You don’t just lose muscle from your legs and arms. You lose some from your heart. Many fad diets provide protein supplements under the supposition that eating more protein will prevent muscle loss, but it doesn’t work that way.

Exercise, generally recommended as part of a weight loss plan anyway, will help preserve muscle tissue. You should make smaller changes in your diets and activity levels so that you lose no more than two pounds a week. It’s relatively easy to determine how many calories you should eat to lose weight if you know the right formulas.

A pound of fat is equal to about 3,500 calories. Figure out how many calories you eat to maintain your weight. And then, if you want to lose a pound a week, you would need a deficit of 500 calories a day.

If you wanted to lose two pounds a week, you would need a deficit of 1,000 calories a day. So if you are eating 2,000 calories a day, cutting your intake to 1,500 calories should result in a weight loss of a pound a week.

Experts do not recommend dieters cut down below 1,200 calories a day, because it is virtually impossible to get sufficient protein, vitamins and minerals on less than that.

Another way of calculating is to determine how many calories you need to maintain your desirable weight and cut down to that level, allowing the excess baggage to drop away. On the average, women need 12 calories a pound of bodyweight for very light activity, 13 for light, 14 for moderate, 15 for strenuous and 16 for very strenuous.

Men need 14 calories a pound for very light activity, 15 for light, 16 for moderate, 17 for strenuous and 18 for very strenuous.

Very light activity involves mostly sitting with up to two hours of standing or walking each day. Very strenuous activities include tennis, swimming, running, basketball and football.

Thus, a woman whose activity level is very light, who weighs 150 pounds – but whose ideal weight is 120 pounds – would need 1,440 calories at her ideal weight. That is 360 calories less than the 1,800 she would need to maintain her current weight – and would result in a loss of about a pound every 10 days.

But by increasing her activity level to moderate, she would burn 2,100 calories a day at her present weight and 1,680 at her ideal weight.

By comparison, a 200-pound man with a very strenuous activity level would need 3,600 calories to maintain his weight, while a 160-pound man who is a couch potato would require just 2,240 calories.

People who want to lose weight should return to the “basic four” food groups and cut their fat intake in particular, since fat has more than twice as many calories as carbohydrates or protein. And cutting down on extras can make a big difference. Just 150 calories a day – approximately the amount in either a 12-ounce can of cola or a 1-ounce bag of potato chips – adds up to 54,750 calories, or nearly 16 pounds of weight, in a year’s time.

A new study also indicates that people can lose weight by cutting down on fat and eliminating refined sugar, but not making a great effort to reduce their caloric intake.

So there you have it. Now that you know how many calories you should eat to lose weight, there are no more excuses for you. Start exercising and eating healthy and you will be amazed with the results.

A few individuals may be able to achieve their ideal weight by embarking on an exercise program; however, most people who want to lose weight will also have to reduce their intake of calories.

We keep reading about how important it is to have a balanced diet, but when we get all the figures thrown at us about vitamins, minerals and proteins and whatnot, we don’t know what to make of it all. Isn’t there some simple way that a person who is not a genius can have a balanced diet? Or is it necessary that we first learn how to operate a computer?

Enjoying a balanced diet does not require the intelligence of a genius or the use of a computer. A balanced diet can be achieved simply by eating moderate amounts of a number of different foods. This holds true, with only slight modifications, for people trying to lose weight. A balanced diet merely means consuming appropriate amounts of all nutrients, including proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals.

However, it is not necessary to memorize lengthy lists of all the vitamins and minerals and all the foods that provide them. If you eat moderate amounts of a variety of foods, you will get all the nutrients you need.

The proper balance can be achieved by selecting foods from the four food groups: Dairy, which includes milk, cheese and yogurt; meat, including poultry, fish and beans; fruits and vegetables; and grain, including bread, cereal and rice.

Fats, sweets and alcohol compose a food group. The items included in this category provide calories but few nutrients, and therefore should be used sparingly.

Take chocolate, for example, I can’t tell you it’s good for you. But eating a small quantity infrequently won’t harm you. If you deprive yourself, that’s unrealistic. Also unrealistic is the idea that gimmicks and fad diets are successful ways to lose weight.

It’s easy to lose weight. What’s tricky is keeping it off. That requires a permanent change in eating and exercise habits that most people are unwilling to make.

Also be wary of extreme weight loss measures such as Oprah’s liquid protein diet. That diet is very risky and expensive. It should only be undertaken by extremely obese people who’ve failed to lose weight every other way.

