First step

Today let's talk a bit more about setting right expectations. As i wrote in my previous posts in order to loose weight we have to reduce intake of calories or increase amount of calories we're burning each day. First option is much easier because it means simply that you have to eat less. Second one involves things like working out which requires you to allocate some time each week to go to the gym and do the actual workout which is not the most time-efficient approach to loosing weight. I prefer first one so let's focus on that. First buy a good scale. Digital one with 0.5 pound accuracy is good enough. Then from the table i posted 2 days ago figure your average daily calorie requirement. Then thought each day count calories of everything you eat. Once you hit the number from the table STOP. You should not eat more that day. Now it's important part. Each day, the same time, preferably after getting up weigh yourself. After couple of days you should either see that:

1. your weight same each day
2. you are loosing some weight
3. you are gaining some weight

Once you know that you should be able to define your weight loss plan. Here's how to do this. Each pound of fat in your body equals more or less 3500 kcal. If you will consume each day 3500kcal more than you will burn then each day you will accumulate 1 pound of fat. Opposite is also true: if you will eat 3500 kcal less than you burn (which is rather hard) then each day you will loose one Pound. If you want to keep loosing 1 Pound a week you have to each day eat 500 kcal less than you burn (because 7 days * 500 kcal = 3500 kcal = one pound of fat). That is as easy as it sounds. So now you may make use of numbers you got from tracking your weight each day and knowing how much calories you eat each day. Were loosing or gaining weight then use this formula:

(3500 * weight lost or gained) / (number of days)

to calculate number of calories below or above your real required number that you've consumed per day. Let's say for last week you were eating 2800 kcal a day and you've put 1 pound on weight. Use our forumula:

(2800 * 1) / 7 =400

which means that you've been eating around 860 kcal (let's round it up) more than you were supposed to each day. It also means that your real requirement is around 2800 - 400 = 2400 kcal a day. In order to loos pound a week you'd have to eat 2400 - 500 = 1900 kcal a day.

Of course after couple of days/weeks number of calories might change so it's crucial to continue tracking your wieght each day as well as making sure you count calories you eat each day. This is not easy, but who said that loosing wiehgt is easy? Maybe people on TV who want to sell you something :).

What really works?

Yesterday, I mentioned that 'what comes in must come out' rule is the only thing you have to stick to in order to loose weight. How do I know that, you might ask. The answer is that I used to be overweight and i successfully loose around 32 pounds in 4 months. How? I simple ate less. Those four months was the hardest time in my life. I was hungry all the time. But i managed to resist temptations to grab some quick snack and satisfy my hunger. It was really amazing to see my weight going down and down. For more than two years prior to that i was really trying to do everything to loose those pounds. I was in the gym three times a week for around two hours working out really hard. Net result? Not a single pound lost. I was getting really depressed because i was trying so hard and wasn't getting any results. The problem was, now i know that. that i was increasing my daily calorie requirement by those workout but in the same time i was increasing calories intake by having bigger lunch and extra snacks. Oh and don't think that i was eating some junk food on my way home from the gym - i was having those 'energy bars' or some other stuff with 'fat burning formals'. That was pathetic - I was perfect target for weight loss industry (which is a multi billion dollar cake). If you're struggling to loose some weight and don't seeing any results sit down and think about 'what comes in must come out rule' and what's the best way for you to take advantage of this simple formula in your case. Next time about what i did in more details.

Why people buy diet programs?

This question was bothering me for quite some time now. It amazes me all the time to see people willing to spend some ridiculous amount of money for some diet programs, fat burners or some other supplements. 'Have you called Jenny yet?' - oh please, i mean do they really think it's going to help them? Apparently they do. In my opinion the reason why they do all this is simple - ignorance and of course willingness to look sexy. Ignorance - because they don't want to know how their body works and what really needs to be done in order to loose those pounds. Willingness to look sexy - because who do not want that?!!? Overcoming ignorance doesn't take much work because there is only one rule that one should keep in mind when trying to loose weight - what comes in must come out. It's as simple as that. Let's say you ate McDonalds meal that has 1200 kcal - if you will do workout during which you will burn 1200 kcal you're on par and this meal won't affect your weight. However if you ate 10 meals - 12000 kcal and didn't work out then you have some serious problems because your body will have to store that somewhere. Table below shows average calories requirement per day:



So let's say you're active male between 19 and 30 years old. You're burning 3000 calories a day. If you consume food that has those 3000 calories everything's fine you're neither gaining nor loosing weight. As soon as you will start eating more than those 3000 calories you will start gaining weight. If you're eating less than 3000 calories you're loosing weight. It's that simple!! It doesn't matter what you eat!! Same effect will have carrots or fast food - the only thing that matters is calories count. The problem with that is that 3000 calories is not much at all - you can have 2 fast food meals and that's pretty much it. Keep in mind that it's your whole day budget!! And in order to loose weight you want to eat less that that. So you can be pretty much sure that you will be hungry most of the day. And you will have to cope with it. And that leads us to an answer why people are willing to spend money on all those crappy programs, supplements or sout-beach-diet-like meals. They do this because they are not willing to bare with limiting calories intake or controlling what they eat, how much calories it have and plan their meals. It's hard works and people by nature are lazy. And there always is something that gives you promise to deliver great results with no effort. It's like buying lottery ticket or 'Becoming millionaire working only 2 minutes a day' types of books. But how many people are winning a lottery or becoming millionaires by working 2 minutes a day. Not many ...