Weight Loss for Dummies

Yes, we all know how hard weight loss can be. With all of the news media telling America how fat they and their children are, they are doing nothing to help those American's morale who may be a little overweight or even obese. However, with a little help and encouragement, those people may feel like they have a fighting chance at losing weight!

There are some basic principles that you can use when trying to lose weight. The first principle is to consider the amount of calories that you consume each day of the week. Taking one day is important because you do not want to get too involved in crunching numbers for the whole week or month. Furthermore, taking one day at a time is very crucial in attaining your weight loss goal. Sometimes, even, taking one minute at a time is very important for those who love food, eat it when they are bored or upset, and love it even more when it is sweet and sugary. But again, counting the number of calories that you eat each day is important because you will need to take that into consideration when thinking about the type of exercise program that you will be on.

Here is an example of the above discussion. Currently you are consuming 1500 calories per day. Your activity currently involves running errands around town, possibly going to work where you sit at a desk for 8 hours, and going back home where you stay for the rest of the evening. Considering that 1 pound of body fat equals 3500 calories, the amount you are consuming is almost half a pound of fat. The first thing to do would be to consider cutting back on the amount of food that you eat. If you cut back on only the doughnut or sweet roll that you eat in the morning before work you will cut out 100-200 calories at the minimum. That takes your 1500 calories down to 1300-1400 calories per day. If you really want to lose weight, take out that "extra," like the doughnut or the sweet stuff that you have in your daily diet routine.

You are now ready to do some exercise. Many people think that exercise has to involve going to the gym and working out. Considering that many obese and heavily overweight individuals may be too embarrassed to go to the gym, other opportunities are available. If you decide to walk about an hour each evening, that will burn approximated 300 calories. That takes your calories down to just about 1000 calories. However, if you decide to jog instead of walk, twice the number of calories are burned, thus realizing a larger amount of calories that are being burned. There are a whole plethora of other activities that you can choose from; walking and jogging are only two examples that will give you a good workout!

No matter what exercise you do each day, be sure to stay active! Staying active by doing at least an hour of exercise each day, afternoon, or evening will assure that you are on a good path to losing the weight that you want to lose. Once you achieve that goal: do not give up, but continue on the exercise routine you are on to maintain a healthy weight, diet, and body!