How to Lose Weight

How to lose weight is the most common question asked by people who want to lose their weight but are not sure how to go about it. Fundamentally, losing weight is about burning more calories than you eat. This seems simple enough, but if it were really that simple, none of us would have a weight problem.

The healthiest way to reduce weight is neither fad diets nor long exercise sessions. Weight loss works on the simple philosophy of striking an optimal balance between eating healthy food and exercising regularly. Human body likes slow changes in terms of food and exercise. Though weight loss goals by most of us are usually set in term of weeks, the end game is to maintain these changes over months and years, hopefully maintaining the lifestyle change for life. Permanent changes in your lifestyle and food choices are what will work to remain healthy in the long run.

 

The following weight loss tips should help. If you follow then, it will certainly assist you to lose your weight effectively:

Burn More Calories than You Consume to Lose Weight: The tips that follow won’t work if you are consuming thousand more calories into your body on a daily basis than you are burning.

Healthy Diet: Eating a healthy and nutritious diet is most important factor to lose your weight other than exercise. We have a daily nutritional requirement that we have to meet and anything extra than this gets stored as fat.

- Prefer Complex Carbohydrates: Avoid processed and refined carbohydrates, e.g. white bread, white pasta, and sugary baked foods etc. and choose complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, oats, and legumes. Complex carbohydrates provide dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals, which decelerate digestion and make you feel fuller longer period. Refined carbohydrates are highly processed and often full of added sugars.

- Emphasize on Fruits & Vegetables: The high water and fiber content in most fruits and vegetables makes them hard to overeat. You’ll feel full long before you’ve overdone it on the calories.

- Don’t Drink Calories, Drink More Water: You can easily cut down your daily calorie intake by replacing soda, aerated drinks with water. Do not drink milk or fruit juice. The juicing process that turns actual fruits into juice actually removes the edible skin & fiber, which contains the majority of the nutrients of fruits and thus reduces the nutrients.

But Caution…!

- Fried vegetables or that have been soaked in heavy sauces are no longer low-calorie and don’t help to lose weight. Choose healthier cooking methods, such as steaming, and use low-fat dressings and spices for flavor.

- Salads are very good unless you soak them in high-fat dressing and toppings.

- Be careful when choosing the dried fruit, which is high in calories and, often, in added sugar. If you do choose to eat dried fruit, keep your serving size small.

Exercises: You may control your diet and eat as per your daily nutritional values but to burn the extra fat you will have to exercise.  In today’s busy world it is very hard to find time to go to gym or even go for a run. Start exercising at least 30 minutes per day. Regular exercise coupled with a healthy well balanced diet is enough to lose your weight successfully.

How Exercises Help in Losing Fat -

- Exercises increase the number of calories you burn each day.

- Exercises increase your metabolism as your body builds new muscle tissues. Muscles use more calories than fat even when at rest!

- Exercises help to use glycogen reserves which trigger the fat burning hormone called glucagon.

Don’t forget that you should focus on sports that increase your heart rate (aerobics). Every extra step you take helps to reduce weight. Always use the stairs instead of the lift.

For a week or so, keep an activity journal and use a calorie calculator or heart rate monitor to know how many calories you burn throughout the day.

Motivation: Diet and exercise are the most important but being motivated is equally required. When we are used to the habit of eating without any restrictions then following a fat free diet and no junk food makes us give up the resolution due to high desire. But once we are motivated nothing can stop us. See what motivates you, maybe celebrity fitness or some friends who worked out and got into shape or the best – a lifestyle makeover. High Motivation is among the most important how to lose weight tips.

Reduce Your Stress Level: Stress diminishes the efficiency of human body as well as the mind. Often, when people are stressed they conquer it by eating something sweet or something that suits their taste buds which don’t help in losing weight. While there are everyday stressful issues you cannot keep away from, there are certain things you can still do to reduce your stress.

- Avoid arguments; whenever you differ to someone then simply agree to disagree.

- Try not to think too much and if you feel yourself starting to tense up then just do some activity that can take away or reduce your stress level.

Get At Least 7 Hours Sleep a Day: Human body needs to recuperate and reboot itself to be energetic again. Irregular sleep patterns spoil the body cycle and reduce the efficiency and recovery time for the body. Lack of sleep makes people want more food, eating constantly and not be able to control hunger. The less you sleep each day, the more tired your body gets which leads to a desire for sweet and high carbohydrate foods to replenish the energy that is missing.

Downsize Your Kitchenware: A simple way to keep your food portions under control and to lose weight! Use smaller dishes, serve meals on a salad plate instead of a dinner plate, and use teaspoons instead of serving spoons to dish out. Using smaller bowls, plates, and containers can subconsciously influence how much you serve yourself.

Chew Your Food Thoroughly: Various studies have shown that the longer time you spend chewing your food, the lesser calories you consume. Chewing food for longer prevents over-eating, by giving the brain more time to receive signals from the stomach that it is full. This is good for digesting the food. Try chewing your food 30 to 40 times for every bite.

Avoid Distractions while Eating: When you do multi tasking during your meal times, your brain can’t focus on the amount of food that you consume and you are more likely to consume more calories than you requires. Try to avoid having food while working, watching TV, using a computer, reading or driving.

Do Not Abandon Your Favorite Foods: Although, it’s not practical to reduce your body fat while eating lots of food, cakes and sweets. Then how to lose weight by including your favorites? Well, it doesn’t mean that you can never have any treats; in fact you need to learn how to limit these foods to small size, e.g. for special occasions.

Many people do neglect that we all have different body types with different metabolism. So, you need to make sure that your weight loss program is individually tailored for you.

