If you eat more calories than your body can burn you will gain weight. If you eat less calories than your body burns you will lose weight. It’s as simple as that. Your body turns all surplus calories into fat. That includes extra calories from fat, protein and carbohydrates. The key is to ensure that your daily caloric intake doesn’t exceed amount required to maintain a desirable body weight.

At same time, it is important that your diet includes a balance of all food groups including fat, carbohydrate and protein. Intakes of saturated and trans fats and bad carbohydrates should be avoided or reduced. Although unsaturated and non-hydrogenated fats are healthier choices, they should be used in moderation, because they are still fats and loaded with calories.

It’s important to keep in mind that while striving to attain weight loss, good health should not be compromised. Snack foods that induce further eating such as potato chips, salted nuts and chocolate should be avoided.

One diet method that is very effective is to cut your meals in half and add 2 extra meals (equivalent to half quantity of your normal meal). Let me explain. Let’s say you normally take 3 meals a day each consisting of 1000 calories. You would cut those meals to half content – which would now consist of 500 calories – and add 2 more meals also containing 500 calories each.

Let’s compare. Originally your 3 meals, each containing 1000 calories, would total 3000 calories a day. If you change that to 5 meals a day at 500 calories each, that would total 2500 calories. So in this example you would be saving 500 calories a day. This is a very easy and effective method to start implementing right away because you don’t really have to do any calculations. Just visualize what your normal meal would consist of and cut it in half. Then add 2 more similar meals. It’s that simple.

Increasing daily number of meals also helps to make this transition easier. You would be eating less per meal but you wouldn’t have to wait as long for next one. Furthermore, studies have shown that more frequent smaller meals increase body’s metabolism. (2) And we all know how important an increase in metabolism is for weight loss.

An efficient weight loss system must include an adequate amount of physical activity – more so for people over 35. It seems that I’m picking on older generations here. The reason why I keep bringing up subject is because I’m talking from personal experience. I’m 37 years old and I know exactly how much more difficult it is to shed weight today as opposed to ten or fifteen years ago. In my twenties, whenever I noticed extra weight creeping in, I would start jogging 5-6 times a week for 30-45 minutes and within a few short weeks (sometimes 2 weeks) extra weight was gone. It was that easy - and without any adjustment to food intake.

Today I would need a combination of exercise and proper dieting to reach that goal. And it would still take a longer period of time. How much should you be exercising? Well it depends how much weight you want to lose. By way, besides weight loss, exercise participation results in many other health benefits. It improves flexibility, strengthens musculoskeletal system, improves blood circulation and heart condition, just to name a few.

To start getting results in weight loss you should be exercising 5-6 days per week for 30-60 minutes at a comfortably vigorous intensity level. Once you lose desired weight you can then tone it down to maintain weight loss. For weight loss maintenance you can reduce it to 3-4 days a week, 30-45 minutes at same level of intensity. Be sure, however, to get clearance from your doctor first.

Eat healthy, exercise, live a healthy lifestyle and have a great summer.

References:

1.http://www.newstarget.com, “Yo-Yo dieting weakens immune system”, retrieved 22 April 2005 from < http://www.newstarget.com/001427.html> 2.University of Massachusetts Medical School, “People who eat smaller meals more often during day are less likely to be obese”, retrieved 15 April 2005 from < http://www.umassmed.edu/pap/news/2003/07_11_03.cfm>

I am a living example of this. Being a personal trainer, I spend most of my time training other people. I realized that throughout years of instructing others, my participation in these training sessions had gradually been decreasing. And because of my very busy schedule my personal workout periods have been decreasing as well.

When I went to my doctor for my last annual physical, results were a little scary. Both my blood cholesterol and blood pressure had risen to above normal levels. I thought, “How ironic is this? This can’t be happening to me.” My job is to help people lose weight, to become fit, and also to improve their cholesterol and blood pressure levels through exercise and nutrition.

This time, I was one who needed help. Yes, I had to admit to myself that I was human too, and not immune to any of these conditions, regardless of how much of an authority, in this field, I thought I was. When I took inventory of situation, I noticed that although my eating habits were good, I needed to exercise more. That was bottom line.

What I did was simple. Every evening (or at least 5 times per week), after dinner, I went for a brisk walk that lasted about half hour. I also made a point of going to gym 3 times a week for a one hour session.

I began with a cardiovascular workout that consisted of cycling or step climbing or a combination of both for 25 minutes. The level of intensity was fairly vigorous or comfortably vigorous. In other words, it was effective enough to burn 180-200 calories – according to cardiovascular machines.

In case you’re not familiar with these, most gyms have step-climbing machines, treadmills (for walking or jogging), rowing and skiing machines, etc. Most of modern ones keep track of your heart rate.

This is how it works. The machines have handle bars that are equipped with sensors which record pulse from your fingers and palms of your hands. This is converted into your heart rate and is shown on machine’s display. They also keep track of total calories burned, distance you would have traveled if you weren’t stationary, etc.

I followed that with a 30 minute strength training session. I usually concentrated on two body parts with two exercises for each. Each exercise consisted of 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions for each set.

For those new to weight training, let me explain something. If you don’t know how much weight or resistance to use, follow this method. Choose a weight that will tire your muscle completely by completing 10 to 12 repetitions. Ideally, you should do 3-4 exercises per body part if you have time - this would be more effective.

Weight training, resistance training or strength training (they are all same) is a crucial part of a good weight maintenance program. It’s a known fact that muscle increases body’s metabolism. Muscle mass burns calories. In other words, more muscle you have, higher your metabolism would be and more calories you would burn. This is why it’s so important to complement your cardio session with strength training.

The cardiovascular workout helps to burn fat and to keep heart, blood vessels, and lungs healthy. Weight training keeps musculoskeletal system strong and prepares body to take on any unexpected physically stressful situations that may arise, which may help prevent injury. It also helps to increase lean body mass, which in turn fuels body’s metabolism.

After 3 months of following this simple training method, I returned to doctor for follow-up blood tests. The results were very gratifying. Both my cholesterol and blood pressure had returned to normal levels.

The doctor congratulated me. And I was relieved to find out that prescribed medication was not necessary. I had gotten caught up in typical North American lifestyle – working hard but not getting enough exercise.

References:

1 Marmot MG, Syme SL, Kagan A, Kato H, Cohen JB, Belsky J., “Epidemiologic studies of coronary heart disease and stroke in Japanese men living in Japan, Hawaii and California: prevalence of coronary and hypertensive heart disease and associated risk factors”, retrieved 22 Nov. 2003 from

2 hypercholesterolemia-clinical-trials.com, “Dietary Research and Cholesterol Levels: Fine-Tuning Eating Habits”, retrieved 22 Nov. 2003 from