Losing Weight
What are "calories"?
What is a calorie? Everyone wants to know what that actually is. It's a unit of measurement, and it is the amount of energy that it takes to raise one kilogram of water one degree Centigrade at sea level. It's actually what's called a KCal, a kilocalorie. So it's actually 1 calories. But we just call it a calorie, because if you saw four zeros added onto the end of every caloric measurement you saw on a food package, I think we'd freak out. So, it's actually a kilocalorie, and everyone just calls it a calorie. It's the same thing, just so you know. We need to be aware of the calories, and the number of calories to an extent, but really it's what comprises the calories that matters. All fats are not the same, all carbohydrates are not the same, and proteins are also unique.
Is it important to "count" my calories?
Depending on which dietary program, nutritional weight loss program, counselling group you belong to, they'll all have varying degrees of what they determine to be important as far as counting calories. I agree it's important and only to an extent. If you are so consumed with counting calories, you're certainly not enjoying the process of eating and being human. What's important is that you learn what is an exchange of food which is a given amount, not a serving size but exchange is what the American Dietetic Association uses to determine the quantity of food, you know, like you have two exchanges of protein and one exchange of a carbohydrate, for example. But the calories only matter so much. Once you understand and you can see somehting, like you're at a restaurant or you see something on a menu or you see a plate in front of you over at a friend's house, you say, OK that has approximately x number of calories which would mean that that's one exchange and once you learn that, it takes a couple of weeks to learn it, and then I can just look at something I can tell you exactly what the nutritional content is and the amount of calories. And everyone should take a little bit of time, figure out what it is and then just remember and put it in the back of your mind and enjoy food and don't be so consumed with it. People who are overly consumed with counting calories and staying within that really strict caloric requirement end up driving themselves a little crazy and, in the long run, I don't know if they are really that much better off when it comes to managing their weight.
What is the "pinch test"?
The pinch test, or the skin fold test, is probably one of the oldest ones around. It's very accurate except for sometimes when people are very obese; the skin or the fat does not compress or allow the callipers to work as accurately. However, for the most part (for the general consumer) the skin fold test actually works very well. There are different sites of measurement for men and different ones for women, and depending on the manufacturer of the calliper (the skin fold calliper) there are a different number of sites of measurements going from 3 to 5 to 7 and even 9 points of measurement. That is then put into a formulation as a total sum of millimeters, and then based on gender and age it will tell you what that means as far as a body fat percentage.
Is obesity an epidemic in the United States?
It's an unfortunate fact that obesity is truly an epidemic in the United States. Over 6% of the US population is considered obese. And obesity varies from state to state; obesity also varies from ethnicity to ethnicity, and of course both genders vary in the proportion who are obese as well. There's a couple of reasons for this obesity epidemic. One cause of obesity is inactivity, caused by all the modern conveniences that we enjoy on a daily basis. And then of course, the epidemic itself of fast food and trans fats, which is kind of a funny fat that man has made to preserve the shelf life of food items contribute to obesity. Obesity then leads to the other epidemic that we are experiencing, which is the drastic increase in diabetes in both adults and children.
Is the obesity epidemic causing a rise in disease?
As America has gotten more fat, America has also experienced more disease than ever before. We are better at treating disease and diagnosing it, however there are more diseases and more cancers than ever before and it's because of the things that we put out in the environment and it is also due to the things that we ingest on a daily basis. We have the ability to control and reduce and even eliminate many of these diseases and it begins with our diet. It begins by eliminating processed foods, eliminating the three whites: flour, sugar, and salts from our diets, or at least drastically reducing them. When we do this, our bodies will shrink down to the appropriate size and we will drastically reduce the incidence of disease that we're currently experiencing.
What is a "yo-yo dieter"?
A yo-yo dieter is someone who has a weight that fluctuates up and down with his or her cyclical pattern of being involved in a fad diet. It can go from overindulging, to starvation, to eliminating different food groups, to exercising an excessive amount, to not exercising at all, to eating very healthy, and then eating very poorly. Aside from just not creating a balance and symmetry in your body it send a confusing message to your body. It doesn't know if it should speed up or slow down or the suchlike. When you really drastically reduce your caloric intake in one of those starvation modes, your body goes into hibernation and it slows down the metabolism. If you don't eat enough protein during that phase, your body starts to emaciate itself. It needs to get protein from somewhere, so it gets it from your muscle which is made up predominantly of protein. Then, your muscle shrinks, and then because of that your metabolism slows down. Thenthe cycle continues and unfortunately it gets worse and worse and worse. A yo-yo diet is no way to go.
