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Weight Loss and Dieting
Background: Everyone has a base metabolic rate at which their body process calories, and every individual's metabolic rate is different based on many factors such as height, weight, age, diet, health and hereditary. It takes 3,500 excess calories to gain a pound of fat. If you are eating 500 extra calories a day you will gain a pound in a week. In reverse, if you eat 500 less calories per day than your body requires, you will lose a pound a week. This process sounds easy, but it gets difficult.
Problem: With traditional dieting and with most weight loss products, along with reducing calorie intake, you starve the body of the nutrition it requires to sustain lean muscle tissue and sustain normal bodily function. Thus, up to 50% of the weight you lose is lean muscle mass. The body will literally eat itself to stay nourished. When you lose your muscle mass your metabolism will slow down making it even harder to lose weight. This process will weaken the body and the immune system, and impair the body's ability to process and regulate blood sugar, this is what causes cravings and the up and down yo-yo problem. Virtually everyone that loses weight with starvation type diets will eventually gain more weight back than they lost. In addition, with repeated efforts this can have serious effects on your metabolic balance and our health. At this point it is impossible to lose weight or even maintain your weight loss.
Solution: Increase your metabolic rate and keep your lean muscle mass nourished, gradually changing the way your body process and uses the calories you eat. It will take a little longer to reach your weight loss goals than on a starvation diet, but you will improve your health, feel great, and have more energy. The results will last too!
Do you have a slow metabolism?
You can test for a slow metabolism by simply taking your temperature, just follow these easy instructions.
- Before you get out of bed, first thing in the morning, place a thermometer under your arm (in your arm pit).
- Wait for 5 minutes, then read the temperature on the thermometer and write it down on the calander.
- Men should take their temperature for 7 days in a row.
- Women should take thier temperature for 30 days in a row (because of hormonal changes throughout the month).
- If your basal temperature is below the 97.8 to 98.2 range, chances are that you have a slow metabolism.
If you do have a slow metabloism, there are few easy steps you can take to increase your rate:
- Eat 3 to 5 small meals a day, this does not mean FULL meals, small healthy meals.
- Exercise! What ever it take to get you moving, you don't have to join a gym or run marathons, just get up and start moving!
- Walk 3 to 5 times a week, from at least 10 to 30 minutes. This will also help build muscle tone, increase circulation, reduce stress, and burn fat.
- Muscle mass will increase your metabolism and burn fat, so if you are able to, do activites that will help build muscle tone. Try lifting weights, walking, swimming, or any activity that you enjoy that will strengthen your muscles.
- Eat a balance of proteins, carbohydrates and fats in your meals. Avoid sugar, alcohol, and bread, they will just add fat!
- Good snacks are yogurt with nuts, balance bars, energy bars, and power bars before you exercise.
Body mass: Calculating weight trouble
File this in the news-to-make-you-wince folder: New government
guidelines actually lower the weight at which Americans are considered
overweight. So before you pick up that next doughnut, use our
calculator below to determine where you stand. A word of warning:
under these new guidelines, about 55% of the American adult population
would be considered overweight or obese.
What's my BMI?
To determine body mass index, divide body weight in kilograms
by height in meters squared. A kilogram equals 2.2 pounds. A meter
is 3.28 feet or about 39 inches.
Examples:
- A female who is 5-foot-1 and weighs 132 pounds
would have a body mass index of 25 and be considered almost marginally overweight, according to this chart.
At 158 pounds, the person would have a BMI of 30 and be considered
overweight. This chart is generous, some charts are not as kind...
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Adults
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Women |
Men |
|
anorexia
|
< 17.5 |
| underweight |
<19.1 |
<20.7 |
| in normal range |
19.1-25.8 |
20.7-26.4 |
| marginally overweight |
25.8-27.3 |
26.4-27.8 |
| overweight |
27.3-32.3 |
27.8-31.1 |
| very overweight or obese |
>32.3 |
>31.1 |
| severely obese |
35 - 40 |
| morbidly obese |
40 - 50 |
| super obese |
50 - 60 |
Click Here To Read Greg Landry's Weekly Health & Fitness Article
Author and exercise physiologist, Greg Landry, offers free weight loss and fitness newsletters and articles, and the "Metabolism Challenge".
If you would like read antother article by Greg Landry, once you have clicked on the link above and land on the Weekly Article page, scroll down the page to read another article that we think is very important. Don't fall for the "diet hype", learn the chemistry behind the carbs: Top 15 Reasons to Avoid Low Carb, High Protein Diets, by Greg Landry, M.S.
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