Weight Loss Information from experts |
|
The Truth About Counting Calories And Weight Loss
Do calories matter or do you simply need to eat certain foods and that will guarantee you'll lose weight? Should you count calories or can you just count "portions?" Is it necessary to keep a food diary? Is it unrealistic to count calories for the rest of your life or is that just part of the price you pay for a better body? You're about to learn the answers to these questions and discover a simple solution for keeping track of your food intake without having to crunch numbers every day or become a fanatic about your food. In many popular diet books, "Calories don't count" is a frequently repeated theme. Other popular programs, such as Bill Phillip's "Body For Life," allude to the importance of energy intake versus energy output, but recommend that you count "portions" rather than calories? Phillips wrote, "There aren't many people who can keep track of their calorie intake for an extended period of time. As an alternative, I recommend counting 'portions.' A portion of food is roughly equal to the size of your clenched fist or the palm of your hand. Each portion of protein or carbohydrate typically contains between 100 and 150 calories. For example, one chicken breast is approximately one portion of protein, and one medium-sized baked potato is approximately one portion of carbohydrate." Phillips makes a good point that trying to count every single calorie - in the literal sense - can drive you crazy and is probably not realistic as a lifestyle for the long term. It's one thing to count portions instead of calories - that is at least acknowledging the importance of portion control. However, it's another altogether to deny that calories matter. Yes, calories do count! Any diet program that tells you, "calories don't count" or you can "eat all you want and still lose weight" is a diet you should avoid. The truth is, that line is a bunch of baloney designed to make a diet sound easier to follow. Anything that sounds like work - such as counting calories, eating less or exercising, tends to scare away potential customers! But the law of calorie balance is an unbreakable law of physics: Energy in versus energy out dictates whether you will gain, lose or maintain your weight. Period. I believe that it's very important to develop an understanding of and a respect for portion control and the law of calorie balance I also believe it's an important part of nutrition education to learn how many calories are in the foods you eat on a regular basis - including (and perhaps, especially) how many calories are in the foods you eat when you dine at restaurants. The law of calorie balance says: To maintain your weight, you must consume the same number of calories you burn. To gain weight, you must consume more calories than you burn. To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn. If you only count portions or if you haven't the slightest clue how many calories you're eating, it's a lot more likely that you'll eat more than you realize. (Or you might take in fewer calories than you should, which triggers your body's "starvation mode" and causes your metabolism to shut down). So how do you balance practicality and realistic expectations with a nutrition program that gets results? Here's a solution that's a happy medium between strict calorie counting and just guessing: Create a menu using an EXCEL spreadsheet or your favorite nutrition software. Crunch all the numbers including calories, protein, carbs and fats. Once you have your daily menu, print it, stick it on your refrigerator (and/or in your daily planner) and you now have an eating "goal" for the day, including a caloric target. That is my definition of "counting calories" -- creating a menu plan you can use as a daily guide, not necessarily writing down every morsel of food you eat for the rest of your life. If you're really ambitious, keeping a nutrition journal for at least 4-12 weeks is a great idea and an incredible learning experience, but all you really need to get started on the road to a better body is one good menu on paper. If you get bored eating the same thing every day, you can create multiple menus, or just exchange foods using your one menu as a template. Using this method, you really only need to count calories once when you create your menus. After you've got a knack for calories from this initial discipline of menu planning, then you can estimate portions in the future and get a pretty good (and more educated) ballpark figure. So what's the bottom line? Is it really necessary to count every calorie to lose weight? No. But it IS necessary to eat fewer calories then you burn. Whether you count calories and eat less than you burn, or you don't count calories and eat less than you burn, the end result is the same - you lose weight. Which would you rather do: Take a wild guess, or increase your chance for success with some simple menu planning? I think the right choice is obvious. Copyright 2005 Tom Venuto Tom Venuto is a certified personal trainer, natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle. You can get info on Tom's e-book at: http://www.burnthefat.com. To get Tom's free monthly e-zine, visit http://www.fitren.com
