By Majd Othman

KUWAIT: Being fit and practicing a healthy lifestyle has become a trend among people of all ages in the last couple of years, and despite this being a good thing, especially with the danger of obesity, people still struggle with some detailed techniques that affect their weight loss journey. One of them is not losing weight despite commitment to sports and healthy eating.

Mohammad Al-Hayek

Kuwait Times spoke to nutritionist Mohammad Al-Hayek, who shared some tips for losing weight. In the beginning, Hayek explained, there are three main factors affecting weight loss.“The most essential factor is that sometimes we don’t calculate or take the calories that our bodies need, as some people may take less or more calories than actually needed. We should only decrease 25 percent of the calorieswe eat so the body will burn calories in a natural way,” he said.

“The amount of protein we eat should be equivalent to our body’s need. Increasing protein intake will not help in losing weight,” Hayek explained. “Also, if someone is working out and lifting weights and are focusing their attention on the weighing scale as a number only, it could give them false indications, as they are not losing weight, but actually losing fat. When people do weightlifting, they increase the percentage of muscles in the body, which will increase body weight. Despite this, they are not gaining weight but muscles, which is the main goal of the whole journey,” he said

Hayek pointed out some details that could affect weight stability. “Eating lots of salts and preservatives lead to increasing the water stored under the skin, which will affect the number on the weighing scale.

Regarding the increment of the workout and its effect on the weight stability, stressed that if the body did not take enough amount of calories in the line of increasing the workout, it will not lead to weight stability. “The transition from an absence of sports activities in our lives to suddenly being very active won’t help the body to have time to adapt to the new changes,” he said.