We live in a world where the entire population is frantically trying to lose weight. In such an environment, can you really blame companies for overloading our store shelves with Lean Cuisine and South Beach Diet frozen entrees, bombarding us with diet pills, and wearing us out with early-morning exercise infomercials? Most certainly, producers are frantically trying to meet the needs of the public, as an increasing amount of low-fat, low-carb, low-everything products hit the shelves. However, Americans are still having enormous problems losing weight. Why is this you ask? It is simply a result of the lack of knowledge people have about their bodies and proper diet and exercise. Yes, you are eating that low-fat sour cream and that whipped butter, but really, do you understand the simple science behind effective weight-loss?
No, weight loss does not result from fad diets. It does not result from eating frozen entrees for the next twenty years of your life. It most certainly does not result from starvation. So how, you may ask, does one lose weight? Sure, any diet will help you lose weight-go ahead, try any one of them-South Beach, the Zone Diet, the Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers, etc. They will ALL result in weight loss-but do you understand why? Simple mathematics is the reason behind weight loss-there is no secret combination of foods which will help weight loss. Weight loss is simply all about one magic number-calorie.
Using tools that can be found all over the internet, one can determine the number of calories needed to maintain his current weight or to lose a certain number of pounds per week-this number will be based on height, weight, age, and gender. An essential tool to any seriously health conscious person is an online calorie counting website, such as calorie-count.com. As is generally accepted by nutritionists, no person should consume any less than 1200 calories per day. Eat too few calories, and you will do nothing but cause your body to store fat-this, my friends, is why starvation diets do not work in the long run. So, why do South Beach, the Zone, even Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers work? Simply because they control the number of calories one consumes in a day. Whether they come in boxes of frozen meals or disguised as “points,” calorie control is the only means of weight loss. Once you begin eating less calories than your body requires to maintain its current weight, those pounds will slowly but surely fall off.
Here is an example to demonstrate the most effective way to permanently lose weight. Using calculators which can be found online, it is calculated that a 40 year old female who is 5’4″ and weighs 180lbs requires 1800 calories of food per day to maintain her weight. However, if she lowers her daily intake to about 1300 calories per day, (which creates a recommended “calorie deficit” of 500) she should lose about one pound per week. Now, how to manage eating 1300 calories per day-it is easier said than done.
Exercise is key to weight loss and can be argued to be even more important than dieting alone. For one who struggles with eating, exercise becomes vital because it allows one to eat more. Let’s say you are on a 1300 calorie diet. You join your local gym and begin working out. During your workout, you burn approximately 300 calories. Since it is highly recommended to have no more than a 500 calorie deficit per day, this means you can confidently and guiltlessly eat 1600 calories that day; 1300 – 300 burned = 1000 net calories, which leaves you with 300 calories more to eat for the day, meaning you can eat 1600 calories that day and still have a net intake of 1300 calories and a 500 calorie deficit. The more you burn working out, the more you can eat that day. It is important to eat back the calories you burn off at the gym, so as to ensure you don’t starve your body and end up damaging your organs instead of creating a healthier, new you. Having too large of a deficit is never good in the long-run!
Now, one pound of fat is approximately 3500 calories; if you are able to sustain a 500 calories deficit everyday for a week, this equals one pound of weight loss. Sure, it is acceptable to eat the occasional Lean Cuisine or South Beach Diet frozen entrée in your quest to decrease the number of calories you eat, but for the long run, it is much more effective to become knowledgeable about the number of calories in foods and to cook your own meals. Buy a food scale and use an online calorie counter to measure out the number of calories you are consuming; though it may seem like a tedious task, it is important to remember that weight loss never was and never will be an easy task, one must have the patience and drive to work at weight loss.
Though it is good to be aware of the amount of fats and carbohydrates in the foods you eat, restricting yourself to low-fat or low-carb foods is not the reason behind your weight-loss-it is a result of the reduced number of calories that come along with such diets. So while it is important to be conscious of the amount of fats and carbohydrates one eats, in the end, calories are the key to weight loss. Nutrition labels should be your best friend-read them and read them always; you would be shocked and appalled at the number of calories in some of your favorite snacks and foods. This is not to say these foods should be cut out of your diet entirely, but simply limited.
Fad diets come and go, but the bare facts always remain and point back to calorie consumption as the only method of weight loss. Do not let infomercials and fad diets that claim to own the secret food combination to weight loss fool you; while you are welcome to spend your hard-earned money for such programs as Weight Watcher and Jenny Craig-which both work-as a result of methods that are nothing more than counting calories, why not just count those calories for yourself, saving both time and money? The choice is yours, let the weight loss begin!
