Lose 5 kilos before summer in a short time? Yes, but at what cost to health. Professor Pier Luigi Rossi explains why going beyond the weight
LFast dieting, with summer approaching, is everyone’s dream. But is it really possible to lose 5 kilos in 3 days? Must be careful not to give in to the siren song of those who promise miraculous weight loss thanks to bars or supplements. At stake is our health
Lightning diet: minus 2 kilos
“When you want to get a rapid weight loss, usually we act on carbohydrates, drastically reducing them. If they assume 30 – 40 grams of carbohydrates per day it will reduce the glycogen within the muscle cells. This eating behaviour, in the first phase of the diet, will ensure that water is lost and consequently a couple of kilos in about a week. Once this first phase is over, however, you will have to act on adipocytesadipose tissue cells, with the aim of emptying them», explains Professor Pier Luigi Rossi Specialist in Food Science and Hygiene and Preventive Medicine and professor (ac) at the University of Siena – Arezzo
Losing Pounds VS Losing Fat
“We have emphasized body weight and we are now accustomed to looking only at the number on the scale. However, we must not forget that body weight it is made up of masses: fat mass, bone mass, muscle mass and water. The sum of these four parts give our weight. It is important that, in dealing with weight loss, we act only on the fat mass, without affecting the lean mass muscle, neither bone nor water. Promising a loss of 5 kilos in 7 days is commercial gossip. You lose weight over a period of time without knowing where it is then you take it all backmaybe even with interest. This behavior is beyond all logic. Eating is thinking», underlines the expert
Balance? The seamstress meter is better
«The meter should be used more than the scale to assess one’s nutritional and health status. Of course there are also the impedance scales which give the possibility to know the various masses, but a simple meter is an excellent indicator for a reflection on one’s lifestyle and on the quality of one’s diet. The circumference of the abdomen is taken by placing the tape measure on the navel. The woman does not should go over 80 cm e man not to exceed 94cm. Having a number higher than these two limits means having a excess abdominal fatwhich is the most dangerous for health», warns Professor Rossi
Watch out for belly fat
«Abdominal fat is located under the skin and inside the cavity of the abdomen, in direct contact with the intestine. It’s a fat that produces an inflammation that affects the whole organism under the effect of cytokines, inflammatory proteins given by adipocytes. Abdominal fat causes arterial hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis. To assess whether excess abdominal fat has caused the inflammatory process, a simple one can be performed blood test: C-reactive protein. Higher values mean it is needed change diet and exercise», suggests the expert.
Getty Images
Fat begets fat
“Day after day our body produces more and more fat. Over the years, therefore, we accumulate fat mass and we lose lean muscle mass. It may happen that the body weight remains the same, but the composition of our body changes. The aging process in a woman and a man consists in lose muscle and body water and gain fat mass. You have to be careful of that the lean part always remains above the fat mass. When fat mass dominates lean mass we are at the breaking point, an often irreversible process from which there is no turning back. That’s why you have to go over the weight, get out of the gossip and dietary chatter, and see with concrete eyes what happens in our body», concludes Professor Rossi
iO Woman © breaking latest news