Optimal Calorie Intake for Weight Loss

I get asked this all the time, and finding the answer to this question is one of the first things I do when working with a client who wants to lose weight. Calories are a big deal; the fact is, if we eat too many, we gain weight and if we eat too few we lose weight. There are different ways to control your calorie intake, including calorie counting or tracking, following a calorie-controlled meal plan, and eating mindfully by getting in touch with feelings of hunger and fullness. The most important thing I want my clients to know about calories is that although to lose weight you need to eat less, going too low in calories while dieting can have detrimental effects.

You may have heard of this equation before: There are 3500 calories in one pound of fat, therefore if we create a 500 calorie deficit each day, we will lose 1 pound per week, and if we create a 1000 calorie deficit each day, we will lose 2 pounds per week. I recently watched "Fat Head," a documentary starring Tom Naughton. I did not care for the movie, mostly because he was very good at pointing out problems but fell short in offering solutions. One of the problems he pointed out was that this equation does not always translate to producing the expected result when put into practice.

Most people who work in the health and fitness industry already know this (Mr. Naughton is a comedian and computer programmer). The reason for the discrepancy is because when your calorie deficit is too large, your body decreases your metabolic rate, this closing the gap of deficit. This is a survival response and prevents you from starving. Although this will happen any time you reduce your calorie intake for a prolonged period of time, the effect is much more significant the more severe the calorie deficit.

If you are just starting a weight loss program and doing it on your own, I advise limiting your calorie deficit to 500 calories per day. You can further help protect your metabolism by splitting the deficit between calories and exercise; eating 250 fewer calories, and burning and extra 250 calories. Then, be patient. We all know time passes so quickly, except when you are waiting for a pot of water to boil, or weighing yourself daily waiting for those pounds to fall off. Keep in mind as with everything, weight loss takes time, and since time will pass anyway, you may as well set some very achievable habits into place to do consistently that will help move you toward your goal weight.

Here are some helpful steps to getting started:

1. Determine how many calories you need per day given your age, gender, weight, height, activity level, and other factors that affect total calorie expenditure. A great resource to help you get started is the Healthy Body Calculator created by my fellow RD Joanne Larsen MS RD http://dietitian.com/calcbody.php. Select "maintain weight" in the assessment form, and that way you can create your calorie deficit manually. Or, call me for an appointment at 480-703-8883 for help determining what your appropriate calorie intake should be.

2. Decide how you will burn an additional 250 calories daily. Choose a physical activity you enjoy enough to be able to stick with. Cut your daily calories by 250 per day; use a calorie tracking tool, or contact me about getting weekly meal plans for your target calorie level to take the hassle out of calculating and planning your menus.

3. Implement your plan and log your progress. You can't measure something you have no data on, so it is crucial while changing your habits to lose weight that you log your daily food consumption, fluid intake, and exercise. Then, each week, decide on 1 or 2 things you are going to improve upon next week. Perhaps you will add 5 minutes to your daily walk, or increase the speed of your walking. Or maybe you will decrease episodes of eating out from 5 to 2 times per week. Make the goals specific, because a goal like "eat better" is very difficult to track and measure, and is usually not effective in helping you change your habits.

Alyssa Chicci RD, CDE, CLT is a Registered Dietitian, Certified Diabetes Educator, and Certified LEAP Therapist. She helps people lose weight, achieve optimal health, and feel better. She specializes in treating clients for weight loss, diabetes, IBS, migraine, and fibromyalgia.

On her website, Alyssa offers creative nutritious menus for the busy work week, diet plans, and email nutrition tips. Do not miss out on these valuable tools! Visit http://nutritionresolution.com

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Not Just Another Meal: 6 Reasons to Eat Breakfast

How many times have you heard the phrase "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"? Well, in this case it is not only an age-old myth, but a medical truth. A Balanced breakfast can help improve your mental functioning, affect your mood, influence a healthy weight and reduce the risk of chronic diseases later on in life. When you skip breakfast it can act as "nutritional boomerang "and adversely affect your mental and physical state, both in the short and long term.

