It is simple science. A single pound of fat contains 3500 calories of energy. Therefore, if you are looking to lose a pound of fat per week, you need to ingest 3500 less calories than you burn per week. The key to achieving this goal is by reducing your calorie intake by 500 calories per day. Doing so will allow you to lose around a pound of fat per week.
Sounds reasonable, right? Especially is you are 25 pounds or more overweight. In fact, it has been scientifically proven that people who lose weight at this gradual rate are far more likely to maintain this trimmer weight for good.
Now we know what we have to do, but how do we do it? Below, I have put a list together of some adjustments which you can make to your diet which should be helpful.
1. Use milk and hold the cream when it comes to coffee. Doing so will cut 50 calories.
2. Get rid of the butter on your baked potato. Doing so will save 100 calories.
3. Drinking flavored water rather than the sugar filled liquid 16 ounce soda can cut 200 calories out of your diet. This adds up.
4. Special sauce on a sesame seed bun? Forget the 460 calorie Big Mac and order a healthy salad. Even if you add light salad dressing to your salad, you are still cutting more than 360 calories.
5. A bag of chips does you no good. Therefore, you can cut it out of your diet and save 300 calories.
6. Avoid canned corn which has 165 calories. Conversely, corn on the cob has only 85 calories. Did you do the math? That is a 80 calorie difference.
7. Making the switch from regular cream cheese to low-fat cream cheese on your bagel will cut 90 calories per ounce.
8. While I recommend that you avoid French fries, if you must have them, order the steak-cut fries over the thin fries. The truth is that the thin fries absorb more fat. Making this selection will lower your calorie intake by approximately 50 calories per 4 ounce serving.
Guess what? You can do other things to lose weight which do not involve food. For instance, physical activity is a great way to burn calories. Let us look at some activities that you can engage in.
1. A great activity to lose weight is simply walking for 30 minutes a little faster than a casual stroll. This will burn 160 calories.
2. Get on a bike and ride for 5 miles. Doing so will burn 250 calories.
3. Dancing for just 1 hour can burn up to 400 calories!
4. Not only is swimming fun, it is also a great way to burn 500 calories in just 60 minutes.
5. I bet you did not realize how healthy gardening can be. Due to the bending and stretching, you can burn 250 calories by simply playing in your garden.
6. Tennis is not only fun to watch, it is fun to play. Plus doing so will lead to you burning 800 calories after 1 hour.
The above calorie burning figures are based upon the activities of a 130 pound woman. Therefore, if you weigh more than 130 pounds, you will burn more calories than what is stated above. This is great new. Also, these activities not only cause your body to burn calories, but also gain muscle. Muscle enables your body to burn more calories in a resting state.
If you want to see the best results, cut back on your calories and exercise. However, do not starve yourself. If you eat less than one-thousand calories per day, your body will be convinced that it is starving, and your metabolism will slow down drastically as a defensive mechanism against starvation.
Make sure that you keep your exercise and calorie consumption at a healthy level. Also maintain records of both of these activities to make sure that you remain on track. Before you know it, you will have the body that you were working towards.
Cheryl Carter is an expert in healthy weight loss, and the inventor of the Weight Loss Oracle weight loss software.
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