Anyone considering a weight loss plan for effective results should seek  advice from a reliable weight loss service – where the weight loss plan is customized to your needs, should have worked for other people (look for weight loss success stories), and should use the latest research to help you lose weight.

In case if you are looking for professional help to get you started on customized nutrition and exercise plans then write to us at fitness@fitho.in.

Dieting for Weight Loss?

Many of us want to lose weight and have tried unsuccessful tips for weight loss. Some tips that work with a few and some don’t work with many. Yo-yo diets find no place when it comes to gaining results. The general impulse to weight loss is dieting and people have their own mind behind it rather than the simple thought of weight loss by diet and exercise.

There is so much that you have read or tested for weight loss and the idea of another dieting tip would not be any better. But as there is logic to everything so is to weight loss. Lets understand it why weight loss is not difficult.

Reason for weight Gain: Have you ever thought of the real reasons for weight gain? Is it only due to diet or are there other factors than over eating? Well, eating could be the primary cause of wight gain but do you know eating healthy foods can cause weight gain too.

1. You don’t know what your daily caloric requirement is and thus eat according to your satisfaction which results in over consumption and storage of excess food as fat.

2. Skipping breakfast makes you eat more during other meals which is generally higher than the body requirement.

3. Some people skip a meal so that they can overeat in the subsequent meal. This is a terrible idea. In case there is a pending social occasion one should plan to eat lighter meals before and after to avoid weight gain and not skip the meal.

4. Food consumed should be in direct proportion to physical activity. If you have a desk job then avoid eating heavy meals. Also get some bit of exercise done everyday to avoid weight gain.

5. Planning is equally important to make weight loss really work for you. Remember next time  when you have to attend a social gathering, office parties and outside eating make sure you outline limits for yourself in terms of how many drinks you are going to have or how many helping of desserts you are going to allow yourself. This technique will help you sustain your weight loss routine over a longer period of time.

In case you find it difficult to get started and require professional guidance and motivation then find a professional weight management service that suits you.Yo-yo dieting might help in keep some kilos off in the short run but as you grow older it will start adversely affecting your health. Don’t take to shortcuts instead think about long term benefits of eating healthy. Healthy food is also tasty and easy to make.Why do you have to starve yourself if you can learn to manage your consumption of your food.

Ideal Body Weight

Commonly ideal body weight is calculated  with a formula that takes into consideration your height in accordance to your weight ? But is it the ideal body weight to refer to? Not really, as ideal weight does not only depend on height but on many other factors like the fat percentage in the body, muscles and bone ratio and age and gender. Height can give you an approximate idea but not definite ideal weight. We have repeatedly told you that no two people of the same height and weight can have the same ideal weight. Age and body types are some of the few elements that differentiate two individuals.

Click here to know your Ideal Body Weight

Click Here to calculate Body Fat Percentage

Here is a table for ideal body weight range, for both men and women. You can use it as a height-weight calculator as well.

Men			Women
Height	Weight		Height	Weight
4’5	28-35 Kg		4’5	28-35 Kg
4’6	30-39 Kg		4’6	30-37 Kg
4’7	33-40 Kg		4’7	32-40 Kg
4’8	35-44 Kg		4’8	35-42 Kg
4’9	38-46 Kg		4’9	36-45 Kg
4’10	40-50 Kg		4’10	39-47 Kg
4’11	43-53 Kg		4’11	40-50 Kg
5’1	45-55 Kg		5’1	43-52 Kg
5’2	48-59 Kg		5’2	45-55 Kg
5’3	50-61 Kg		5’3	47-57 Kg
5’4	53-65 Kg		5’4	49-60 Kg
5’5	55-68 Kg		5’5	51-62 Kg
5’6	58-70 Kg		5’6	53-65 Kg
5’7	60-74 Kg		5’7	55-67 Kg
5’8	63-76 Kg		5’8	57-70 Kg
5’9	65-80 Kg		5’9	59-72 Kg
5’10	67-83 Kg		5’10	61-75 Kg
5’11	70-85 Kg		5’11	63-77  Kg
6’1	72-89 Kg		6’1	65-80 Kg

According to a study women tend consider ideal weight for their height and age lesser than what is medically recommended forcing them to resort to yo-yo diets to achieve their target.While men tend you lean towards the higher range working on building more muscle through supplements or a high protein diet. Read more

Healthy Breakfast Ideas

Quit believing in myths and start getting real. Rev up your metabolism naturally through food and workouts.  Clock your meals and sleep patterns at a definite time allowing your body adapt to the patterns to show results. Avoid yo-yo diets or crash diet and stick to your normal routine. Instead know the foods that you eat and learn healthy eating habits for a faster metabolism.

Here are a few breakfast ideas for you

Eggs: Poached eggs with a glass of milk and a multi grain toast. Eggs & milk provide with protein and important minerals like calcium , phosphorous etc. Toast providing some carbohydrate & fibre to keep you full of energy and Read more

Side Effects of Unhealthy Fad Diets

Any average person suffering from weight issue has at least once in their life have given a shot and tried these fad diets. Its natural for anyone to first indulge in self help before they fail, or their situation in some case worsens, that they seek out professional guidance. Take a minute and reflect on what might you have exposed your body to unintentionally.

Most of the fad diets are popularly termed as “yo-yo” diets that give you a short term solution to quick weight loss but do not guarantee any long term sustenance of the weight loss. Besides it deprives body of nutrition resulting in low blood pressure, reduced energy and fatigue. If you continue to under nourish your body with an unbalanced diet your metabolism also starts to slow Read more