Diet Plan to Lose 10 Kilograms
Losing 10 kilograms takes time and dedication. A diet plan that trims your calorie intake, focuses on healthy foods, and includes regular physical activity is best.
While there are a lot of diets that promise to help you drop weight fast, if you really want to lose the weight and keep it off, it's better to take it off slowly. Losing 10 kilos, or 22 pounds, typically takes anywhere from three to six months, depending on your diet and exercise plan.
It's advice you heard before, but reducing portion sizes and thus calorie intake, focusing on healthy foods, and adding physical activity is the ticket to successful weight loss.
Reduce Calories to Lose 10 Kilos
If you're trying to lose 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, you need to eat fewer calories than your body burns daily. It's generally understood that 1 kilogram of body weight has about 7,700 calories. To lose 1/2 to 1 kilogram a week, you need to reduce your current calorie needs — the number of calories necessary to maintain your weight — by 550 to 1,100 calories a day.
Exactly how many calories you burn per day depends on a lot of factors — your metabolism, your activity level, your size, and your body composition. Use an online calculator to get a rough estimate and subtract the 550 to 1,100 calories from that to determine a weight-loss calorie intake.
While you need to reduce your calorie intake to lose the weight, you shouldn't eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day if you're a woman or less than 1,800 calories if you're a man. Eating too few calories may cause your body to slow down calorie burning and derail your weight loss.
Eating Foods That Fill You Up
Hunger is enemy number one when you're trying to lose those extra kilos. To fight back, fill your diet with foods that keep you full. Low-energy-dense foods, which are foods that have few calories in a large portion, should be go-to foods on your weight-loss plan.
Fruits, vegetables and broth-based soups are examples of foods with a low energy density. Small servings of whole grains, such as quinoa, barley and millet, are also good choices thanks to their fiber content. The fiber in the grains takes longer to digest, delaying hunger.
You also don't want to skimp on protein. High-protein foods, such as lean meat, poultry, fish, low-fat dairy, soy and beans, help satisfy hunger better than carbs, according to a 2008 research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Protein takes longer to digest and forces your body to use slightly more calories to process, too.
Be sure to include a serving of protein with each meal to keep hunger at bay. One egg has 6 grams of protein; a cup of milk contains 8 grams; 3 ounces of lean meat has 22 grams; 3 ounces of chicken breast has 26 grams.
Read more: 7-Day Weight-Loss Eating Plan
Diet Plan Strategies
Like your food choices, how often you eat is an important part of your diet plan when your aim is to lose 10 kilos. For energy and continued hunger control, eat three meals plus one to two snacks each day. Keep each meal about the same size, and include those foods that keep you feeling full by filling half your plate with veggies and fruit, and then adding protein and whole grains.
For example, breakfast might be two hard-boiled eggs with a slice of whole-wheat toast and a bowl of cantaloupe. Minestrone soup with a grilled chicken salad makes a good lunch choice. At dinner, fill up with broiled salmon, a baked sweet potato and roasted asparagus. Nonfat yogurt, fresh fruit, cut veggies, low-fat cheese or whole-grain crackers make good snack options.
Also, be sure to limit your intake of junk food — soda, sweet tea, cookies, cake, candy and fried foods. These types of foods raise your calorie intake without offering any health benefits. When it comes to drinks, water makes the best choice.
Exercise to Burn Off Kilograms
Every good weight-loss plan should include physical activity. Aerobic exercise, such as a brisk walk or a spin class, is a good way to burn off calories. Aim for 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five days a week —a bike ride, jog or a water aerobics class are all options.
One of the consequences of slimming down is loss of lean muscle tissue. As you restrict calories, your body loses muscle along with fat.
Muscle helps your body burn calories, so limiting muscle loss can help you lose weight in a couple of ways. It can help prevent the plateau most dieters experience. Second, retaining lean body mass can keep your metabolism humming so you don't need to reduce your calories even further to continue losing weight.
You might be able to offset some of the muscle loss by including strength-training as part of your exercise routine.
Work out each major muscle group — legs, abs, chest, shoulders, back and arms — twice a week using free weights, weight machines or a resistance band. Leave at least one day between strength-training workouts to allow your muscles to rest.
Read more: Strength Training for Losing Weight