How to Lose Weight Fast

I need to Lose Weight Fast!

Welcome to Daily health check with Dr. Gabby. Is it possible to lose weight fast?

 Yesterday we talked about weight loss targets, now let’s talk about strategies for achieving weight loss.

Diet Plan

1. Food (Energy) Substitution

There is an amount of food or energy we need to maintain our weight on a daily basis. However some of these foods provide too much energy (energy dense) while some provide less energy, so the first strategy we will talk about is to substitute those energy dense foods in your diet with less or reduced energy dense foods for e.g swapping bars of chocolate with pieces of fruit. This ensures you’re still taking a right amount of food but substituting the energy value with one that is much lower and healthier. This is an example of a reduced energy diet.

Note that we have reduced, low and very low #energy diets. depending on the amount of weight loss one is trying to achieve.

One way you can monitor this is to actually write down what you eat on a daily basis, in this way you are able to track what you’re consuming and where you are making errors. You can also substitute the foods you are taking that have high energy levels with lower and healthier options.

Very Low Energy Diets

There are situations this meal replacement is required to act faster giving a very #rapid weight loss, such diets should ideally be prescribed by only doctors or dietitians. They consist of taking formulated meals in the form of shakes or meal bars. Note that these meals are nutritionally complete.

If you are going this route, doctors advise you take vegetables to aid bowel movement and 1 tablespoon of oil for the gall bladder to contract well.

Avoid quick fixes except a doctor says so.

One use of very low energy diets is for rapid weight loss before surgery on the abdomen. Of course the disadvantage is that it is extremely hard to adhere to. Your body will need about 2 to 3 days to get used to such diets.  By this time, your body has used up its glucose and now starts to burn fat to produce energy. The by product of this process is what is called #ketones. These ketones help you not to feel hungry.

I guess you now know the inspiration for the ketogenic diet. The question now is is a very low energy diet safe for you? Join me tomorrow as I talk about other weight loss strategies and the risks associated with such die