Minimum Calories, Maximum Exercise is the New Short Course for Weight Loss

It is becoming increasingly more important for people to lose weight and they exploit every possible option to get to their goal. There has been an upsurge of products, tips and tricks to help people shed those pounds off. But, here is a secret from the treasure box for a long-term weight loss in just 4 days is- minimal calories and maximum exercise.

A new study, published in March in The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, suggests that minimal calories and maximal exercise can significantly reduce body fat in just four days — and the loss lasts for months. Breaking News: the four days are pretty gruelling.

Most experts recommend small reductions in calories or increase in exercise to remove weight slowly and sensibly- a programme that most people quit because its progress is extremely cold and slow.

Here is why- the Spanish and Swedish researchers restricted the calories consumed by 15 healthy but overweight Swedish men to about 360 a day. This amount is approximately 1800 calories less than the number consumed by them normally. The way the calories were given to them was also changed. They ingested calories in liquid form- some men drank sugary carbohydrates, others a high-protein drink.

And the amount of exercise that they did was also increased to a lot. They began their day with 45 minutes of cranking an arm-pedalling machine. This gave them an upper-body workout. The men then strolled for eight hours across the Swedish countryside as a group. They only got a 10-minute break every hour. However, they were allowed to consume as much of a low-calorie, sports drink as they wanted during the walk.

Most of the men “were surprised that it was easier than they thought it would be,” says José Calbet, a professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain; he and his colleague Hans-Christer Holmberg, a professor at Mid Sweden University in Ostersund, led the study. Some of the subjects experienced “minor problems with pain in the joints” and blisters on their feet, according to Calbet, but none dropped out or complained of hunger.

The result noticed after 4 days was astonishing- the men had each lost 11 pounds, nearly half of which was a part of their body fat and the rest of the loss came primarily from muscle mass loss. The source of calories given to these men did not make a difference to the weight loss, with losses being same irrespective of if the men had been given sugar or protein.

What was more surprising is the fact that these men did not put the weight back on after the study ended. “We thought they would overeat and regain the weight lost,” Dr Calbet says. Instead, when the volunteers returned a month later, most had lost another two pounds of fat. And a year after the experiment, they were still down five pounds, mostly in lost body fat.

Researchers hope to study if women would respond similarly to men and if repeated rounds of such programme might affect muscular health and appetite hormones.

Source: Financial Express

Image Courtesy: Getty

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