Sunday, October 26, 2008

Guaranteed Weight Loss needs both Calories Loss and Food Fuel

By Rowena French

If you want to enjoy permanent weight loss and remain healthy there is only one sure way to go about this. Follow a calories loss eating program and eat food containing fewer calories than your body would generally use in the course of your everyday living. To use more of your stored fat and to enable your body to operate in peak form as it should, take part in a healthy exercise program as well.

Adult eaters eat on average something like 2,000 calories in the course of a day and this is what our body needs as energy to carry out our daily activities. We need to create a deficit in the calories equation through a calories loss food plan and allow our body to use the energy stored in the excess fat we carry around. An achievable goal would be the reduction of our calorie intake to 1,500 calories and the use of the equivalent energy found in 500 calories from our fat supply.

That will make you lose weight. There are roughly 3,500 calories in a pound of fat so in order to lose five pounds you will need to burn an additional 17,500 calories. That is why it is impossible for those fad diets and trendy diet pills to work like they say they do and why a gradual calories loss through eating a healthy diet is the only way to go.

No pill can ever cause your body to burn that many additional calories. Only restricting your calories in a calories loss menu and forcing your body to burn fat for energy can cause real weight loss. Dieting is about more than just calories though and you need to maintain a sense of balance in your eating program to lose weight and remain healthy.

If you only eat a salad and drink diet sodas for calories, you still won't lose weight because you are not giving your body what it needs to function. Your diet should not be something that you use to punish yourself or to punish your body. Your body needs food for fuel.

Common sense dictates that there is only one way to fuel your body so that it remains healthy even when you are losing weight. This is the inclusion of a variety of foods including fruits, healthy fats, whole grains and vegetables. 'Not so difficult' you may think 'But what about eating these foods even when you'd rather your high calories favorites like donuts with coffee and deep fried fish and fries'?

It is not always easy to only give your body what it needs when you are craving a juicy, cheesy, greasy burger, but if you want to be healthy, you will choose to skip that burger and replace it with a turkey and salad wholemeal roll. Changes like this are not really about going 'on' a diet in the traditional sense. They are about a lifestyle change and creating a calories loss and this is just a tool to help lose unwanted weight and keep it off.

Losing weight should not be your only priority as developing a healthy body is the best direction in which to be traveling and the best reason to be counting calories. If you uphold your body by feeding it healthy wholesome foods and not denigrate and if you add regular exercise to your schedule, you will discover that your weight loss will begin and continue. Foods such as vegetables, whole grains, fruits and lean meat will provide the fuel your body needs, allow it to function in all the ways it should and provide the opportunity for your excess fat to be used as energy.

So, even if your eating and exercise lifestyle changes feel a little strange at first because they are new and different, persevere because in time they will seem NORMAL. The greatest challenge is surviving the time of initial calories loss. By the time this change becomes part of your new pattern of living however, your weight loss will have begun and you will feel confident and wonder how you ever lived any other way. - 15438

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