Even so, about 30% of the population don't bother with breakfast (and no, instant coffee does not count as breakfast). Among the most common excuses are: I don't have the time to fit in eating in the mornings, I'd rather save those calories, I forget to eat, if I eat in the morning I feel more hungry later on in the day and more.

So if you belong to the "excusers", you should read the following facts:

One. Jump Starts metabolism

breakfast jump starts your metabolism and fuels your body for the rest of the day. It will help you be more alert and maintain a more efficient metabolism.

During the night, your body significantly reduces its activity. In the morning, after a full night's sleep, the body starts activating its systems and organs back, and for that it needs "fuel" and energy. If your body does not get enough energy it will start addressing energy stores in the body. The result: we feel weak, less alert, and the time required for us to wake up and start the day takes longer than usual.

The word breakfast means breaking the fast, and refers to the fast our body experienced the night before. After not eating for several hours your metabolism goes into "starvation" mode, it slows down automatically and switches to energy saving and storage state.

This is the body's ingenious survival mechanism for dealing with situations of lack of food for hours and days, but because we live in an affluent society, survival situations are particularly infrequent, hence, prolonged fasting periods cause the body to simply store excess weight as fat.

Two. Weight loss and hunger

The concept that skipping breakfast contributes to weight loss and calorie saving is fundamentally wrong since by doing so, we actually throw our body out of balance. Many studies have also shown an inverse correlation between maintain a healthy weight and eating Breakfast, namely those who eat in the morning have a lower weight than others who skip breakfast. This relationship exists among all age groups.

The most interesting finding in these studies was that those who eat a nutritious breakfast indeed consume more calories per day, compared to people that are not eating breakfast at all, yet their weight was substantially lower. The reason for this is that a sustained lack of energy slows down metabolism and causes an intense need for food later in the day. Another interesting finding is that people who combine a healthy breakfast within a diet program find it easier to stick to their nutritional program over time and they will suffer less of hunger throughout the day.

Three. Maintains health

Many surveys investigating the effect of breakfast show a multitude of health benefits. The two most prominent include health surveys conducted by the American Dietetic Association for seven years and an Australian research spanning over three decades, which examined the effects of breakfast on the health status of the adult population. Findings indicated unequivocally that people who eat a nutritious breakfast on a daily basis are less likely to develop diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Another comprehensive study published in 2003 the American Heart Association found that people who tend to skip breakfast has a significant chance of being obese at an older age and a higher chance of high blood pressure.

Four. Brain functioning

The brain and nervous system also need ENERGY and nutrients early in the day to fully and optimally function. The human brain is fed and utilizes glucose (sugar) as a sole source of energy and therefore an important component of breakfast should include carbohydrates. Skipping breakfast forces the body and brain, to "work harder" and break down scarce carbohydrates storages or alternatively breakdown fats and proteins into glucose.

However, eating breakfast has been proved to increase levels of concentration and alertness, mental capabilities and improved memory and mood. Skipping breakfast on the other hand, will lead to irritability, lack of concentration and general weakness.

Five. A Balanced diet

For people finding it difficult to keep a healthy and balanced diet throughout the day because of their busy schedule or for other reasons such as eating out, it is important to emphasize that breakfast is almost always under our control and therefore we can determine its quality. In addition, a strong relationship exists between skipping breakfast and following a diet with a poor nutritional value. Those who eat breakfast find it easier to obtain daily nutritional needs, compared to those who skip breakfast (for example with regard to the amount of vitamins, calcium, phosphorus, fiber).

Six. It is especially important for school children

Many studies have examined the effect of breakfast on school children - all showed that children who ate a nutritious breakfast were found to have lower fat levels and had a better chance to maintain a healthy weight in adulthood. In addition, these children were found to have a relatively increased learning ability.

You should know that breakfast has a profound effect on improving brain functioning, and encouraging learning
Hence it also helps to improve test scores and reduce signs of hunger such as stomach aches and headaches, muscle tension and fatigue - all factors that interfere with learning.

