Reduce Your Calorie Intake To Take Off The Pounds

Reduce Your Calorie Intake To Take Off The Pounds

Every ounce of fat stored in your body represents about 250 calories. If you eat only 1,000 calories per day, but actually burn 2,480, there is a difference of 1,480 calories that must come from your fat warehouse. Divide these 1,480 calories by 250 (the number of calories per ounce of body fat) and you get the figure 5.9—roughly, 6 ounces of fat that you can expect to lose per day on a 1,000-calorie diet.

But oh bliss, oh joy! If you eat 100 calories of protein instead of 100 calories of carbohydrate you'll lose weight even faster—this because of the specific dynamic action of protein that causes 100 calories of it actually to lay the lash on your metabolism so that 130 to 140 calories are burned! With fat and carbohydrate, only 104 to 106 calories are burned under the same circumstances.

You want to lose 25 pounds, or 400 ounces. Losing 6 ounces per day on a 1,000-calorie diet, you will require just about two months to reach your goal. After that, you can graduate to your maintenance diet (2,480 calories example) and be rid of fat worries evermore.

This is intended purely as a rough guide in case you don't want to bother your head with arithmetic to figure out your own expectancy along the lines given above. It represents actual fat loss—the total weight loss may be even greater when the tissues start eliminating surplus water. Do not be disturbed if you vary a little, one way or another, from the predicted losses, for there are countless subtle factors that modify your own rate of reduction.

Naturally, you will lose fat even faster if your diet is less than 1,000 calories per day. You probably have a natural desire to get results in a hurry, so step up and meet the a diet that will reduce you faster than fasting, that will satisfy your hunger and at the same time increase your vigor and sense of well-being? Then gather 'round and listen to the kind words that eminent and conservative physicians have recently bestowed upon the principle of rapid weight reduction.

Ordinarily, a weight loss of from 1½ to 2 pounds a week is the maximum permitted by conservative physicians. Unquestionably this is a safe, sound, and sensible principle to follow. But the science of nutrition has advanced so rapidly that swift weight reduction in appropriate cases of obesity is no longer considered necessarily dangerous, when the diet is well balanced and contains adequate vitamins and minerals. This is a new and somewhat revolutionary conclusion but it has been amply demonstrated by many case histories.

Dr. F. A. Evans and Dr. J. M. Strang of Pittsburgh, and Dr. James J. Short of New York, among others, have published reports in conservative medical journals describing the astonishing results attained by rapid reducing diets of 600 calories per day, or even less.

A striking fact about such diets is that very few patients complained of being hungry, yet one man lost 226 superfluous pounds in eight months, and a woman patient weighing 479 pounds lost an excess 304½ of them in twenty months!

Among the new conclusions supported by some of these cases are the following: Every bit of excess weight can be removed without danger; even the so-called "glandular" types of obesity yield to low-calorie diets (there goes that old gland alibi!); contrary to routine practice of many physicians, there is no need to restrict water intake; salt need not be eliminated from the diet unless there is water retention.

Records of 186 overweight patients on these very low-calorie rapid reducing diets showed that pep and energy were usually increased within one week's time; headaches were frequently relieved and blood pressure reduced; in some patients menstrual disturbances and skin blemishes disappeared. A few patients experienced slight weakness and dizziness for the first two or three days, but these symptoms quickly vanished.

How long can such a diet be followed safely? Six months, eight months, a year—as long as excess fat is present. This means that as soon as you have reached your ideal weight the diet should be discontinued. It means also that you should have your doctor's consent before adopting it. The more drastic the diet, the more important is a physical examination. There are some physical conditions in which weight reduction must be undertaken with extreme caution.

A physical check up is much less costly than a hospital sojourn occasioned by too enthusiastic dieting. Nine persons out of ten, providing they are actually overweight, can adopt the rapid reducing program with perfect safety, but there is always the chance that you are the tenth person.

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