MORE RESOURCES: Health coach shares daily diet to maintain 15 kg weight loss while travelling. How does her meal plan help? The Indian Express NIH study demonstrates long-term benefits of weight-loss surgery in young people National Institutes of Health (NIH) (.gov) Vidya Balan On What Went Behind Her Drastic Weight Loss: "This Is The First Year That I Have Not Worked Out" NDTV Movies Kelly Clarkson Lost Weight Walking—Here’s How You Can, Too! First For Women Kelly Clarkson’s Transformation: The Secret Behind Her Weight Loss Journey University of Missouri School of Medicine The Ideal You Weight Loss Center WGRZ.com Popular diabetes and weight-loss drug may reduce risk of Alzheimer’s disease The Daily | Case Western Reserve University Weight Loss Surgery, Obesity Drugs Achieve Similar Results but Have Different Safety Profiles Medscape See Lizzo’s Incredible Response to Ozempic Allegations Amid Weight Loss Prevention Magazine Telehealth Firms See Ozempic Copycats Sparking Employer Interest in Covering Weight-Loss Drugs Bloomberg Access to weight-loss injectables remains limited for most needy in the US, Yale study finds Connecticut Public Weight loss surgeries decrease as more patients seek out medication: Study Good Morning America Smoothie King to offer new Ozempic-friendly menu for customers taking weight loss medications Houston Chronicle Premier U sets itself apart from other weight loss clinics with cutting edge treatment! KTVI Fox 2 St. Louis 'Is 'Love Is Blind' Star Hannah Jiles On Ozempic? She Explains Her 70-Lb. Weight Loss Women's Health Can Weight Loss Surgery Help With High Blood Pressure? Hartford HealthCare A woman lost 75 pounds and kept them off. She made 2 simple changes while still enjoying her favorite foods. Business Insider Eli Lilly Plummets On Rare — But 'Big' — Sales Miss For Diabetes, Weight-Loss Drugs Investor's Business Daily Why compounders and telehealth providers are undeterred by the potential end of the weight-loss drug shortage Yahoo Finance Eli Lilly Stock: Is LLY Stock A Sell After Its Disastrous Third-Quarter Report? Investor's Business Daily Dieting can be a dream on a good night’s sleep The Nightly Country music star Jelly Roll celebrates major weight loss milestone. ‘You won’t recognize me’ Miami Herald Not Charley Hull’s Cigarettes Affliction but Something Related to Her Ex Is Behind Her Weight Loss EssentiallySports Weight loss care is leading IPO-hopeful Omada Health's latest growth surge as Ozempic boom continues Business Insider Weight-loss drug ingredient could help knee pain: Study NewsNation Now Five reasons weight-loss jabs alone won’t help get people back to work The Conversation Indonesia Is '1,000-Lb. Sisters' Star Tammy Slaton On Ozempic? Her Doctor Explains 500-Pound Weight Loss Journey Women's Health Endevica bets it has a weight-loss drug to beat GLP-1s with spinoff Crain's Chicago Business Weight loss injectables Swiss Re Analysis finds that after 2 years GLP-1 drugs for weight loss don’t justify their price Star Tribune Are weight loss jabs the solution to the obesity crisis? University of Cambridge news How Compounded Treatments Are Helping Hims & Hers Customers Meet Their Weight Loss Goals Yahoo Finance How to Support Children in Larger Bodies U.S. News & World Report Expanding Access to Weight-Loss Drugs Could Save Thousands of Lives A Year, Study Finds Yale School of Medicine 1000-Lb. Sisters’ Amy Slaton Tearfully Reacts to Milestone in Weight Loss Journey - E! Online E! NEWS NYC employee health plan nixes coverage for weight-loss drugs. It was paying for them ‘in error.’ Gothamist 5 "Bad" Things You Should Do If You're Trying to Lose Visceral Fat, According to a Dietitian EatingWell Vidya Balan breaks silence on drastic weight loss, reveals her new diet: 'I have not worked out all year' Hindustan Times Vidya Balan says removing ‘inflammation-inducing’ food from diet helped her lose kilos. Does it actually work? Hindustan Times |
RELATED ARTICLES