What percent of body fat is normal?
Optimal body fat for a male is approximately 15 percent, and for a female its about 22 percent. An athlete for each gender can go 5 to 7 percent below that proportion of body fat. For a woman you wouldn't want the body fat to get too low because she could have amenorrhoea which is cessation of the menstrual cycle, which can lead to other health considerations that are not good. The average American body fat for a man is probably about 22 to 24 percent, and for a female it's into the 30 percentile range. This disproportionate amount of body fat is a leading cause of a lot of the disease processes that we now see all across America.
What is the best way to lose fat?
The best way to lose fat is to combine proper eating with strength training and cardiovascular training. The proper eating means whole foods. No processed foods. Minimize sugar, flour and salts. Strength training as a general rulelasts twenty to forty minutes, three times a week using major muscle groups, involving larger movements such a bench press, a squat, and the suchlike. They will incorporate more muscles across multiple planes and axis of motion. Cardiovascular exercise could be done for twenty to forty-five minutes again three to five times a week. Always start out easier. Consult your physician beforehand. However, these three things are absolutely essential to be combined together to ensure your success to lose fat and weight.
What are the health risks to being overweight?
There are many health risks to being overweight, for both kids and adults. First of all, diabetes. Being obese is one of the number one reasons why people get and acquire diabetes. The other thing that a lot of people don't know is that the fat is where a lot of the toxins in your body are stored. Therefore if you have less fat, you will store less toxins, and because of that, you are less likely to acquire the diseases that the toxins are attributed to. There are just a whole host of things: it can be stressful to your body, it can be stressful to your cardiovascular system, it can raise your blood pressure; it's endless. People need to understand that they must do something to control their weight, and it is proper eating, cardiovascular exercise and strength training, and behaviour modification. It's everything all put together.
What should I do if I cannot lose any weight?
If you feel you've been eating healthy and exercising regularly, and are still frustrated with the results that you're seeing, there could be a couple of reasons. First I would suggest seeing a dietician or clinical nutritionist to assess your current eating habits. Oftentimes people think they are eating properly but they really aren't, or they're eating good things but in too high a quantity. The other thing I would suggest is seeing an appropriately certified personal trainer, because everyone has a coach that's successful, regardless of what it is in life. Your body is no different, so see the dietician, see the fitness professional, and make sure that you're actually doing the right things.
How do I lose weight in a specific part of my body?
What you're inquiring about is often referred to as "spot reduction", and it's simply not possible to lose weight in a specific part of your body, because when your body uses fat as its energy source, it's taking it from a variety of cells throughout your whole body. It doesn't know that you're going to target just your hips or just your abdomen, for example. So what happens is it's taking it from all over, but you may notice it in some areas more than others simply because there's a larger or smaller deposit of fat there, so it may be more or less noticeable in that area.
How can I tell if I have lost weight?
The best way to tell if you've been effective in your fitness and exercise program is to not only weigh yourself, but to get your body fat measured, including having your metabolism tested as well if you have the opportunity to do so. If your metabolism is increasing, it's likely you're putting on lean muscle mass, which will increase your metabolism just by itself. The other thing is the body fat percentage. If you weigh the same, and your body fat is down 5%, that means you've put on muscle. It doesn't mean you're going to be larger because you've put on more weight, it means the weight that you have is comprised of a higher percentage of muscle, as compared to fat, which is desirable. The scale can be used as a reference; it shouldn't be the only reference. Body fat and metabolism are more important, and a better telling sign of the true progress that you're making.
Why do I quickly gain the weight back that I just lost?
If you went on a fitness programme or a diet program and you lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time, and then it came back and perhaps even more, there are two reasons for that. One is that you probably lost a lot of water. One of the first things we lose when we drop weight too quickly is water, and we only need to lose about 2% of our water level for it to be inadequate to the point where it adversely affects our performance in fitness and sports. Only 2%; it's not very much. You have reduced your performance in everything you're doing plus it's unhealthy for you. That's a lot of what's lost. The other thing is that if you lose weight too quickly, you lose muscle, because especially if you're not eating enough protein and quality foods, your body has to have protein. So, it breaks down muscle to be used as energy in a process called gluconeogenesis, which simply means a new formation of sugar from a non-carbohydrate source. You've basically cannibalized your body by doing that too quickly. So if you're not doing enough strength training after you lost the muscle and you lost the water, and you eat more again and you're not doing resistance or weight training, you put weight back on, but if the muscle is gone. What's coming back? It's coming back as fat. Since muscle is a furnace that increases your metabolism, and you've put this fat back on but shrunken your muscle, is your metabolism faster or slower? It's slower, and then the vicious cycle continues again and again.
