Is It Possible to Lose Weight with a Balanced Diet?

• Important weight loss factors

• Benefits of concentrating only on diet

• Take Away

When an individual looks for weight loss, many factors can influence one’s progress. Although exercise and weight-loss diets are usually combined to have an effective loss of weight, some may think that one can lose weight through dietary changes alone. In this article, we’ll try to explain if one can lose weight by only changing the diet or only with a balanced diet, and we have included a few recommendations to help initiate the process.

Important weight loss factors

There are a few important factors or weight loss tips that can result in one’s fitness success (when weight loss is concerned) and that includes:

• Calories out vs calories in

Maintaining a proper continuous deficit of calories is one of the most important factors when one is aiming for weight loss. It is normally known as having lower calories than what you burn on a regular interval (daily basis). With time, this results in weight loss as one’s body starts burning carbohydrates and fat repositories for energy. Hence, when one has a deficit of calories, the body starts converting glycogen and fat cells to generally tackle the lack of energy that the body faces during this period.

• Dietary Factors

There are numerous strategies for the diet to reduce or lose weight if one follows a diet plan for weight loss. The main objective is to eat lesser calories than what one’s body requires for weight management and hence promoting a gradual weight loss. The amount of calorie intake one require to reduce weight is very variable and is dependent on a variety of components that includes one’s height, sex, genetics, and weight. A few common strategies for weight loss are low carb diet, ketogenic diet, high protein diet, and intermittent fasting, all of them are explained as follows:

1. Low carb diets: Lowering one’s carb diet to 50 to 150 grams per day might help reduce one’s intake of high carb foods (that are commonly overconsumed). Low carb diets also result in having a fibre rich and protein diet which helps people to have control of appetite and manage hunger.
2. Ketogenic diets: If the carb intake is lower than 50 grams per day, it stimulates ketogenesis. This complete system, in which the primary energy source is fat, helps in the regulation of hunger levels.
3. High protein diets: If someone takes a protein diet of 1 to 1.5 grams per kg daily, it promotes lean body mass building and maintenance of it. This as result supports one’s metabolism and might decrease overeating by making you feel full for a long duration
4. Intermittent fasting: Obviously if you restrict yourself for a certain duration and don’t take any diet, it will reduce the intake of calories and will improve adherence to the diet.

Although these above-mentioned strategies might help in weight loss, most experts advise on gradually reducing the diet or intake of calories and simultaneously having nutrient-rich, high fibre, high protein whole foods. This process helps improve one’s overall health and decreases a few negative effects (side effects) of dieting while it promotes weight loss.

• Exercise Factors

Another most important factor or tool to reduce weight or help with losing weight is Exercise. As everyone knows, physical activity promotes calories out, resulting in a calorie deficit and hence fat or weight loss. When one wants to reduce weight, there are many cardio exercises and some of them like swimming, running, cycling is considered over other exercises like resistance as these exercises have more tendency to burn calories. But obviously if one does both (i.e. resistance exercises and cardio), it becomes a well-balanced exercise plan and gives the best results.

Benefits of concentrating only on diet

As mentioned above, exercise and diet usually work together when it comes to weight loss, but some people only focus on diet. If one does this, it has a lot of benefits:

• Allows one to have full focus on diet: Usually, this weight loss task can be overwhelming for many, mostly for those who need to shed off a lot of weight. Although physical activity is important, if one focuses only on diet, it increases one’s full devotion to proper nutrition. If total focus variables are lower, one can have a balanced diet to improve long term success.
• Time-efficient for the ones with a busy schedule: Some people have a very hectic schedule, for those both diet plan and exercises become a big task. If one’s focus is only on diet, he/ she can eliminate time spent on exercise, and make the weight loss journey much more sustainable.

Similarly, there are downsides if one focuses only on diet. This includes weight regain risk, or missing out on exercise positive effects

Take Away

In summary, although multiple factors can influence weight loss, the most important of which are properly balanced diet, calorie intake and out, and exercise. But some experts believe that focusing only on diet can save their time and increase concentration, and hence only a well-balanced diet can help manage weight loss.