The Miraculous Claims of the Zone Diet One way of recognizing a fad diet is said to be the promise of multiple miraculous effects upon health. And Zone diet promises a lot. Breast Cancer - Another Obesity Victim Obesity raises the risk of various types of cancer. And only 3% people know that obesity increases cancer risks. 4 Tips for Fast Fat Loss Part III Fat Loss Tip #3) Proper Meal FrequencyMeal Frequency (i.e. If We Are Eating 99% Fat Free, Why Are We 99% Fat?! Unfortunately, obesity is reaching epidemic proportions, with over 60% of our population now overweight. We need to take control of this problem NOW. Fast Weight Loss - Can You Really Lose 60lbs in 30 Days? Fast Weight Loss - Is it better to lose 2lbs a day or 2lbs a week?Yes it's very possible that you can lose 60lbs in 30 days but I don't think you would want to and here's the reason why:Let's say you do lose 60lbs in 30 days? how much of that weight you lose do you think is going to be pure body fat? Remember-- body fat makes us look ugly.Anytime you try to lose more than 2lbs a week or 60lbs in 30 days (2lbs a day!)?A larger part of the weight you lose is only going to be water and muscle. FAT LOSS: The Truth On Fat Loss And How To Achieve It! Fat Loss in GeneralThis morning I conducted a search engine "search" on the word fat loss. "Fat Loss" and "Fat Loss Supplements", being the most popular keywords, came up with a combined 1800 links, in one search engine. Weight Loss Tips for a Swimsuit Body Spring is here and swimsuit weather is just around the corner. If you're like many of us, you start panicking about all the weight you need to lose to fit into your favorite swimwear. Resistance Training First; Fat Burning Second for Weight Loss Most men and women that I have trained over the years that were interested in weight loss, before meeting me their routine always included the bike or treadmill for 15-20 minutes or so, then proceeding on to the weights for some resistance training. Approximately one out of ten did both, and most either did one or the other. The Secret to Reaching Your Ideal Weight There are many books and internet articles written about weight control. However, if you already know the stuff you should be doing, you might want to skip past the next section of this article. A Personal Trainers...Holidaze Rules of day to day no longer apply as you surrender to the hearts and minds of those closest. Conversation, food and wine are intoxicating. Weight Loss Online -- The Fastest & Easiest Weight Loss Plan My first article provided steps for fast healthy weight loss. This was followed by my easy weight loss plan. Low Fat versus Low Carb Diets Diets, diets, diets.. Results Not Typical I had 14 weight/health-oriented newsletters in my inbox this morning. (Subscribe to one or two lists and they will multiply -- the rabbits of the Internet!)Several contained testimonials from rabid fans of their particular diet program. Action Plan to Take the Weight Off This Year Addicted to Restaurants Are you addicted to restaurants? So are lots of Americans. What used to be a "treat," going out for dinner, has become more common that cooking at home, and we think we're better off? Think again. Dumping Syndrome: The Dirty Secret Gastric Bypass Patients Keep Dumping syndrome is an effective result of the gastric bypass system which alerts the body of inappropriate eating. Dumping syndrome is described as a shock-like state when small, easily absorbed food particles rapidly dump into the digestive system. Close Kept Secrets to Weight Loss Lesson #9 WAHOO!!! for YOU!! You are the most AWESOME person alive!! Stand up and repeat after me. Come on, get up and feel the presence of God all around you. Drinking Water for Weight Loss An article published in http://www.inch-aweigh. Not One Ounce -- Candy At Your House Here come the candy canes. In our house, Santa always hung Hershey's Kisses on the tree. The Big FAT Lie Over two thirds of Americans are over weight, and half of them are considered obese. Most of the remaining third of Americans are concerned about becoming overweight! While we are obsessed with avoiding food that is high in fat, America has the dubious distinction of its population having the highest percentage of overweight people of any nation in the world! England is number two!One of the most common and harmful misunderstandings is the misinformation (lie) that we are fat because we eat too much fat. Fat Burning Tips These fat burning tips can help you discover a fat burning secret that works well. The fat burning process is a matter of proper dieting and the correct exercise and training techniques. |
© KeralaClick.com 2006 |