Make your children active in choosing and preparing their breakfast. Giving a personal example from parents and explaining about the importance significantly increase the chance of this important habit to be instilled in your children.

Breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day. It contributes to health and well-being both in the short and long term.

Jennifer Scott - Fitness Trainer and Nutrition Consultant. I am passionate about health and fitness and dedicated to help others on the path of leading a healthy lifestyle through my blog http://top-7-diets.com where I post about fitness, weight loss and healthy living. Give yourself a chance at losing weight top 7 diets is the place to start!

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Losing Weight And Doing It With The Right Low Calorie Diet Plan

Losing weight can be very difficult with some people and quite a no-brainer with others. You see those who perpetually struggle to shave off those extra pounds of fat. They keep trying out one diet plan after the other with little to no success at all. Then you also have those who exercise like crazy in order to lose weight fast. Indeed, they manage to shed those pounds that they want. Unfortunately, the moment they take a break from their workout routines, they gain those pounds back twice as fast. But you also have those who seem to lose weight so easily with just a little diet and moderate exercise.

Actually, genetics can be one of the main reasons for these weight loss dilemmas. There are some who are genetically overweight and ordinary diet and exercise programs can't really help them. They need to see a specialist so that their condition can be properly evaluated. However, in most cases, these weight loss problems can be remedied just by living a healthier lifestyle. By achieving the right balance between diet and exercise, things can go your way pretty smoothly. Nonetheless, there are also those who do not have enough time to spare for regular exercise routines. If you're one of them, what other options do you have?

You can try out low calorie meal plans to help you stave off those unwanted calories. The principle is pretty simple. You only consume those calories which you can burn on a daily basis. That way, nothing gets stored as unwanted pounds of fat. Here are some pretty effective tips to help you out. First, remember that the most important meal of the day is breakfast. Thus, your calorie-loading should start from there. Whittle them away by lunchtime and consume as little as possible before bedtime. That's because you hardly have any activities by then.

Second, load up on fiber-rich and protein-rich foods. They can make you feel full fast and are much easier to burn. Cereals, whole-wheat bread, skimmed milk, egg whites, lean meat, and of course select fruits and vegetables are great sources. Third, do away with salt in almost all your dishes. If you do the cooking, use salt sparingly and use only iodized salt. Discover the power of herbs when it comes to bringing flavor to your food. Fourth, stick to fruit and vegetable combinations with lots of water for your in-between snacks. They will help you stay trim and healthy while letting your body soak up all the nutrients it needs.

Visit the lowfatdietplan.com for great advice, tips, and stories on how to lose weight with the right meals.

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Discover the Magical Effect of Raspberry Ketone

Burn the extra body fat, boost your energy levels, give a kick-start to your metabolism and finally, shed weight with utmost ease! What better that discovering a weight loss supplement that has it all and does not restrict one to a stringent diet plan or strenuous work out regime? Have you heard about the beneficial raspberry ketone weight loss supplement?

The raspberry ketone scam is nothing but a myth, keeping in view its increasing demand online and people rushing for a bottle to the nearest store. The all new you, is not far away with the raspberry ketone diet. This miraculous fat burner is the hottest selling weight loss pill in all over America today, for it shortest route to a flat belly.

The raspberry ketone burns fast faster by breaking the excess fat into cells and uses it to stimulate energy into the body. Although, a healthy diet full of greens and fruits, high on protein and fiber with a little bit of physical workout is indeed the ideal way for a healthy living. But, with the ever increasing wayward routine and lifestyle, work commitments and meeting deadlines one is left with very little time to contribute towards self care. Balanced eating and physical work out take a toss with irregular eating habits in office canteens and restaurants offering junk food full of high calories, carbohydrates and fats combined with long sedentary office hours, working late nights leaves almost no time for physical exercise. Thus, keeping in mind the current patterns of food and lifestyle the raspberry ketone diet helps to lose weight despite intake of high calorie diet on a daily basis.

