Do you like what you see? You should. You should be happy with what you have, and where you are currently. There's no sense in feeling down about how certain things could be better. No matter who we are and regardless of what aspect of our life we are looking at, there is always room for improvement.
Being happy with yourself doesn't mean not improving yourself
If what you have works for you at making you happy, then so be it! But we shouldn't just "settle" with what we have if we would like some improvement. This includes more than just fitness and health, this could be about any aspect of your life, whether it be language skills, professional development, emotional stability, whatever.
Indicators of health and fitness
Which indicators of fitness do we use?
Numbers on a scale are a good indicator of where you are and maybe could help you in deciding on where you should be. However everyone carries weight differently so numbers on a scale can and do mislead. For example, two people at 5'8" (172 cm) weighing 70 Kg (154 lbs.) can look very different. Which brings me to the next point...
What you currently look like and what you imagine you would like to look like is another good indicator.
Above all, how you feel is most important. How easy is it for you to take a few flights of stairs instead of the escalator or elevator? Do you have any difficulty doing day-to-day tasks? What about things you plan on doing - do you think you are fit enough yet to do them?
How many times a week do you exercise? For how long? At what intensity?
Do you currently have difficulty finding the time or motivation to exercise regularly?
Losing weight fast
The main reason we exercise. Maybe we have a goal and a deadline, i.e. I want to lose 10 lbs. (5Kg) this month. This is pretty quick weight loss, and I hate to break it to you, but there isn't really any quick and easy way to lose weight fast.
You probably could lose 10 lbs. in a month, but it probably won't stay off. And accomplishing that goal will be as enjoyable as a root canal. Like all good things in life, it's better to put in time and patience into reaching your goals. It'll save you the stress of reaching an impossible goal and also will give you more time for the good habits that make lasting weight loss to stick!
The three keys to losing weight:
1. move more than you do now (exercise more)
2. eat less than you do now
3. hydration (for change to happen on the cellular level, you have to be well hydrated)
These three indispensable things are pretty simple when you look at it. Your body is an amazingly efficient machine. Put simply, whatever "unused" Calories (aka whatever goes in your mouth that your bodies will use as fuel) will be stored for later.
That might sound terrible to you, why would you want to store the fuel and get fat? But of course, this mechanism allows us to, you know, not starve to death. This explanation is clearly a simplified version of what really happens but it doesn't change the fact that you have to have a good, hard, honest look at your life and the eating and activities habits that you have.
Where to cut the calories? Some helpful tips
Here are some tips to managing your energy intake for the day.
Do you drink a lot of alcohol? Alcohol has a lot of calories and dehydrates you. Don't want to cut out the booze? Make better choices (spirits for instance have far fewer Calories) and watch what you eat while you drink!
Juices usually pack a lot of Calories and leave us feeling hungry. How so? Well, tet's compare drinking a tall glass of orange juice to eating 3 oranges. How do you feel after drinking the orange juice? Less thirsty, right? But full? Most likely not.
Those three oranges probably really filled you up though, maybe you weren't even able to finish them off. The point being that these 2 ways of getting your orange fix are similar in terms of caloric intake, but orange fruit gives you the fiber which fills you up that orange drink can't.
Do you graze on snacks all day long? Even too much of a good thing like healthy snacks such as nuts, fruit, or protein rich meat and cheese can be detrimental to your fitness goals.
So, let's get to how much less food we have to eat and how much more we have to move to get to our fitness goals.
Making your weight-loss goal
Check this site out for a good BMR (Base Metabolic Rate) calculator:
http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/?
Here you can calculate how many Calories your body needs in a day. All it needs is your gender (guys generally have more muscular bodies and burn more energy than women), your weight, height, age and activity level.
Of course it's just an estimate: keep in mind that if you're muscular for your weight it might not tell you a high enough calorie amount. It could tell you too high of a number if you have little muscle for your weight.
In step 6 you can specify how fast you want to lose your weight. Word to the wise: there are 3500 Calories in a pound of fat (7716.17 per Kg). The more calories you cut, the more weight you can lose.
Using me as an example, I need to consume 2858 Calories a day to maintain my weight. A reduction of 10% from this is 286 Calories a day. It would take me about 12 days to lose a pound of fat at that rate. Reducing Calories can be done two ways: more exercise and less eating.
It doesn't matter where these Calories are "cut", however cardio (running, walking, biking, sports and so on) do provide a cardiovascular and fitness benefit, so indulging in more of that is always a sure bet.
If I wanted to lose weight even faster, I could opt for a 20% reduction of 572 Calories a day. I'll warn against any more of a Caloric reduction since you could end up losing muscle as much as fat. This is bad since the less muscle your body has, the less Calories are burnt.
The bottom part (Your Results) is where this calculator truly shines. Based on your weight-loss goals and it will give you projections on how long it will take to lose (or gain, if your goal is to gain muscle) weight. You'll have to calculate your BMR for any body weight difference of 5 pounds (2.2Kg).
So, play around with the BMR calculator - it's a very handy tool that can help you define your goals! Next time I'll talk about fat: is it ever a good idea to avoid it?
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