How can I lose weight faster?
Weight loss that works, takes time. Quick fixes for weight loss, as a general rule, do not work. And it's an unfortunate fact that people get sold on the premise of fast weight loss again and again. If you want weight loss to work, it's going to take time. Think about anything you have in life that's worthwhile; it takes time. Consistency in your approach to weight loss is what will work, and the weight loss - or the fat loss, more importantly - is caused by a combination of eating correctly, strength training and cardiovascular conditioning and consistency in your approach. And also ensuring you're doing the right thing while you're being consistent will help you lose weight fast. Hire a coach, hire a dietician, hire a trainer to help you lose weight fast. Have someone that also makes you accountable for your weight loss. And that person should also be accountable to themselves, because you're a reflection of their behaviour as well. So when you partner with someone to have this accountability for weight loss, to achieve even greater results, make sure you're on the same page together.
How do I keep off the weight off once I've lost it?
To keep off the weight you just lost, you need to continue to do the same thing that you have just completed. It's consistency in your approach. Time, after time, after time you should be doing the same thing but altering the programme to where your body and your mind don't get bored. For example, if you are cycling and that is the way that you have achieved some of your results, you are going to continue to cycle. However, you may climb a hill one day, you may do sprints one day, or you may go for a leisurely ride. You may go twice the duration but half the speed. It's still consistency in the approach while adding variety to eliminate mental and physical boredom.
Can I lose weight by exercise alone?
It is possible to lose weight by exercising alone without modifying your diet. However, to attain optimal results and optimal health, you must also modify your diet. You must eat whole foods, the whole grains, nothing that's been milled and ground and beaten by a process and put in a box or a package. Whole foods. Organic foods whenever possible and you must be drinking your six to eight glasses of water a day. A wide variety of fruits and vegetables is essential, and minimizing the juices as well. Fruit juice should be minimized because of the amount of sugar in it, although vegetable juice is okay because it has a much lower sugar content. However, exercise alone, you can probably get away with that more when you're younger. As you get older, you're definitely going to have to modify your diet as well. Also, you're going to improve the inside of your body, not just the way you look on the outside.
Why is exercise better than dieting alone?
Exercise is better than dieting alone for many reasons. First of all, dieting, what are the first three letters? Die! Your body thinks it's dying. We need to modify our food intake and develop a lifestyle plan that works, rather than going on diets. Diets never work and they never will. Exercise is important because strength training, resistance training, and weight training will help boost your metabolism throughout the day. Cardiovascular training helps you burn more calories during the exercise itself but not necessarily after the exercise is over. So, we have to exercise in addition to modifying our food intake. Due to the fact that we'll be able to increase our metabolism, it's very likely that you'll actually be able to eat more food, and still get even better results, if you're on a consistent, diligent exercise program at the same time that you're modifying your food intake. It has to be paired together. There's no possible way you can achieve your overall optimal results if you only diet or only modify your food intake.
Will my appetite increase if I exercise?
Your appetite may increase if you exercise. Sometimes, just following exercise the appetite may be suppressed simply because your mental state is in another place, and the blood is distributed in other parts of you body following the exercise section. However, as a general rule, if your appetite is increasing because you're exercising that's a good thing. That means your metabolism is increasing. If your appetite does increase following exercise you can safely have something that has a higher sugar content within 15 minutes of finishing the exercise, perhaps a half a cookie, for example. Use moderation and it would be okay. However, soon after that you need to have a balanced meal of proteins, fats, carbs, and fibre. That little treat just brings your blood sugar back up but it's going to crash back down if you don't eat something balanced soon after.
How is a body's metabolism tested?
Your metabolism can be tested using a medical device which can be found at your doctor's office, with an exercise physiologist, a personal trainer, a university or a registered dietician or a clinical nutritionist. It's a very simple test which takes about ten to twenty minutes. You simply breathe through a tube, they analyze the gas exchange that takes place as you breathe in and out and that gives a value which would probably be about 1,100 to about 2000. That means you would need 1100-2000 calories a day to sustain yourself, just sitting down quietly with your eyes closed for twenty-four hours which is how many calories you would need to consume just to maintain your body's pressure as it is.
What is a "free radical"?
