How To Lose Weight, SAFELY
I started writing this a while ago and it still needs to be edited but this is what I have to say incase anyone is bored and trying to avoid work ;)
How to lose weight SAFELY
Swimsuit season is coming up and there is a great influx of threads being released about the best way to lose weight quickly. Unfortunately, none of these methods are safe and none of them are clear enough for someone first learning about their body and how it functions. This is going to be a very simple guide geared towards women looking to lower body fat percentage in a healthy way. Sadly, I have noticed that there is a lot of misinformation being shared among girls who are basically starving themselves in order to drop body weight. I want to make sure that you ladies are doing it safely and that you are getting the results you want, not the ones you think starvation will get you. This may seem a bit much to read but it is the BEST way to safely lower your body fat. Best of all… It’s FREE.
Questions you may have:
Q.) Can’t I just eat healthy?
A.) Eating foods low in calories but high in nutrients is always a good idea but losing weight isn’t about that so much as eating less than you burn. You could still gain weight on healthy food and that is because your body isn’t going to discriminate when it sees energy it can’t use. Recently a professor lost weight eating Twinkies because he still consumed less calories than he burned. (It should also be noted he had vitamin supplements included in his meal).
Q.) I lost weight eating nothing but apples and water, why would I follow this?
A.) Anyone can lose weight eating apples and water. You are technically going below your calorie needs. Here is the thing, there are three sources we get energy from: Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein. They can be broken down into even more sub categories but for now we are going to focus on protein, a VERY important part of cell function (and guess what? There isn’t much protein in an apple). You need protein in order to carry out cell functions; you cannot live without it. Protein is made of amino acids and you can only make and manufacture a certain number of them, you need the rest through diet. If your body doesn’t get these essential biochemical compounds through diet it will turn to its only available source, your own muscle tissue. When anyone talks about weight loss, they talk about FAT loss, muscle is not fat. Muscle will keep you thin, make you look better naked and keep you healthy. Starving is the best way to lose muscle.
Good? Lets move on to the first step:
Step 1: Determine Your Basal Metabolic Rate
Everything you eat is made up of energy that we measure with calories. I’m sure we’ve all seen the nutrition labels on the side of nearly everything we consume along with other helpful information about the product. Losing weight is all about playing a numbers game with calories. To lose weight you need to consume less energy than you use, it is that simple. There are many ways to do this but we know diet and exercise to be the best method of balancing our energy needs.
The simple act of being alive uses energy and using a simple formula we can determine the amount of calories one would need in order to maintain existence, (in this case, body mass or weight). Just think, you wouldn’t even need to exercise to BURN energy, your beating heart does that for you! (Of course this isn’t very good for cardiovascular health but we’ll get into that later). Your BMR is going to be determined based on your age and weight (it takes energy to actually maintain fat so the larger you are, the more energy you actually need to stay fat).
To simplify getting this number, there are tons of calculators on the internet that you can use, I will post links below. For this guide we are going to use a fictional character called Jane. Jane is a 21 year old female that stands at 5’4”. Jane weighs 180lbs and wants to lose 40lbs. The first step Jane needs to do is find out how many calories she needs just to maintain her weight. I went to this site to find out:
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
Imputing Jane’s information gives me a BMR of approximately 1640 calories. If Jane were just to lay in bed all day, she would burn that much energy just laying there. Of course, most of use get up or have a job, we do more than stare at the wall for 16 hours.
Step 2: Determine Your Daily Caloric Needs
We just need to go one step further to get to Jane’s caloric needs for the day assuming she actually got up and did something other than watch day time TV. Jane doesn’t do much so we’re going to multiply her BMR by 1.2 just for the sake of this example. If you would like to see your calorie needs, go to this page and determine your level of activity and what you would need to multiply your BMR by.
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/
Our formula now looks like this: Daily Caloric Needs = BMR x 1.2
We know that Jane’s BMR is 1640 calories so we need to multiply that by 1.2 to get the calories she would need to live if she were just going about her daily routine. The number we get is 1,968.
