HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT
By Noelle Walker at New Fitness Personal Training
Today I am going to talk about how to lose weight, the process of getting there and how to keep it off. For the past week or so I have been looking at other blogs just because I wanted to see what other fitness professionals have to say about their own profession and their philosophies on fitness, nutrition, you get the idea. A lot of them were writing about weight loss journeys, what you need to do to lose weight, etc….I came upon this one website and I won’t mention names. I figured this guy(yes he was a guy) knew what he was talking about because he had such a huge following, plenty of comments-that sort of thing.
Well I was shocked and quite definitely appalled. He was writing about basal metabolic rate. You might be wondering what the heck is that? Basal metabolic rate is the amount of calories you burn while at rest and then you will add in calories for whatever activity you might be engaged in on a regular basis. Well he was stating that a mans usual metabolic rate would be 2000. This means this man will take in 2000 calories to maintain his weight. This is already crazy because MY BMR is 2100 and I am 5’4 and 125 pounds!
DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF
Anyway he was telling other people in order to lose weight they need to decrease their daily caloric intake by 500 to 600 calories. This means that this man would need an intake of 1500 calories per day!. I believe the typical man he was talking about was 5’10 and 175 pounds. Now I don’t know if you find this extreme or not but as a fitness professional I KNOW that this mans body WILL go into starvation mode and as soon as he quote”starts to introduce some foods later” his body will store all the food that he intakes as fat. Guaranteed. The body is a very amazing, efficient machine. IT will ensure survival AT ALL COSTS. If you decide you are going to starve it ,it will hang on to any and every morsel it gets. There were other individuals getting on the bandwagon as well so I felt that I had to write this. Oh and there was one woman who was only taking in 800 calories per day. This is crazy-did I mention already that this is crazy? And completely UNNECESSARY. Repeat unnecessary a few times please because I really want to get it into people’s heads that you do not have to suffer. You don’t have to starve yourself.
A BETTER WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT
A better equation to use is to take into consideration that one pound equals 3500 calories, so to lose one pound a week you would burn an extra 250 calories and decrease your intake by 250 calories within the day. If you wanted to lose 2 pounds then you would double that. Try to remember that 250 calories isn’t very much in terms of expending or decreasing it in your diet. An example:
20 mins of skipping= 250 calories
One cup of yogourt= 250 calories
This is the magic solution to weight loss-calories in and calories out. That’s it! I know you’re thinking “no way” but seriously it is and it doesn’t matter who you are or what your metabolism is like or whether you are male or female. In order for you to lose weight you need to workout more and eat less. Period. And to maintain? KEEP WORKING OUT. Don’t stop-ever! Make it part of your day. A lifestyle if you will. Do you go through the day without brushing your teeth or getting dressed? Think of it that way. Do something every day for a half an hour and you will maintain while still eating a healthy, well balanced diet.
And that my friends is how you lose weight and keep it off. No magic pill, no secret recipe. Just plain common sense, working out and eating healthy fresh fruits and vegetables, protein and fats.
