How to Lose a Pound a Week and Improve Your Health
There is a simple formula for weight loss - burn an extra 500 calories a day and you will lose a pound per week. This is about the healthy amount of weight to lose at just the right pace. To make the formula work, you have to find out how much calories you actually consume and how much you burn. This will determine how much you can eat as well as how much you should exercise.
Determine how much calories you burn from your daily activities - at home, at work plus your exercise.
This is based on how many calories you burn while doing your daily activities. You can do this by exercising or dieting, but ideally you should do a combination of both.
Do realize that bodies differ in terms of calorie requirements. A man who is moderately active and weighs 150 pounds, can burn about 2000 calories each day. At 200 pounds, that man would be burning 2300 calories each day. In the case of a woman weighing 150-pounds, she would burn about 1700 calories a day.
You have probably noticed that men and women in general have different calorie requirements. This is because men naturally have more muscle mass than women. More muscle mass means more calories burned at rest.
So women - and men as well, for that matter - should see that it is worth the effort to tone up your muscles if you want to lose weight.
Going back to that simple formula for weight loss. If for instance you are a woman who weighs 150 pounds and for some reason can't or won't exercise, make sure you eat no more than 1200 calories a day.
However, if you are willing to put in some work, you can eat a little bit more, provided you engage in more calorie-burning activities.
Now onto some examples of how you burn calories. Heavy cleaning at home can burn 432 calories an hour. Bring that heavy cleaning up to 70 minutes a day and there goes 500 calories. How to burn 324 calories in your lawn? Do some grass trimming for about an hour with a push mower. A game of singles tennis burns 549 calories an hour. An hour of skiing burns 740 calories.
If you are serious about controlling calories, weight loss will follow. One way to do this is to control your portion sizes. Meals, both at home and at restaurants have been growing in size for decades. For instance, in the 1930s, the average dinner plate size had an 8 or 9 inch diameter. Now, the average diameter is 10 to 12 inches. Switch to salad plates for dinner and watch the pounds disappear.
It is no secret that restaurant portions have grown. For instance at Romano's Macaroni Grill, a seemingly good-for-you Teriyaki Salmon dinner has a whopping 1240 calories. If you are eating out, either split the meal with someone else or ask for a take home box at the start of the meal. Then, place half of the food in the take home box before you start eating. That way you can still clean your plate without taking on the additional calories.
The simple formula for weight loss is to shave off 500 calories a day. Take it off from your diet by controlling portions or burn enough through activities and exercise. The best is really to do both diet and exercise. Just stick to your plan of removing 500 calories a day and you'll lose a healthy, sensible one pound a week. You won't just lose weight, you'll feel great too.