Starving oneself isn’t safe and often isn’t effective for causing weight loss anyway. There’s a misconception that you will lose weight by only consuming 400 or 500 calories a day. But your body will suppress your metabolism to compensate so you might even gain weight. You’d have to keep eating less and less. It would be very devastating to your health.

Instead, people should eat a reasonable amount and exercise to keep their metabolism up. The word, exercise, turns people off. By exercise, I didn’t mean jogging in the snow or getting sweaty and yucky in the gym – just keeping active will do.

For diet, be sure to include plenty of fibre and starchy carbohydrates, minimize the amount of fat and pay attention to the amount of salt and sugar. Drink plenty of water as well – it’s a very forgotten nutrient.

Moderation is recommended for children’s diets as well. Restricting diet at an early age is too extreme and can cause growth retardation. Children need more fat and cholesterol than adults. Children should drink whole milk until they are at least two years old and never drink skim milk until they’re teenagers.

Overweight children should never be put on a weight loss diet. Instead, their current weight should be maintained until they grow into it.

Children needn’t be deprived of sugar either. Believe it or not, sugar has a clean bill of health. It doesn’t cause hyperactivity. It has been linked to dental caries, but the concern is more for dental hygiene than eating sugar.

On the other hand, sugar has no nutrients so no one needs to eat it. But it’s not realistic to deprive children of foods they’ll encounter elsewhere. However, they should know the difference between healthy foods and treats. Treats are okay in moderation, but not as substitutes for healthy foods.

Adults needn’t be overly concerned about sugar in their diets either. It’s more important to limit the amount of fat. We eat so much more fat than needed. We’re probably better off with jam on our toast or syrup on our pancakes instead of butter.

So there you have it. You can really eat anything you want and still lose weight if you follow the nutritionists’ advice about moderation.

When it comes to the battle of the bulge, most Americans are losing. For some, the reason is too much inactivity. For others, it’s a combination of inactivity and poor nutrition. Obesity is on the rise, not only among adults, but for children as well. On average, Americans put on 1 to 2 pounds annually between the ages of 20 and 50, typically because of their high-fat diet and too little exercise.

Research has constantly pointed out that exercise can help reverse this damaging health trend, but renewed emphasis is being placed on the role of nutrition in promoting weight loss and a heart-healthy lifestyle.

If people would only follow guidelines regarding proper nutrition, there would be a considerable decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Cancer deaths would drop another 30 to 40 percent as well. These are big numbers and represent millions of lives.

Proper nutrition for weight loss and health starts at your local supermarket and favorite restaurants. The problem is that people do what they want to do when it comes to food, instead of doing what they know they should.

Proper nutrition should be everyone’s concern. If people have interest to spend the time exercising during the week to maintain or improve their health, then they should carry it full circle by paying attention to good nutrition as well. And this means drastically reducing their dietary fat intake.

The dietary fats that you can see (butter, cream cheese, heavy cream, etc.) and the hidden fats you can’t see (fat in ice cream, meat products, etc.) are the real enemies in your diet. Exercise alone will not rid your body of the fat laid on by these culprits.

Combined with good nutrition, however, you can certainly bring about tremendous reversals. Reducing fat from the diet take some willpower and commitment.

Increase the amounts of fruits, vegetables and grains that you eat, while cutting back on red meats, fried foods and rich desserts.

You may wish to try a non-prescription product for weight loss. Such products may be purchased in pharmacies or health food stores. This article will list the ingredients in some of these diet products. You will need to check the packages carefully to see what is in them.

They should not be used by children under 12. The effectiveness of the diet products is directly related to the reduction of your food intake. Since you must have a commitment to develop new eating habits, the use of the products is limited to three months as a rule. After that time, the new eating habits will allow you to stabilize at your lower weight.

Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) is found in many OTC diet tablets and long-acting capsules, as well as products for nasal congestion associated with the common cold, allergy or cough. PPA does have a long history of safe use but should be avoided by patients with a history of high blood pressure, depression, diabetes or thyroid problems unless a physician approves. Its side effects include nervousness, dizziness and sleeplessness. It may also cause headaches, nausea, ringing in the ears and elevated blood pressure.

Benzocaine is an ingredient of diet candies, gum and lozenges. It acts to deaden the nerves of the mouth, which decreases the ability to detect sweetness. The product is used just prior to eating and some do get weight loss since they lose the desire to eat much food.

At this time, only benzocaine and PPA are fully approved as over-the-counter weight loss products. However, claims are made for the following products.

Vitamins, minerals: Despite the brochures provided by health food stores, no vitamin or mineral singly or in combination has been proven to cause weight loss.