This magical ingredient drives past the run of the mill ordinary weight loss supplements, and transforms one into a slim and in shape person, where everyone around you can't stop gushing about the new and amazing you. This supplement is an extension of a routine activity to capitalise maximum on its weight loss effects.
The chief areas where raspberry ketone maximizes its efficacy are the waistline, the butt and the thighs, exactly those parts of the body were you desire to look your best and stunning and wear all kind of clothes with no inhibition. The Raspberry Ketone weight loss supplements help to reduce the inches on the waist, burns bulging fat off the butt and the thighs, making the abdomen and legs look sexier and slimmer.

Recommended by physicians all over America, Raspberry Ketone is gaining popularity amongst Hollywood celebrities and various talk shows.

Saule Health has been an authority on vitamins and nutrition for over 5 years. Covering topics from diet and weight loss to general health.

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Ways to Improve Your Health With Natural Products

The health market today is overloaded with to many products and too many people trying to make a a quick buck. Most people sell a product without doing much research or they just don't understand the way your body works. With years of study it becomes more and more clear that the best products out there usually come from natural means. Meaning that the healthiest products tend to be all natural or organic. Real health products are products like fruit for example, that remain untreated by chemicals and other harmful processing routines that can ultimately lead to human consumption. So lesson learned, stick to the most natural supplements or foods. The way "nature intended things to be" kind of products!

It's so beneficial to begin to eat and consume things that are kept untreated or organic as possible. Many products on the shelves today can cause some sort of allergic reaction within the body that the person is unaware of. And the products I'm speaking of are the so-called healthy products that they market to help gain muscle or increase metabolism. Whatever the case it seems that long term use of these products can cause side effects that the consumer is unaware of. To be the best begin to eat and consume the best.

Natural products that are gluten free and can be a great starting point at what kind of products are safe to buy. Natural and organic products boast benefits to your body's needs. Most include more vitamins, antioxidants, metabolism boosts, and immune system boosts to include just a few benefits. Fat loss is usually a direct effect of choosing products, foods, or supplements that keep it raw, natural, and organic. The other great benefits of eating healthy foods consist of lowering chances of disease, living longer, aging slower, and increased vitality. Start to feel good about yourself and start to look good too!

Eating healthy and eating healthy often is a game changer and will add so many benefits to your life. Don't be fooled by elaborate marketing, do the research and begin to see that natural products have more benefits than the processed and chemically induced counterparts. Eating healthy not only improves your overall health but also changes the way you feel and more importantly the way you look! So start to shop for the natural, organic, and pure foods so you can start feeling great today!

Visit thehealthtiger.com for your health needs. We offer some of the best health products around. There is no coincidence that you are reading this today! Go now to thehealthtiger.com web page to change your life! Start living healthy today! I am truly committed to help people win in life!
- Kyle Tiger Willson "The Health Tiger"

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Weight Loss Begins With Your Inner Transformation

With spring in the air, now is the perfect time to commit to losing weight and choosing a healthy lifestyle.

But, did you know that getting healthy and losing weight is more than just an external process? But focusing on the physical process alone often leaves you with a sense of disconnection with your mental self-image.

Have you ever walked past a mirror and caught a glimpse of yourself out of the corner of your eye - and did a double take because you couldn't believe that was you? Have you ever looked at photographs of yourself and gasped because you didn't realize you looked "like that"? These "mental jolts" take place when there is a gap between your outer appearance and your mental perception of yourself.

Weight loss is not just a physical process. You also need to "shed" the limited self-image that you have become accustomed to seeing in your mind. One of the easiest ways to do this is by visualizing the person you are becoming. The act of will familiarize your mind with the new person you are becoming. The more comfortable you can get with your beautiful new self-image, the more easily you will transition to your new physical state of being.

I have some homework for you... Tonight, spend some time creating a mental image of the person you wish to be.

• See yourself as slim, fit, healthy, and strong as you want to be, and put as much detail as you can into the vision.
• Love and appreciate this new and improved version of yourself, and then make an effort to BE this person in all of your daily activities.
• Think, speak and act like this person would think, speak and act.
• Move the way this person would move.
  

