Weight Loss -- Another Buzz Word These Days
I have been thinking of writing on this topic for quite sometime now. Finally, a lazy Friday afternoon got me into writing this post.
To start, why am I bothered with this another buzz world -- weight loss? The reason -- These days, I myself is one among those whom you see struggling down the walking pavement when you drive by at 40 miles per hour. I know there are lot of people who at some point or the other get into this league.
I thought to put together this post to help those who want to lose those extra pounds they have put on over the years. There has to be a delicate balance between the diet and exercise for losing weight. It won't help if you are missing either one of them.
To start with, determine your calorie requirement with no activity. Multiply your weight (in pounds) with 12 to get your daily calorie requirement (2400 calorie for a 200 lb person). Plan on a diet which provides you 500 calories less than what you require. This is a good resource to plan for your diet with calorie count. To get optimal results, one should never try restricting the body to a diet with a deficit of more than 500 calorie because the body goes to starvation mode resulting in fewer calorie requirement. Over dieting also decreases the calorie requirement of all the body organs. Thus, after reaching the target weight, even if you eat normal calorie diet, you will gain weight because your organs won't utilize less calories.
Next thing to do is to come up with an exercise program which could be as simple as walking. There are two kinds of exercise which one can do -- aerobic (running walking) and cardiac (working out). If you do cardiac, the added advantage is the extra muscle which build up burn more calories through out the day as compared to aerobic exercised in which you burn calories only during the time of activity. Start with a minimal activity with an aim of increasing the calories you are burning. A good resource to know how much calorie you are burning is here.
Apart from these two basic things (diet control and exercise), there are many things which could help you in losing weight.
1.) Try to space out your meals over 5-6 small meals rather than 2-3 heavy meals. This ensures that the metabolic activity of your body is always maintained at the same pace resulting in more calorie burn.
2.) If you feel hungry with that 500 calorie diet restriction, drink a lot of water or eat fibers (salads, fruits etc.)
3.) Intake of protein rich diet helps in increasing the metabolic activity. Those whey proteins even help in metabolizing better because they are highly branched.
4.) If you switch from normal sodas to diet sodas, you are saving yourself from gaining around 5 kg in a year.
The last point I want to make here is on aerobic exercise. People are of general opinion that running is better than walking for losing weight which is not necessarily true. During aerobic exercise, make sure that your heart beat is around 120-130 and the lungs get enough oxygen for aerobic metabolism in the body. If you run and find ourself out of breath, then may be your body is undergoing anaerobic metabolic activity which is not effective in burning the calories that much (Lactic acid formed during anaerobic metabolism is the reason for that muscle ache after a severe activity). Prolonged walking is also better because it lets you burn the fat which are in the red muscles of your body (Body muscle has two types -- red and white). Running generally activates the white muscles which burn glycogen. White muscles are used for short term high intensity activity. Red muscles are used for long term activity which need endurance (kind of one needed for marathon). To further correlate these two muscle types in practice, chicken leg piece is more white as compared to chest because legs are used for short term activity whereas chest muscle are active all the time.
I don't know how much of all this is going to help you, but it sure is working good for me.
For further reading
FDA website on losing weight
Walking: a step in the right direction -- The stretching exercise you should do during walking is a good thing to look into.
All comments are welcome.
To start, why am I bothered with this another buzz world -- weight loss? The reason -- These days, I myself is one among those whom you see struggling down the walking pavement when you drive by at 40 miles per hour. I know there are lot of people who at some point or the other get into this league.
I thought to put together this post to help those who want to lose those extra pounds they have put on over the years. There has to be a delicate balance between the diet and exercise for losing weight. It won't help if you are missing either one of them.
To start with, determine your calorie requirement with no activity. Multiply your weight (in pounds) with 12 to get your daily calorie requirement (2400 calorie for a 200 lb person). Plan on a diet which provides you 500 calories less than what you require. This is a good resource to plan for your diet with calorie count. To get optimal results, one should never try restricting the body to a diet with a deficit of more than 500 calorie because the body goes to starvation mode resulting in fewer calorie requirement. Over dieting also decreases the calorie requirement of all the body organs. Thus, after reaching the target weight, even if you eat normal calorie diet, you will gain weight because your organs won't utilize less calories.
Next thing to do is to come up with an exercise program which could be as simple as walking. There are two kinds of exercise which one can do -- aerobic (running walking) and cardiac (working out). If you do cardiac, the added advantage is the extra muscle which build up burn more calories through out the day as compared to aerobic exercised in which you burn calories only during the time of activity. Start with a minimal activity with an aim of increasing the calories you are burning. A good resource to know how much calorie you are burning is here.
Apart from these two basic things (diet control and exercise), there are many things which could help you in losing weight.
1.) Try to space out your meals over 5-6 small meals rather than 2-3 heavy meals. This ensures that the metabolic activity of your body is always maintained at the same pace resulting in more calorie burn.
2.) If you feel hungry with that 500 calorie diet restriction, drink a lot of water or eat fibers (salads, fruits etc.)
3.) Intake of protein rich diet helps in increasing the metabolic activity. Those whey proteins even help in metabolizing better because they are highly branched.
4.) If you switch from normal sodas to diet sodas, you are saving yourself from gaining around 5 kg in a year.
The last point I want to make here is on aerobic exercise. People are of general opinion that running is better than walking for losing weight which is not necessarily true. During aerobic exercise, make sure that your heart beat is around 120-130 and the lungs get enough oxygen for aerobic metabolism in the body. If you run and find ourself out of breath, then may be your body is undergoing anaerobic metabolic activity which is not effective in burning the calories that much (Lactic acid formed during anaerobic metabolism is the reason for that muscle ache after a severe activity). Prolonged walking is also better because it lets you burn the fat which are in the red muscles of your body (Body muscle has two types -- red and white). Running generally activates the white muscles which burn glycogen. White muscles are used for short term high intensity activity. Red muscles are used for long term activity which need endurance (kind of one needed for marathon). To further correlate these two muscle types in practice, chicken leg piece is more white as compared to chest because legs are used for short term activity whereas chest muscle are active all the time.
I don't know how much of all this is going to help you, but it sure is working good for me.
For further reading
FDA website on losing weight
Walking: a step in the right direction -- The stretching exercise you should do during walking is a good thing to look into.
All comments are welcome.
posted by Prabhat Kumar at
3:54 PM
1 Comments:
You are so right but following this is really tough. I iwll still try.
Chhaya
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