestyle – the aim is not to slim down but to stay slim. There is only one way to do that – gradually introduce changes that will become your second nature.
A third important thing is to avoid diets that cause dehydration, 1kg of fat equals circa 7000kc so it is physically impossible to burn more than 2kg without serious health consequences – 1-2kg pcm is the healthy goal. The issues with diets is that you can indeed lose 10kg a month – due to lowering of glycogen and dehydration. This is not a loss from your fat stores – once you stop dieting the kilograms will come back within a week.
Fourth rule is to avoid fasting (depletion of vitamins and minerals) – if need be, take supplement as the body will panic if depleted of nutrients and will start storing reserves of energy for the future.
Finally, remember that you aim to burn fat rather than lose water or glycogen and that the fat weight is stable. If we weight three kilos more on Wednesday than we did on a Monday, it doesn’t mean that we put on weight in the meantime. It only means that our intestines are filled with more water and that there is more glycogen in the muscles. The real weight (amount of fat) is very stable, oscillating up to a kilo each direction throughout the month. You can weight yourself every day at same time and then draw a monthly average out of the scores.
To sum up: it is physically impossible to put on two kilograms within three days – you can only increase the amount of water and glycogen by two kg. Likewise, it is impossible to lose 7kg of fat in a fortnight – this would only mean a severe dehydration. It is seriously this easy – gradually increase your activity levels and change your diet step by step. Simple and not so simple at the same time.