The more completely you can do this, the more easily you will find yourself transforming into a better you - mentally, physically and spiritually.

As part of your transformation, you may think that losing weight will finally make you feel attractive, but you don't have to wait until you are thin to boost your confidence. Below are two easy ways to give you an inner radiance that will translate out to an outer glow and instantly boost your attraction level.

Happiness.

Don't wait until you've lost weight to allow yourself to feel happy. Be happy now! That may sound like a hard thing to do; how can you be happy when you're miserable about the way you look and feel? Easy - by choosing it! Believe it or not, happiness is a choice that you make moment to moment every day of your life, and it is not based on outer qualities. Be happy while striving to improve yourself and your life.

Self-love.

True self-love (not vanity) is another sure way to make every day, write down three things that you love about yourself, and try to choose different things each day. For example, on Day One you might write, "I truly love my sense of humor, my eyes and my creativity." Be sure to really FEEL love and appreciation for yourself, rather than just thinking the thoughts. On Day Two choose three completely different things. It may be awkward to think this way at first, but eventually you will get better at thinking and saying nice things about yourself.

Incorporating these simple tips into your daily habit will strengthen your inner transformation and help solidify your physical changes. You will transform into a happy, lovable, attractive person - both inside and out - that will take your breath away!

If you find yourself still struggling with your weight loss, hypnosis can be especially beneficial to your journey.

If you'd like to learn more about how hypnosis can help, please contact Verena Martin at (704) 550-1201 or

email verena@southparkhypnosis.com.

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4 Best Strength Training Diet Tips to Minimize Time in Gym But Not Results

Do you get frustrated with the amount of hours you spend down the gym, and wonder if there was a way to reduce the time but not the results?

The following 4 workout tips below are probably the most effective at giving you more time in your life, while reaping the same results in fewer hours.

1. Less time between reps

There's no need to spend that much time between reps.

By reducing time spent resting you will increase your metabolism hence burn fat off faster.

Don't stretch yourself, keep it within the pain barrier to begin with, but 30 seconds should be the minimum relax before the next rep.

2. Compound not isolation exercises:

Compound exercises are strength training exercises that are going to deliver the best results in the shortest time possible.

Compound exercises include:

• Dead lifts
• Squats
• Rows
• Shoulder presses
• Lunges
• Bench presses

Not:

• Bicep curls
• Leg extensions
• Tricep extensions
• Lateral raises

3. Keep it to 1 or 2 reps:

You don't need to space out the reps in sets of 3's.

It's almost as beneficial in some respects to do full out sets by just doing an exercise in 1 or 2 reps.

It might obviously not be as influential in terms of the size in which you can build your muscle in the short-term, but if you maintain a high weight for longer, your cardio strength workout will increase and you will still reap very positive results.

4. Consume high energy foods before your workout:

When you're on a low calorie diet, you're energy levels fall meaning you're muscle glycogen levels which provide the source of strength training energy are lower.

To sustain short bursts of high impact energy, there are 5 foods which are best at helping to keep you energized throughout your workout and after.

These include:

• Oats
• Salmon
• Bananas
• Egg white
• Quinoa
  

Oats are great for sustaining blood glucose levels, as they are protein rich carbs which burn slowly so you avoid going from a high to a crash in energy.

Salmon is a powerful healthy fatty protein and should be consumed at least twice a week, while egg whites present a similar burst of fatty energy and also help rebuild and repair muscles.

Bananas not only make you feel fuller but contain plenty of potassium, an essential element for your body to produce energy, and Quinoa is probably the most protein rich carbohydrate that surpasses brown rice, which is why it's so popular among vegetarians.

Bottom line:

To sustain a high impact workout, high energy foods will help you rest less between sets, you can then perform less reps where you can focus on compound exercises - so you can reduce your time down the gym but still maintain fantastic results.

Additionally, consider using some of the latest weight loss supplements to really help you lose weight faster:

Visit: Best Weightloss Supplements to view the top 7 weightloss pills for 2013.

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