Introduction
How do I become thin? – There are as many answers to this question as there are different people. Obesity due to the widespread lack of exercise in today’s lifestyle and excessive calorie intake is a multifaceted problem.
When it comes to finding a way to lose weight in a healthy way and as permanently as possible, everyone has to decide for themselves which way is best for them. Although there are reports about alleged miracle diets or the ultimate tool, in the end even these cannot change a simple fact: The only way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you consume. If it helps you avoid certain foods altogether, or increase your intake of a certain nutrient group, you can do so.
Even if you want to change your eating habits as little as possible and prefer to exercise more, you can still lose weight. Last but not least, there is now an enormous market for drugs, dietary supplements or dietary products that are supposed to make losing weight easier. However, these products, just like the often praised “Blitzdiäten”, should be used with caution.
The most promising is to change your diet permanently. However, the cuts should not be so severe that you stop after the euphoria of the first few days because you have to give up almost everything. Furthermore, radical diets carry the risk of deficiency symptoms.
No matter what your own approach ultimately looks like, it should be designed in such a way that you can implement it over a longer period of time. If it helps you, organized groups, such as Weightwatchers®, can also help you stay on the ball. Your partner or good friends can also help you to put your plans into practice in the long term.
If you feel that you often eat in stressful situations or to cope with frustration and grief, it can also make sense to take a closer look at your psychological background. Depending on how severe the problems are, coaching can improve the living conditions or psychotherapy can help to work through problems. Usually a change of diet is much easier then.
No matter for what reason you start with a diet, a change of diet is usually a benefit for your health. In any case, sport is a good supplement to any plan to lose weight. Provided you are physically able to do so, of course.
No matter whether you want to lose weight for health reasons, or whether you ask yourself how I will become thin to look like celebrity XY, sport contributes to success. Thus, sporting activity increases the body’s calorie consumption. As a result, you don’t have to limit yourself quite so much when it comes to food, which increases your chances of maintaining your dietary change in the long term.
It is not absolutely necessary to take specific training sessions for this. Also the integration of physical activity into the everyday life has already clear positive effects. For example, by using the stairs instead of the elevator or by walking or cycling to work or the supermarket instead of driving.
Another side effect of sport is the sense of achievement it generates. Especially at the beginning of a diet, you lose weight much faster if you combine it with sports. Endurance sports such as jogging, walking, swimming or cycling are particularly suitable for this.
However, you should choose the type of sport you want to do. It is better to burn fewer calories per training unit, but stay on the ball. In addition to weight loss, you will also feel generally fitter and healthier after training, which can greatly enhance motivation for both the sport and the change of diet.
If you want to lose weight mainly for visual or aesthetic reasons, you can also do weight training or other more body-shaping sports in addition to endurance sports. In this way the body appears slimmer and less flabby more quickly. Thus one has also here substantially faster the feeling to have an effect.
Apart from the specific considerations on the question of how to become thin, sport has so many positive effects on the body and the prevention of many diseases that it is generally an enrichment for health. Despite the many effects of sport as part of a diet, it is of course also possible to lose weight without exercise (see: Losing weight without exercise).However, in this case you must of course pay special attention to your diet. Since there is no way to increase calorie consumption, the only measure is to reduce calorie intake.
Within the scope of this change of diet there are many possibilities. If it helps you to have a very firm scheme, you can resort to ready-made diet plans. However, since these plans usually specify exactly what you are allowed to eat with which meal, they can sometimes severely restrict your daily routine.
Therefore, if you stick to the plan, you have to think a little about what you are allowed to eat and what you cannot eat. Radical diets, in which one eats only eggs, potatoes or the like, should rather be avoided. Currently, the so-called Mediterranean diet is considered the healthiest way to eat.
Exact cookbooks and information material on this can be obtained from counseling centers or your family doctor. Fruit and vegetables play an important role in the current recommendations. Since both contain few calories, but many important vitamins, one cannot eat enough of them.
Meat and fish should be consumed in smaller quantities. White flour products should be avoided if possible, and of course anything that contains a lot of sugar. The old assumption that fat makes you fat is considered disproved.
However within the range of the fats in addition guessed/advised rather several times insatiated fatty acids to itself to take, as they occur e.g. in vegetable oils or also in fish or nuts. Saturated fats and above all trans fats, as they occur gladly in deep-frying fat, one should rather avoid. These recommendations are very clearly represented in the nutrition pyramids, which are often also available from health insurance companies.
Based on these general rules, you can then put together a plan according to your individual preferences. There are also many cookbooks with good recipes, where the calorie content of the dishes is given approximately. If you wish, you can have your daily calorie requirement determined, or you can read the approximate value from tables.
In the long run, however, you should try to develop a feeling for how much you can eat to lose or not gain weight. If you already eat a balanced and healthy diet, but simply eat too much, you can also start by eating a little less than before every meal. It doesn’t have to be only half.
It is also important to look at your own habits. Many people consume relatively large amounts of calories in a way that they don’t even notice. Very treacherous in this context are all sweetened drinks.
Even the meanwhile frequently advertised wellness or balance drinks still contain a lot of sugar, not to mention soft drinks and juices. Also salads often suggest that they are healthy and low-calorie dishes. However, because of the sauces and other ingredients, they can often easily keep up with other main dishes. All in all, a diet can only be a little longer and possibly start a little slower with the help of the food change. However, if you have managed to change your eating habits and identify calorie traps in everyday life, the success is usually long-lasting.
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