Diuretics: Some weight loss products promote the flow of urine. However, the weight loss is water rather than fat. The lost water also carries potassium, sodium and other necessary body chemicals with it. When the products are no longer taken, the water will be regained by the body and thus diuretics are ineffective.

Fiber-containing products are safe and effective for such problems as constipation. However, their role in dieting is still unproven.

Losing weight (and trying to keep it off) is a major preoccupation for many adults in this country. Doctors tell us that being overweight is unhealthy. The media tell us that being overweight is unattractive. And the diet industry tells us (in no uncertain terms) that weight control can be a highly profitable business – for everybody but the person trying to figure out how to lose weight, for whom it can be a very expensive business.

How many times have you prayed for a magic pill or diet that would instantly solve your weight problem? How many times have you succumbed to the outrageous claims made for various diets, in the hope that this could be the one? How many pills or shots have you taken to try to lose those extra pounds quickly? How many times have you heard that the only thing that will really help you lose weight is to change your eating habits and increase your exercise? How many times have you rejected that advice as boring and impossible?

That many, huh?

Well, you’re going to hear it again, but this time with suggestions to make it easier.

While it is true that the only way to lose weight is to take in fewer calories than you burn, it is not as difficult as you might think to cut down on the number of calories you eat. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to give up everything you like to eat. It may just mean that you have to make room for food with fewer calories and more nutrients. Here’s how it works.

Your body is using up calories all the time, whether you are moving around or not. The rate at which you burn calories while at total rest is called your resting, or basal metabolic, rate. For women this is about 11 calories per pound of body weight and for men it is about 12. This means that if you are a woman who weighs 150 pounds, your body needs to take in about 1,650 calories a day just to exist. If you are engaged in light exercising, you multiply the BMR by 1 6, giving you approximately 2,400 calories to play with, moderate exercise activity requires somewhere around 3,450 calories (23 x BMR).

Let’s assume that this 150-pound woman is eating 2,500 calories a day and is doing light activity. If she cuts down her calories to 1,500 per day and does not change her exercisee pattern, in about 1 1/2 days she will lose a pound. If she begins to do moderate exercise and only eats 1,500 calories per day, it will take less time to lose the same pound.

You probably already know how to increase your activity level, but where can you cut those calories to make your weight loss plan as painless as possible?

• Instead of eating 1 croissant, substitute 1 plain bagel to save 72 calories.

• Instead of eating 1 whole egg, substitute 1 egg white to save 47 calories.

• Instead of eating 1 oz of Cheddar cheese, substitute 1 oz of part-skim mozzarella to save 42 calories.

• Instead of eating 1 tablespoon of cream cheese, substitute 1 tablespoon of 1 percent cottage cheese to save 35 calories.

• Instead of eating 35 oz of untrimmed beef, substitute 35 oz of trimmed beef to save 75 calories.

• Instead of eating 35 oz of lamb chop (broiled), substitute 35 oz of lean leg of lamb (broiled) to save 220 calories.

• Instead of eating 1 oz of regular bacon, substitute 1 oz of Canadian bacon to save 110 calories.

• Instead of eating 1 beef hot dog, substitute 1 chicken hot dog to save 67 calories.

• Instead of eating fast food French fries, substitute 1 baked potato (plain) to save 126 calories.

• Instead of eating 1 cup of ice cream (premium), substitute 1 cup of sorbet to save 350 calories.

The substitutions on this list also save many grams of fat and cholesterol, as well as calories. If you read labels, pay attention to what you are eating and eliminate the true junk food from your diet, you can come up with a 3,500 calorie savings in no time.

If you also start moving around and exercising a little more, you will lose weight even faster.

Now make no mistake, losing weight is hard work, requiring a lot of consistency and it will not work very quickly. But it is the most sensible way to lose weight, does not put money in anybody else’s pocket and will help you change your eating habits.

It’s essential that people who want to lose weight learn to accept responsibility for their weight. They have to quit blaming circumstances or other people for making them overeat.

Most people gain weight simply because they take in more food than their bodies need. Losing excess weight and keeping it off means making a strong commitment to eating sensibly and exercising regularly.

Exercise is essential to any weight loss plan. Exercise tones up the body, increases muscle mass, helps burn calories and decreases feelings of stress.

To be safe, weight loss should be limited to a maximum of two pounds per week. Nutritional needs often go unmet when people limit their caloric intake too much. A healthy diet also is essential to any weight loss system.

Here is a list of the best weight loss tips you should follow on a daily basis:

• Drink plenty of water. Water suppresses appetite, helps the body metabolize fat and works as a natural diuretic. Drink eight to 10 glasses daily.