Step 3: Eat Less than Your Daily Caloric Needs
Alright, so lets go back to calories. All Jane would have to do to lose weight is eat LESS than 1968 calories a day. But how much weight can she lose and how far under should she eat? We know that there is about 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. Let’s assume Jane has started eating less than her body needs to survive. Jane’s body is going to start scrambling to get energy to live, her heart has to pump blood to her limbs, her cells have to fight against disease… And it needs to do that with energy. Where does Jane’s body find that energy? FAT!!!!
The process that the body goes about turning fat into usable energy isn’t important to understand in GREAT detail but if you want to marvel at the wonders of human life you can certainly look it up. What is important is that now Jane has a calorie deficit that she needs to fill and her body is going to do that by going to her fat stores. WHAT JANE WANTS!
Let’s say Jane wants to lose 1 pound a week. She would need to eat 500 calories less than her daily caloric needs to do that.
1,968-500=1,468
So Jane has 1,468 calories to play around with. She could lose more weight by going under this but it’s important not to eat too little otherwise you will A.) Be starving B.) Start to do damage to your body.
That is really all you need to know about losing weight. Tada, you now have the knowledge to make it happen. Look at nutrition labels and measure and count out calories and you WILL lose weight. Everything after this point is merely how to go about keeping your food under your calorie needs.
Step 4: How to Balance Hunger and Caloric Need.
So now the big question is how to eat 1,468 calories and not lose your mind.
This is where eating healthy and exercise come into play. Did you know that a Mcdonald’s Angus Deluxe has 750 calories? I know, right? I could eat like 10 of them. Let’s add fries to that. 380 calories. How about a coke? 210. That’s 1,340 calories total. In one meal Jane would have managed to eat nearly here entire day’s worth of calories and once that was digested, she would be starving, looking for her next meal. Of course, she could still go up to 1968 calories and not put on weight but the point is to lose weight so that is kind of a moot point.
How do we stay under our caloric needs without going hungry? This is the hardest part about losing weight, the physical pangs of hunger can really make weight loss a drag.
You need food that will take up room in your stomach without killing your caloric needs for the day. That basically means things like vegetables, fruit, and lean complete protein.
I can PROMISE you that if you are hungry, you are NOT going to stick to a plan. You should never feel hungry! If it isn’t a meal or snack time and you feel like you’re going to die, you’re doing something wrong.
(more to come)
How To Lose Weight, SAFELY
I started writing this a while ago and it still needs to be edited but this is what I have to say incase anyone is bored and trying to avoid work ;)
How to lose weight SAFELY
Swimsuit season is coming up and there is a great influx of threads being released about the best way to lose weight quickly. Unfortunately, none of these methods are safe and none of them are clear enough for someone first learning about their body and how it functions. This is going to be a very simple guide geared towards women looking to lower body fat percentage in a healthy way. Sadly, I have noticed that there is a lot of misinformation being shared among girls who are basically starving themselves in order to drop body weight. I want to make sure that you ladies are doing it safely and that you are getting the results you want, not the ones you think starvation will get you. This may seem a bit much to read but it is the BEST way to safely lower your body fat. Best of all… It’s FREE.
Questions you may have:
Q.) Can’t I just eat healthy?
A.) Eating foods low in calories but high in nutrients is always a good idea but losing weight isn’t about that so much as eating less than you burn. You could still gain weight on healthy food and that is because your body isn’t going to discriminate when it sees energy it can’t use. Recently a professor lost weight eating Twinkies because he still consumed less calories than he burned. (It should also be noted he had vitamin supplements included in his meal).
Q.) I lost weight eating nothing but apples and water, why would I follow this?
A.) Anyone can lose weight eating apples and water. You are technically going below your calorie needs. Here is the thing, there are three sources we get energy from: Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein. They can be broken down into even more sub categories but for now we are going to focus on protein, a VERY important part of cell function (and guess what? There isn’t much protein in an apple). You need protein in order to carry out cell functions; you cannot live without it. Protein is made of amino acids and you can only make and manufacture a certain number of them, you need the rest through diet. If your body doesn’t get these essential biochemical compounds through diet it will turn to its only available source, your own muscle tissue. When anyone talks about weight loss, they talk about FAT loss, muscle is not fat. Muscle will keep you thin, make you look better naked and keep you healthy. Starving is the best way to lose muscle.
