Tag Archives: how to lose weight

How to Count Calories

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I prefer to count carbs and watch my portion control.  I eat 50-100g of carbs per day, have 6 small portions of proteins a day, four small servings of veggies and two small servings of fruit each day, two small salads per day, watching what choices I make on all of them.  However, some people want to know how to count calories.  Here is how:

    1. Determine How Many Calories You Should EatHow many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight depends on factors such as your gender, age, height, weight, and activity level. Your body uses about two-thirds of the calories you consume each day just to keep its systems functioning — your heart beating, your muscles moving. The rest of your calorie intake, according to My Calorie Counter, fuels everyday activities.To find out your ideal caloric intake, start by calculating what’s known as your base metabolic rate (BMR):
      • Women: Multiply your weight by 10. Men: Multiply by 11. This is your BMR.
      • Now add to that 20 percent of your BMR if you have a sedentary lifestyle; 30 percent if you are somewhat active; 40 percent if you are moderately active; or 50 percent if you are very active.
      • The number you get is how many calories you need to maintain your weight.

1.  Count How Many Calories You Actually Eat and Burn

You can track your calories online at MyCalorieCounter.com or their app.  Also, you can list how many calories you burned.

You can easily cut 500 calories by making small diet and exercise changes throughout your day. Here’s one approach:

      • Breakfast: Drink water instead of orange juice (calories saved: 117)
      • Snack: Have sliced cucumber and a tablespoon of hummus instead of a bag of chips (calories saved: 119)
      • Lunch: Swap out your salad’s creamy ranch dressing for fat-free Italian (calories saved: 66)
      • Dessert: Eat half of a cup of strawberries instead of a half of a cup of chocolate ice cream (calories saved: 118).
      • Exercise: Stroll at a moderate pace for 30 minutes (calories burned: 125 for a woman weighing 145)

2.  Get Portion Saavy.

In a world where SUPERSIZED is the new normal, these tips can help you recognize what a healthy portion looks like, which can help you keep calories in check:

    • Think of a tennis ball. It’s the equivalent of one cup of food, which is the recommended portion for such foods as pasta, cereal, and yogurt.
    • Don’t eat straight out of the container or bag. It’s a recipe for mindlessly overeating. Instead, measure a serving size of whatever you’re noshing on — almonds, soy chips, or other snacks — and put it on a plate or in a bowl.
    • Use smaller plates. Trick your mind into thinking that you have more food by downsizing your large dinner plate for a smaller salad-sized one. A healthy portion can look teeny on a huge plate but will seem more normal when you shrink its surroundings.
    • Spoil your appetite with nutritious food. Try eating celery sticks with peanut butter an hour before mealtime.

Remember to keep portion size in control and count calories and/or carbs!  Read labels!

counting-calories

Learn The Right Way to Approach Losing Weight

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Crash, restricted diets don’t work.  Don’t even try them!  Here’s why:

When people let their calorie levels drop too low, their body’s survival mechanism kicks in, lowering their metabolic set point (or basal metabolic rate). When they go off that crash diet and begin to eat normally again, they gain back any weight lost and then the yo-yo dieting begins.

However, the cycle can be reversed with time, consistency, and patience. You have to slowly and patiently shock your metabolism by eating a consistent diet and letting your body time adapt to a new metabolic set point over time.

Losing Weight Rules of Thumb:

1.  Food intake number:  First, set your daily caloric intake at 12 calories per pound of body weight. (For example, my weight is 116; 117 x 12 = 1,392 calories a day.) Then you have to stick to that calorie allowance for at least one to two months, depending on your metabolism. This will allow your body time to readjust your metabolic set point accordingly.

2.  Exercise:  The absolute best way to pump up your metabolism is to EXERCISE. You’ll be burning calories not only during your workout but also up to 48 hours after — all the while increasing lean muscle tissue, which speeds the metabolism over time. Aim for 3-5 hours a week.

When I started with my high protein, low carb diet, I followed the calorific intake and low carb intake and did pilates 2 times a week (eventually 4) , yoga once a week and I tried to get in elliptical work 2-4 times a week.  That is a lot, but it helped burn it off faster.

IT IS ALL ABOUT EFFORT!

effort

Also, once you reach goal, it takes a year of CONSISTENCY of staying on a maintenance schedule of calories and low carb intake to get your body to be fully adjusted to the goal number–with a variance of 5 pounds.  I monitor constantly, and if I am creeping up to the upper 5 limit, I start lowering my intake a bit and exercise more to maintain the right number.  It is consistency and fortitude to stay on a diet.  Crash diets will only screw your metabolism and your weight up.

10 Rules So You Can Lose About 10 pounds a Month.

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If you look at my blogs, especially the ones that I wrote in Sept, 2012 , you will read a lot about the rules in what to do in order to lose weight. I lost 40 pounds in 4 months with these basic rules.  But, some people are new and need to know the rules and some people might have forgotten or need a refresher.  So…..

rulessign

To recap what some of the rules are:

1. You have to eat 6 small protein based meals a day, about 4 hours apart.  Basically, 3 meals a day, 3 snacks a day, but all protein-based.  Meats are about 4-6 ounces per serving.

2. It is easy to find low carbs proteins in eggs, all types of meat, protein bars, protein shakes, nuts, seeds, cheese, low carb dairy treats, cottage cheese, and Greek yogurt.

3. You should only have between 50g and 100g carbohydrates a day.  So, as far as measurements go, look at labels.  If something is more than 15g of carbs per serving, then that might be too much.  You need to average out about 10g of carbs per serving and if you are eating something that is more than that, then you need to take it away from something else during the day. Do not do less than 50g of carbs a day.

4.  Buy a carbohydrate guide or use the internet and look online to see what amount of carbohydrates are in certain things. After while you will just remember things like that there is only 1 g of carbs in an egg.

5.  Take Potassium Gluconate 19g mg twice a day or  99mg, two orally twice a day.

6.  Fruit, twice a day.  About half a cup on most fruits, 1/2 a banana (high in carbs), a medium orange, etc.

7.  Vegetables, twice a day.  About a cup on most vegetables, except for items like carrots (starches).  Avoid starchy veggies like potatoes, yams and sweet potatoes.

8.  A cup of lettuce each time, twice a day.  And low-carb salad dressing.

9.  80 ounces of water or sugar-free drinks a day.

10.  Get in some form of exercise at least 3 times per week.

Eat Lunch, Lose Weight

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out_to_lunch

Of course the nutritional and calorie content of meals clearly affects weight loss, but a new study shows that the timing of meals may also play an important role in weight loss.  In a study of a Mediterranean population, those eating lunch later in the day were more likely to be successful in losing weight.

Eating a good breakfast and not skipping it and eating a lunch before 3pm was key to losing more weight and maintaining a balanced metabolism.  Timing on lunch was the only meal that really made a difference on weight loss.

So, eat your lunch at lunchtime.  NO skipping lunch!

Here is the article about why lunch is key to weight loss!

http://www.elements4health.com/what-and-when-you-eat-affects-weight-loss.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+elements4health%2FmTrh+%28Elements4Health+%29