How Can I Lose Those Holiday Pounds?

We all sat too much and ate too much during the holiday season, then we made a new year's resolution to ourselves to eat better and exercise. That's great! But what is the formula to actually lose weight?

The formula is very easy to follow. You need to reduce your calorie intake by 3500 calories. This can be done in two ways. One is to eat fewer calories, and the other is to burn more calories through physical activity. I always suggest to do a combination of both. However, when you are just starting with your weight loss efforts, I would take one step at a time. By this, I mean that I would begin by either dieting or exercising. This will help you to establish a habit of either dieting or exercise without overwhelming yourself by changing too much about your lifestyle at one time.

If you choose to start with cutting out calories via your diet, you will want to eat 500 calories less than you normally consume each day. The reason for this number is that we want to take in 3500 calories less in order to lose a pound. Well 7 days a week time 500 equals that magic 3500 calories. Well you are probably wondering, "How do I know how many calories I am consuming right now?" Good question. The way that you figure that out is to keep a food journal for about a week before changing your eating habits. Don't cheat yourself by leaving things off of the journal. NO ONE will see this, but you. Make sure that you are honest with yourself, so that you can see exactly how many calories you are eating. Once you are sure about how many calories you are eating each day then subtract 500 calories from that total and began eating that amount of calories. You will want to continue your food journal to make sure you are meeting your caloric goal. You may also be wondering, "How do I know how many calories are in my food?" That is a great question as well. Just look at the nutrition label on what you are eating. Usually the serving amount is listed at the top of the label followed by the amount of calories in each serving. Be careful though, most companies like to trick you by putting much more than one serving in a bottle of soda or a bag of chips. For example: Most 20 ounce bottles of soda contain 120 calories per serving, but the catch is that there are about two servings in each of those bottles. That is 240 calories instead of 120. Things like fruits or veggies-the best things for us-don't have nutrition labels at all, so you will want to refer to an online nutrition guide. These are abudndant online. Just plug the item into a search engine. For example: If you eat an orange, you would enter, "calories in an orange".

One thing I want to caution you about is to never eat below 1200 calories for women or 1500 calories for men. This is the lowest amount of calories that your body can consume and still perform daily life functions. If you are already eating this number of calories, you may already be at your ideal weight. This can be determined by checking a BMI chart. These are everywhere online, so just plug the terms "BMI chart" into a search engine. However after finding your BMI,; if you do see that you are considered overeweight, obese, etc; then the way for you to get that negative caloric intake would be through exercise.

If you choose to start with exercising you will want to burn 500 calories per day exercising if you are going to exercise 7 days a week. However, your body does need at least one day off from cardio exercise and one day between each like muscle exercise when strength training. So that means that you will want to burn more than 500 calories per day. This is again because of that 3500 calories deficit needed to shed a pound. Now you are probably asking, "How do I know how many calories I am burning via exercise?" Well there are several ways. The best way is to use a heart rate monitor. This awesome tool will keep track of this for you. Another way is to use a treadmill, elliptical, or other exercise machine that keeps track of calories for you. However, be aware that these are not always accurate. Another way is to find an caloric count estimate chart online. This gives you estimates of caloric burn for multiple activities such as walking, jogging, elliptical use, etc.

Now once you get comfortable with either exercising or dieting and have formed a habit in one of these, you can start to combine these together. For example: You could burn 300 calories walking for half an hour and cut back your calories by 200 each day, or you could cut back your calories by 300 each day and burn 200 calories by walking a little less than thirty minutes (This is just an estimate of caloric burn.).

Please be safe and healthy when implementing these techniques. Always listen to your body and don't exercise too much or cut your calories below 1200 for women and 1500 for men. You may also want to consult your doctor before starting an exercise/dieting program. Have fun and feel great losing weight and keeping it off the healthy way!