Spring is here and swimsuit weather is just around corner. If you’re like many of us, you start panicking about all weight you need to lose to fit into your favorite swimwear. Some need to lose 5 to 10 pounds of extra fat while others require 20 to 30 pounds, or more. Most of us know that to stay trim all year round would require an improvement in lifestyle. Easier said than done. “Yes but what do I do now?” you ask. Do you diet, exercise or both? Keep in mind that although weight loss through various diet methods may improve your appearance, it may not have a positive effect on your health. According to studies, repeated periods of weight loss followed by weight gain can be harmful to health. (1)

This is why it is very important to maintain a stable weight with proper eating and exercise habits year round. “Yes but I want to lose this weight now”, you say. Well, first of all you need to realize how you gained that extra weight. Unless you have a medical condition, you probably put it on by eating too much, not exercising enough or a combination of both. The bottom line is that you have been eating more calories than your body could burn over a period of time. This surplus of calories was stored in your body as fat.

What’s best way to tackle this problem? You could hit gym for some cardiovascular training, or work out right at home. Exercises that use large muscle groups such as jogging, cycling or aerobics are best for achieving quick weight loss. These high impact exercises, however, are more efficient for rapid weight loss in younger people, for a couple of reasons (there are always some exceptions). Let me explain. These exercises could help melt away pounds in a short time period for someone who is 25 years of age for example.

Once you surpass age of forty, for example, you have to rely more on diet to complement exercise, for quicker weight loss. This is because a person’s metabolism slows down with age. A forty five year old performing same exercise would actually burn fewer calories than someone 20 years younger. Furthermore, a person over forty (there are exceptions) could not train at a high intensity level for long durations as could a twenty five year old.

It doesn’t mean, however, that older people shouldn’t use high intensity exercise methods. If your doctor gives you green light, then by all means go for it.

Older individuals need to rely more on calorie restriction than younger individuals. That’s not to say that younger people need only to rely on exercise for weight loss. Exercise for them ranks higher on weight loss efficiency scale. They could often get away without reducing their caloric intake during periods of exercise and still lose weight quite easily. The older generation, however, must rely on a combination of adequate exercise participation and proper diet.

Unless you are extremely over weight you should eat ten times your weight in calories to maintain a particular weight. In other words to maintain a body weight of 140 pounds you would have to eat 1400 calories daily.

So, where do you start? Let’s begin with diet. The first thing you have to do is to cut back on your daily food intake. Then you need to replace bad foods with good. Use good carbohydrates at expense of bad. Good carbohydrates (carbs) are high in fiber and low in calorie contents. These include fruits, vegetables and whole grain products. Bad carbs are processed carbohydrates with most of essential fiber stripped away and often replaced with fat. These include white bread, products made with white flour, processed fruits and vegetables and products containing sugar such as cakes, candy bars, etc. These foods along with fried foods are high in calorie and fat content and should be avoided or extremely reduced. Although good carbs are wiser food choices they should still be used in moderation, because calories still do count.

Many Scientific studies have revealed that a long and healthy life may be directly related to a person’s level of exercise activity. A large number of studies have been done, over years, where groups of subjects participated in various forms of exercise methods in an organized fashion. What scientists try to determine is, if in fact exercise produces any benefits in humans.

During some of these trials, for example, subjects were exposed to same exercise activities, with same intensity, frequency, etc. Scientists would then gather and record various statistical data that they thought may be relevant to issue in question. The hope was that this data would help them to draw some conclusive evidence that suggested exercise participation was linked to any significant health benefits.

The findings from these studies are sometimes used to form models which may be representative of a larger group of people or even an entire population. Many of these outcomes, in fact, have suggested that exercise really does generate very important health benefits. Some of these included weight loss, improved blood cholesterol and blood pressure levels, improved psychological conditions, lower incidences of heart disease and cancer, just to name some.

These scientific studies, however, are small in comparison to epidemiological studies. A large-scale study, for example, may cover a big geographic region or an entire country. Although they are not controlled as smaller ones they may be used to determine many important characteristics of a particular large group of people or a population.

Because there is no way to use controlled environments when dealing with an entire population, for instance, scientists sometimes have to work backwards as it were. That is, they get facts through available statistics first, and then they try to determine what factors may have influenced certain outcomes.

This research method was used in part on popular “Mediterranean diet”, which has been credited with substantial health benefits to people of that region. Others have included Japanese and African studies.

The former showed that people of Japan had significantly lower blood cholesterol levels and lower incidences of heart disease than Japanese people living in Western countries. This study was done with 11,900 men of Japanese ancestry.(1) The latter suggested that certain African tribal people weighed less, had lower body mass indexes (BMI), and more favorable blood cholesterol profiles than Americans.(2)

Not surprisingly, one common denominator in all of these cultures was that their people were physically active. A large part of their daily routine consisted of walking and or cycling. On other hand, in North America major means of transportation is automobile. As a result, North Americans are subject to less physical activity giving them more time for leisure, some of which is spent snacking on various foods that were developed exactly for this type of lifestyle.

This is mostly why obesity is a major epidemic in US and Canada today. Alarmingly, number of child obesity cases has also been steadily rising over last several years. Children, today, are not getting near as much exercise as they did in generations past.

Since root of problem seems to lie in inactivity, solution is clear: We need to become more active. How, then, do we increase exercise participation to adequate levels? What is an adequate level of physical activity? Well, we could start by spending part of our leisure time exercising.

Another alternative is to join a health club or gym - take up a sport such as tennis, golf, basketball, in line skating, or engage in activities like brisk walking, cycling and jogging. The activity of choice, of course, would depend on person’s level of fitness.

Regardless of method of exercise, increased physical activity usually produces almost immediate results. The most noticeable of these is weight loss.

Another important benefit of increased physical activity, which often goes unnoticed, is weight loss maintenance. You have probably realized that most diets don’t tell you how to keep weight off once you have lost it.

Relying only on diet, for weight loss maintenance, especially in affluent Western cultures, is very difficult. The most sensible solution, therefore, is to increase exercise participation.

Americans today, on average, eat less than they did 20 years ago, and yet they weigh more. It’s not hard, then, to figure out: If we’re consuming fewer calories and weigh more, our level of physical activity must have decreased.