Many people today dedicate time and effort to losing weight, where the vast majority (almost 80%) fail to achieve their goals due to poor planning of their diet and exercise; either they quickly lose a lot of weight but then regain it (even gaining more than they lost) or they simply give up because it is too much of an effort to follow very rigid, strict and monotonous diets without any kind of gastronomic incentive.
What should be taken into account as a starting point when establishing a nutritional and supplementation approach focused on weight loss?
1. The person's caloric expenditure and energy intake, as well as their micronutrient needs (vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, phospholipids, trace elements, amino acids)
It is of little use to give someone a standard diet (which is what the vast majority of nutritionists do nowadays) if we do not know what the particular and personal needs are in their own biochemistry.
Just as we all have a unique fingerprint, the same is true of our physiological and biochemical needs; if we don't know them, it will be very difficult to provide the appropriate substrates for the person's body to function correctly.
If calorie intake is higher than energy expenditure, it will be more difficult to lose weight.
That doesn't mean going on a carbohydrate-free diet, but rather maintaining a balance of macronutrients that facilitates fat burning while preserving muscle mass without harming the body.
Today, almost all diets focused on weight loss are based on the elimination or drastic reduction of carbohydrates, and that is an easy solution that does not help to achieve goals from a healthy and balanced perspective, in addition to negatively impacting health, the person will regain the lost weight, even gaining some extra kilos as a result of the rebound effect.
To summarize and make this point clear: "It is necessary to study the person's daily activity (calorie expenditure) and provide the necessary macro and micronutrients to help them lose weight without it requiring effort or sacrifice."
2. The aim is not to go on a diet forever, but to learn to manage food in a responsible and intelligent way.
It's not very useful to go to a nutritionist who puts you on a diet if you're just going back to your bad eating habits when you finish it. The most effective thing is to help the person understand what's good for them and what isn't, so that in the future they have the necessary tools to manage their own diet and can eat natural, healthy, and balanced foods while achieving their goals and maintaining a state of complete physical and mental health.
3. The last meal of the day should be free of carbohydrates because the metabolism is slower and there is hardly any calorie expenditure, so the excess glucose in the blood is transformed into fats, making weight loss difficult.
Has anyone ever stopped to think about why there are more and more obese people, diabetics, and cancer patients?
The common denominator is “excess glucose”.
I still don't understand how it's possible that the WHO (World Health Organization) says that these diseases are a global epidemic and yet I see dietitians or nutritionists happily recommending the food pyramid as well as carbohydrates in the last meal of the day.
The vast majority of people who have come to my practice have achieved amazing results simply by reducing carbohydrates in their afternoon snack and dinner, without having to do anything drastic like high-protein or carbohydrate-free diets.
I still encounter therapists who explain to me that I should eat carbohydrates at night to recover and replenish lost liver and muscle glycogen.
Do you want to assess and see how absurd this idea is?
Look at your abdomen and tell me if you can see your abs; it's the simplest and easiest way to check how you're overdoing it with carbohydrate intake.
If you don't have a flat, toned stomach, it means that the excess glucose that cells don't need to form ATP (energy) is being transformed into fat because glycogen is "ALWAYS" full. Therefore, the idea that we need to eat carbohydrates at night is absurd and lacks any kind of logical thinking.
4. L-carnitine deficiency hinders fat burning because it is an amine involved in the transport of fatty acids into the mitochondria so they can be oxidized and converted into energy, making it more difficult for the person to lose weight.
We have two ways to obtain Carnitine, one is through foods of animal origin (plant-based foods contain negligible amounts) and the other is endogenously, through the amino acids methionine and lysine, which means that vegans or strict vegetarians are the most likely to have a deficiency in this vital amine and should take this into account when considering specific supplementation.
I recommend that anyone intending to lose weight introduce this amino acid daily, preferably on an empty stomach, to increase the activity of an enzyme called Carnitine-Acyl-transferase (CAT1) and help more efficiently burn accumulated fat in the form of triglycerides.
5. Specific sports or exercises that include both aerobic and anaerobic work should be performed daily.
It is vitally important to keep in mind that the combination of different training techniques will be the basis for achieving more satisfactory results.
Often when a person loses weight they do not achieve good muscle tone, and this is because they have only done aerobic exercises where the muscular part has hardly been worked, negatively impacting the established goals.
Taking these aspects into account, I recommend doing exercises to strengthen the musculoskeletal system (weights) and help us build muscle combined with aerobics (running, treadmill, cycling, swimming, directed activities or low or medium intensity martial arts, etc.) and in this way we can lose weight in a way that allows us to achieve a slim and stylized body (it is of little use to lose many kilos if we are left without shape by not achieving optimal muscle quality).
It is a fact that when we gain more muscle we burn more fat, because muscle tissue is metabolically more active and needs more calories to maintain itself, therefore, we must always keep in mind in any strategy focused on weight loss the muscle work and cardio (aerobic).