Fitness Friday: Four Weight Loss Stategies

You all probably know most of these tips. I'm sure you've heard them time and time again, but, as we all know, it is easier said than done. So hopefully, these tips will remind you and possibly teach some of the most valuable methods to lose the weight.

1) Caloric Budget
The most important part of weight loss is diet. I'm not talking about the atkins diet or south beach diet. When I say diet I'm talking about the type of food you consume on a regular basis. What you eat and how much you eat is FAR MORE important than exercise when it comes to weight loss. You could run 10 miles everyday, but if you don't watch what you eat, you will never lose weight.

Let me illustrate with an example. I bought one of those twix snack packs. It had 8 snack sized twix each with 80 Calories. I ate all of them (for the sake of research, of course) in less than ten minutes. That was a grand total of 640 Calories. To burn off those extra Calories I would have to run about 6.5 miles which would take me over an hour. It took me less than 10 minutes to put on and would take more than an hour to take off.

Diet is key to losing weight. All weight loss is based on this one equation:

Calories consumed - Calories used = Change in Calories

If your change in Calories is negative you have what is called a Calorie Deficit. You're body will make up for this by using fat as an energy source. In other words, you will lose weight. If your change in Calories is positive you have a Calorie Excess. Those Calories will be stored (as fat) for future use. About 3,500 Calories equal 1 pound.

The amount of Calories you need each day depends on many factors. You can use calulators like this or this to determine your Caloric Budget. I like the term budget because it helps me realize that I can eat a little treat, but that takes up some of my budget for the day so I need to eat less for dinner or I need to exercise more to burn off those extra Calories

2) Cardio
Cardiovascular exercises are by far the best type of exercise to lose weight. They are aerobic which means that they use oxygen to burn FAT. This is in contrast to anaerobic exercises, like weight lifting, which burn mainly SUGAR. This brings me to a common myth. Many people believe that if they do lots of crunches they will burn stomach fat. Not true. Other people slave away doing lunges hoping to burn butt and thigh fat. It won't happen. Those type of exercises are muscle building. They will increase muscle mass and strength, but they do not burn significant fat. There is no such thing as isolated fat reduction. You want to have flat abs and a tiny bottom? Do cardio. It is the most efficient exercise for burning fat. Examples of cardio: running, swimming, biking, kickboxing, spinning, dancing, step aerobics. Just make sure you do cardio for at least 20 minutes three times a week.

3) Strength Training
Strength training includes weight lifting and calisthenics (like crunches, pull ups, push ups). As noted above, these exercises do not burn a lot of fat, but they are important to build strength and increase muscle mass. As competitors in a weight loss competition, you may not think that you want to increase muscle mass, but I assure you that this increase in mass with help you lose fat. Muscles need energy to function. They can get this energy from two different places: the Calories you consume or fat storage. When you reduce the amount of Calories you consume your muscles will have no place to go but to the fat for their energy. The more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn even if you are just sleeping. That's right, a muscular person will burn more Calories just breathing than a person with less muscle all other factors remaining equal. This increase in energy use is called a faster metabolism. You can increase your metabolism by increasing you muscle mass. Bottom line, the more muscle you have, the faster you will burn fat.

4) What you eat
Reducing your caloric intake is important to losing weight, but that doesn't mean to just eat LESS fast food and snacks. To truly transform your body, you need to change your entire diet. A word of caution: don't change your diet so dramatically that it would be impossible to continue it. You are aiming for a change in lifestyle so use a diet that you can continue for your entire life. Avoid diets that focus on a single food; you will not get the diversity of nutrients you need. Avoid diets that drastically reduce calories; this will put your body into starvation mode and priority will be put on fat storage plus it will encourage binging. Ideally, your diet should consist of a variety of tasty, yet healthy food. You are what you eat in a very literal way. Your body rebuilds itself from the foods you eat so be sure to eat foods that are high in vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. Avoid foods with "empty calories" like sweets. Be sure to eat enough protein especially if you are doing strength training because that is what your muscles are built with. Here is a tip: vegetables are the ultimate low-calorie food. They have tons of flavor, high in nutrients, high in fiber, and low in calories. Plus, they are very filling. Remember, don't just eat less, eat better.

Obviously health and weight loss are very complicated issues (that is why my post is so long...sorry). There are many factors to achieving maximum health. Hopefully these strategies with help you achieve your weight loss goals.