why is it that when i lose 10 pounds i gain 20 back? can someone help?

Answer 1

Sounds like you need to put some effort into understanding where your weight is coming from and work toward a more balanced long-term solution. Here are some ideas.


First, for all of the "quick and easy" weight loss diet pill suggestions, remember, if something sounds too good to be true... it probably is, particularly if you have to pay for it.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common questions amount to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

Many people are really exasperated with the same old tips for weight loss. Therefore we have added a few different tips to lose weight below:

Always find a chance to move around. Do not use a vehicle if you are able to walk. Preferably run around if you have the time. Almost 70% of your calories are burned in this process. Instead of depending on magical ways to lose weight, apply your own efforts by eating less and moving more.

Reduce your junk food intake and stick to wholesome foods such as fruits and vegetables. Imagine your body as the machine to burn your weight and actually perform the workouts.
Do not plan dieting because it is not a solution for a longer duration. You can easily feel tired by following a particular diet pattern for a shorter duration. It reduces your rate of metabolism by draining away the water content and retaining the fat content.

Schedule an exercise program almost daily and gradually increase your workout. Reduce one spicy meal in a week and work towards healthy meal consumption.

Think in realistic terms and decide to lose about one to two pounds per week. Even if you lose weight rapidly you will revert back to the original weight soon. Contact people who have successfully lost weight and follow the same procedures they have tried out.

Answer 3

Honestly, it all depends on how you lose the weight! If you take diet pills than STOP, you will gain that weight that you lost, and possibly double it. If you keep a strict diet and watch your calorie intake, but let yourself indulge in a dessert a couple times a week, you will gradually lose the weight & keep it off! (depending on if you work out at least 2 or 3 times a week)

Answer 4

Here is what you need to do, if you are serious about losing weight and keeping it off. Eat 6 small meals a day about every 4 hours. Here what that will do for you, your metabolism will increase (i.e. Loose weight) and you will have more engry. If you go on a diet and eat less, your metabolism will slow down and store to fat. That is why diets dont work. Only the size of your fist, carbs (examples:baked potato, pasta, oatmeal, beans, corn, melon, apples, fat free yogurt, whole wheat breads)in one and protien (examples:chicken breast, swordfish, shrimp, turkey breast) in the other. You can also eat vegetables and salads with any meal, they dont have none or little fat). 30min cardo exercise every day. Any of these(examples: walking, jogging, swimming,running, biking, ect), Monday cardo, tues upper body (arms: curls, tricep extensions,pull ups, front press)(abdominals: leg pull crunch, leg raises), (chest: bench press, butterfly, pullover)(shoulders: front press, arm pullover, cross county skier machine)(back:seated row, lat pull downs, back extension)(YOU DONT HAVE TO DO IN ONE DAY, mix it up) wed cardo, thurs lower body (legs: leg pull,leg press, squats, lounges) fri cardo, sat upper. Sunday eat anything you want and dont exercising, you do this on sunday so your body doesnt go into starvation mode. YOU NEED TO TAKE SUNDAY OFF. If you stilck with this you will have a great body. also drink aleast 8oz of water daily! Stay away from Mcdonals, Wendys, ect because there is nothing good for you on the menu's even the salads are bad (beaon bits, cheeze, dressing, ect) Good Luck :)

Answer 5

Maybe because your diet isn't really effective?

You should try a healthier, balanced diet instead of the fad diets that are out there. Fad diets tend to do that to you, whereas if you just take on a healthier lifestyle, such as replacing your chips and candy with fruits and veggies, drinking plenty of water, exercising regularly, etc., you're more likely to keep the weight off.

Answer 6

Because when you deprive your body of food (or less than it's used to getting) - it goes into storage mode as soon as you start eating substantial amounts, especially if you're female. Anything that's considered spare will be stored as fat.
The best way is to move into a healthy lifestyle and gradually train your body to accept less/different food. I had to learn this the hard way too...

Answer 7

well...basically when you diet you eat less...so after you lose some weight your metabloism drops. so you burn less energy doing an activity. if you ate the same amount as when you were on your diet, you weight will stay, but since you dont, you gain weight.

Answer 8

when you switch your eating habits, they need to stay that way your whole life to be effective... read the book below or check out the website, it is proven to help you lose weight and keep it off provided you stay eating the same way... no drugs or supplements needed either...

Answer 9

cause you suck at dieting. you need to "plan" a meal or two a week that you ALLOW yourself to cheat. that way you dont binge for 3 days straight after you diet for 2.

Answer 10

I call it the BOOMERANG effect, because it brings all of it's friends back too. I know... it happens to me too. just keep trying. your bound to lose it sooner or later. don't give up! Good luck!