• Keep a food diary. Writing down what you eat and when will make you more aware of unhealthy patterns like snacking while watching television or cating whenever you feel bored.

• Eat smaller, more frequent meals. This keeps your insulin level steady throughout the day and prevents cravings for fattening foods. Avoid eating your biggest meal in the evening. This promotes fat storage by the body.

• Eat balanced meals, including protein, fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals and milk and dairy products. Protein sources include meals, poultry, fish, dried beans and peas.

• Avoid alcohol. One gram of alcohol has seven calories, almost as many as a gram of fat (nine calories). There is virtually no nutritional value in alcohol, and all those empty calories can add up.

• Cut out refined sugar. Sugar is obviously a main ingredient in candy bars, pop and cupcakes, but it also sneaks into foods like ketchup, salad dressings, breads and luncheon meals.

• Avoid salty foods. Excess salt makes the body retain water and can slow weight loss.

• Cook the low-fat way. Use vegetable oils instead of animal fats for cooking. Bake, broil, poach or steam foods instead of frying. Season with herbs and spices instead of using margarine, sauces and gravies.

We have only just scratched the surface with the aforementioned weight loss tips. Browse our articles and find out everything you need about weight loss and diet plans.

Americans are the most overweight people in the world. Our abundance of food, easy access to fatty snacks, sedentary lifestyles, and, in some cases, genetics contribute to our weight problems. About 90 percent of U.S. residents surveyed say they weigh too much and 35 percent want to lose at least 15 pounds.

The myth that being thin equals success is the force that drives the majority of us to diet. There is a concentrated focus on making people, particularly women, feel dissatisfied about their bodies. The fashion industry perpetuates an average woman’s guilt over weighing more than she perceives she should.

The best clothing styles are made for slimmer figures, while overweight women often have to go to special stores for larger sizes. Women are stigmatized by having to go into heavy women’s stores. Although more men in recent years have become concerned about their bodies, women are more likely to take radical steps to lose weight.

A little walking will help it come off faster. And a lot of walking is better yet. Moving the large muscles of the body, as in walking, swimming, bicycling and rowing, changes the balance of fat to carbohydrates burned. Once your body is working well more fat is used to keep you going the same distance. It’s a good thing getting better. Fat can’t be left out of your diet entirely because you need some of the components – and as long as you must have them, they might as well come from something you like.

Foods in the diets are largely interchangeable so you can have what you like within the range of permitted fats. Cooking methods may have to be changed a bit. That means less frying and more broiling and baking.

Although many people who go through low-calorie diet programs gain back the weight, it isn’t always the fault of the diet. Crash diets really don’t work in the long run. Yes, it is possible to lose some weight for a while, but they really don’t change the lifestyle habits of the person. In some cases, there may be a potential danger with weight reduction – particularly if an individual is severely obese and requires medical supervision.

Incidentally, a person who has a normal amount of water in the tissues and goes to bed may also lose 5 pounds in one day. But it is not fat, and the weight will be regained once a person is out of bed.

It is important to drink enough water. The amount should be enough to cause a person to pass about one quart of urine or more a day.

But drinking water alone will not help you lose body fat. The key, as with many fad approaches to diets, is in how many calories you consume. If you continue to consume the same number of calories and have the same level of activity, drinking lots of water will not help you lose weight.

But if drinking water helps you limit your calorie intake, you might. The same applies to diets that are mostly lean meat. By limiting your appetite, and the fact that lean meat is not a high-calorie food, it is just a way to help limit your calorie intake. A pound of raw, separable lean round steak contains only 600 calories.

If you want to lose weight, limit your calorie intake and maintain a sensible exercise program.

There were some glowing reports about stomach stapling for weight loss, but this procedure was really not very good. The staples often came out and there were many complications. Because of its failure, several stages of modification have been developed.

Using a different method to segment the stomach and actually closing the top chamber of the stomach completely while rerouting the small intestine to bypass most of the lower part of the stomach have been done.

Stomach stapling can help a person lose weight because he eats less. You are really back to the basic truth that weight loss depends on consuming fewer calories than your body uses. If you could restrict your calories just as much without the operation, you would have the same results.

Stomach stapling complications

Initially there may be problems with nausea and vomiting. Others have the “dumping” syndrome. The small stomach means that whatever you consume is immediately dumped into the small intestine. This may cause attacks of flushing, rapid heart beat and even fainting. Doctors who have removed a major part of the stomach in the treatment of peptic ulcers are quite familiar with this complication.

The truth is, if you follow a proper weight loss program coupled with proper exercise you should be able to gradually lose excess weight without stomach stapling.?