A free radical is an unpaired electron, and this free radical is bouncing around inside the body like a pinball and it's looking to pair up so it can become stable. Then an anti-oxidant will come in and pair with that free radical to stabilize it so it doesn't continue to do cell damage. High anti-oxidant food, and in some cases supplementation are necessary to help stabilize those free radicals, because free radicals occur through exposure to radiation whether it's an x-ray, solar radiation, gamma radiation, or just as a by-product of exercise.
What foods contain the best antioxidants?
Antioxidants are found in a wide variety of foods, specifically fruits and vegetables, and even more specifically the skins of the fruits and vegetables. It's important to have a wide variety and colour spectrum of these fruits and vegetables. For example, the blueberry: how many other blue foods can you think of? There aren't too many. Therefore you need to make sure you have something in that colour spectrum to ensure you have all the antioxidants covered. Another good example is the carrot, the carotenoids. Another example of that is the pumpkin. It's still in the carotenoid family. It's that same colour spectrum. So, you need to have all the colour spectrums possible, and that's why it's important to have a very colourful plate.
What is "lean mass" and "fat mass"?
Lean mass is your total body weight minus fat; it's that simple. Your fat mass is your total pounds of fat on your body. For example, if you weigh 100 pounds, and you have a fat mass of 30, that means you have 30 pounds of fat on your body. Again, just the opposite is so for the lean mass. So, if you weigh 120 pounds, and your lean mass is 100, that means 100 pounds of your weight is everything but the fat.
What is "body fat distribution"?
Body fat distribution is simply how your body fat is distributed or dispersed throughout your body. The two examples are the pear shape (and that's where you carry it more in the lower half, around the buttocks, the hips, the thigh, and the lower abdomen) and then the apple shape (more around the chest, the shoulders, and the back). Unfortunately, the apple shape contributes more to heart disease and stress on the cardiovascular and respiratory system simply because the amount of weight that the person has to carry, for example, in their breathing at night when they're trying to sleep. That can lead to more susceptibility to sleep apnoea and things of that nature as well. Although the pear shape may not be desirable from an aesthetic perspective, overall it is a better weight distribution.
Will abdominal exercises give me a flat stomach?
Abdominal exercises will certainly contribute to a flatter stomach. However, the most important thing that you can do to achieve a flat stomach is to eat appropriate foods in the appropriate amounts. That means eating organic foods whenever possible, not overindulging in foods that are high in saturated fats, and certainly eliminating trans fats. It's those sort of things that will actually flatten your stomach the most.
How does exercise reduce the size of abdominal fat cells?
Exercise can help reduce fat cells specifically in the abdominal region for a couple of different reasons. When we have stress in our body, we produce a hormone called cortisol and cortisol makes us hang on to more body fat, specifically around the mid-region. Now there are some manufacturers of certain products that will make outrageous claims that all you need to do is take their pill and you will reduce this adipose tissue caused by cortisol around your midsection. It is my opinion that that is false. What happens is you need to do exercises that reduce your stress so you don't produce the cortisol and then you will reduce the belly fat and lose weight. It's that simple.
How do I lose my "saddlebags"?
Your saddlebags, or the extra weight around your mid-section on the sides can be reduced in a couple of different ways. Number one: no processed foods, no fast foods, reduce flour, sugar, and salts. It's that simple. And then you need to do cardiovascular exercise to burn those calories. And you're going to stay, again, approximately 65 to 75% of your maximum heart rate to make sure that you're burning fat optimally. And you're going to have to do some resistance training also to increase your metabolism and add structure to that area and you can do the abdominal exercises, or the love handle exercises, on an exercise ball using a cable and ropes, on the floor, on the mat, kick boxing class, however you want to do it, but it has to be a combination of those things, resistance training, focusing on strengthening and adding integrity to the mid-sectoin, changing your diet and putting everything all together: that's what will get rid of your saddlebags.
Can prescription drugs help me lose weight?
Prescription drugs controlled and issued by a physician can help you lose weight. However, there are numerous side effects such as dependence, potential kidney damage, and increased heart rate and blood pressure. There could be interactions with other medications and taking a drug like that does not teach you behaviour modification. It does not strengthen your heart, it does not improve your posture, and it does not help you exercise. Things like that are in addition to eating well, eating appropriately, exercising, proper rest, and appropriate supplementation with nutraceuticals, not necessarily pharmaceuticals. That should be close to a last resort when trying to lose weight, and always make sure you're closely monitored by a doctor and that you're getting the appropriate blood tests to make sure that your liver function, your kidney function, and your blood chemistry is appropriate and as it should be.