Good? Lets move on to the first step:
Step 1: Determine Your Basal Metabolic Rate
Everything you eat is made up of energy that we measure with calories. I’m sure we’ve all seen the nutrition labels on the side of nearly everything we consume along with other helpful information about the product. Losing weight is all about playing a numbers game with calories. To lose weight you need to consume less energy than you use, it is that simple. There are many ways to do this but we know diet and exercise to be the best method of balancing our energy needs.
The simple act of being alive uses energy and using a simple formula we can determine the amount of calories one would need in order to maintain existence, (in this case, body mass or weight). Just think, you wouldn’t even need to exercise to BURN energy, your beating heart does that for you! (Of course this isn’t very good for cardiovascular health but we’ll get into that later). Your BMR is going to be determined based on your age and weight (it takes energy to actually maintain fat so the larger you are, the more energy you actually need to stay fat).
To simplify getting this number, there are tons of calculators on the internet that you can use, I will post links below. For this guide we are going to use a fictional character called Jane. Jane is a 21 year old female that stands at 5’4”. Jane weighs 180lbs and wants to lose 40lbs. The first step Jane needs to do is find out how many calories she needs just to maintain her weight. I went to this site to find out:
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
Imputing Jane’s information gives me a BMR of approximately 1640 calories. If Jane were just to lay in bed all day, she would burn that much energy just laying there. Of course, most of use get up or have a job, we do more than stare at the wall for 16 hours.
Step 2: Determine Your Daily Caloric Needs
We just need to go one step further to get to Jane’s caloric needs for the day assuming she actually got up and did something other than watch day time TV. Jane doesn’t do much so we’re going to multiply her BMR by 1.2 just for the sake of this example. If you would like to see your calorie needs, go to this page and determine your level of activity and what you would need to multiply your BMR by.
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/
Our formula now looks like this: Daily Caloric Needs = BMR x 1.2
We know that Jane’s BMR is 1640 calories so we need to multiply that by 1.2 to get the calories she would need to live if she were just going about her daily routine. The number we get is 1,968.
Step 3: Eat Less than Your Daily Caloric Needs
Alright, so lets go back to calories. All Jane would have to do to lose weight is eat LESS than 1968 calories a day. But how much weight can she lose and how far under should she eat? We know that there is about 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. Let’s assume Jane has started eating less than her body needs to survive. Jane’s body is going to start scrambling to get energy to live, her heart has to pump blood to her limbs, her cells have to fight against disease… And it needs to do that with energy. Where does Jane’s body find that energy? FAT!!!!
The process that the body goes about turning fat into usable energy isn’t important to understand in GREAT detail but if you want to marvel at the wonders of human life you can certainly look it up. What is important is that now Jane has a calorie deficit that she needs to fill and her body is going to do that by going to her fat stores. WHAT JANE WANTS!
Let’s say Jane wants to lose 1 pound a week. She would need to eat 500 calories less than her daily caloric needs to do that.
1,968-500=1,468
So Jane has 1,468 calories to play around with. She could lose more weight by going under this but it’s important not to eat too little otherwise you will A.) Be starving B.) Start to do damage to your body.
That is really all you need to know about losing weight. Tada, you now have the knowledge to make it happen. Look at nutrition labels and measure and count out calories and you WILL lose weight. Everything after this point is merely how to go about keeping your food under your calorie needs.
Step 4: How to Balance Hunger and Caloric Need.
So now the big question is how to eat 1,468 calories and not lose your mind.
This is where eating healthy and exercise come into play. Did you know that a Mcdonald’s Angus Deluxe has 750 calories? I know, right? I could eat like 10 of them. Let’s add fries to that. 380 calories. How about a coke? 210. That’s 1,340 calories total. In one meal Jane would have managed to eat nearly here entire day’s worth of calories and once that was digested, she would be starving, looking for her next meal. Of course, she could still go up to 1968 calories and not put on weight but the point is to lose weight so that is kind of a moot point.
How do we stay under our caloric needs without going hungry? This is the hardest part about losing weight, the physical pangs of hunger can really make weight loss a drag.
You need food that will take up room in your stomach without killing your caloric needs for the day. That basically means things like vegetables, fruit, and lean complete protein.
I can PROMISE you that if you are hungry, you are NOT going to stick to a plan. You should never feel hungry! If it isn’t a meal or snack time and you feel like you’re going to die, you’re doing something wrong.
(more to come)
