Watch Your Calories: The Real Secret to Weight Loss

What is the real secret to losing or gaining weight? People restrict themselves to certain cuisines, particular food groups, ban high fat, high carb, and specific foods. Despite the countless number of diets people attempt, the answer is really not so complicated. Barring certain medical conditions, you simply have to burn more calories than you consume to lose, and consume more than you burn to gain.

How Much Should You Eat?

You first have to determine your daily calorie needs. This is the amount of calories you need to eat to maintain a particular weight. First determine your target weight; the ideal weight you are trying to reach.

Your target weight times 10 = Base Calories

Ex. Target Weight 170 lbs times 10 = 1700 calories

Your Base Calories are the calories your body needs for daily functioning. Next adjust this by your activity level.

Activity Level:
Sedentary: Base Calories times .20
Moderately Active: Base Calories times .40
Active: Base Calories times .50

Add your Base Calories and Activity Level

Ex. Base Calories 1700 times .40 (moderate) = 680 calories
1700 + 680 = 2380 Target Calories

Digestion: Surprisingly, your body uses some energy just digesting your food, so finally, add another 10% for digestion and absorbing nutrients.

Ex. Target Calories 2380 times .10 = 238
2380 + 238 = 2618 Total Daily Calories

So to shoot for a weight of 170 lbs. you should be eating about 2618 calories a day.

 

Track Your Daily Food

Write down everything you eat over several days in a notebook or food journal. That means everything, including drinks and snacks. Keep track of the number of calories from reading the package labels or use a nutrition chart. Compare this to your total calorie goal to get an ideal of where to make adjustments. You can often exchange higher calorie foods for fruits and vegetables to cut calories while increasing nutrition.

Limit Your Portions

How many servings in a package can be a stumbling point for many people. Most calories listed on the package are for one serving, while the package often contains two or more servings.

Gain or Lose Weight

One pound equals about 3500 calories. So by cutting 500 food calories a day or burning an extra 500 calories a day with exercise you can lose a safe pound a week. Of course, by adding an extra 500 calories a day you can also gain about a pound a week.

So remember, with all the diets out there, it's more about how much you eat then the kinds of food you eat. Be sure to make healthy choices for what you do eat, at the very least the USDA  daily food plan. Knowing how many calories your body needs, how many calories the food you eat contains, and making healthy choices are the key to finding the balance for controlling your weight.

More Benefits from Red Wine

Of the many pleasures in life, beer is one of my favorites. There is nothing like sipping on a tall, cold one while watching the game or a fight. I spent about five years living in Germany where I got to love the good stuff, and though I'd drink wine occasionally, beer has always been my adult beverage of choice.

Lately I've been making a switch to the wine, mostly for the health benefits. Though some evidence suggests that a couple of beers a day may have benefits, there is a massive amount of study showing wine in moderation is healthy.

Its well known that a substance called resveratrol found in red wine can help prevent blood clots, thereby reducing the risks of heart attack and stroke. Resveratrol has also been shown to stop the growth and spread of some cancers. Recently,Harvard Medical School issued a press release about how red wine is very effective against prostate cancer in men. Resveratrol and saponin, another compound in red wine, have been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol.

To me this is all good news. A lot of wines are very good once you get used to the change in style. Though wine may not carry the machismo of a six pack, you can pretend to be sophisticated amongst your "down it and burp" friends. You just have to sample until you find some you like, which is actually not a bad past time and can turn into a hobby. If you also happen to outlive all the hardcore tough guys who think wine is soft, well... who's macho then.

Healthy Greek Style Spinach

Spinach can taste delicious, and many who didn't care for spinach when young love this recipe. Since spinach is high in vitamins A, C, E, and K and rich source of antioxidants, we should all include it in our diets. Add a little garlic and olive oil and you have a super healthy dish.

Ingrediants:

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lb. fresh spinach leaves
• 3 oz. Feta cheese
• juice of half a lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

Wash the spinach leaves in cold water and drain excess water.Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan until hot and then add the garlic. Cook the garlic 1 to 2 minutes until golden (not dark) brown. Add the spinach and stir in with the olive oil and garlic. Sometimes the leaves may be too bulky to fit the pan, so let them cook a couple of minutes until the leaves wilt some and you can add more. When all the leaves are in the pan stir in the lemon juice and cook until all the leaves are wilted and most water from the leaves is gone. Remove from heat, stir in the Feta cheese, salt, and pepper, Serve hot.

Getting Healthy: The Road Starts Here

Disease Prevention

We've all heard the reports about how we Westerners tend to lead a lifestyle that can be excessive and at the same time sedentary. In other words, we eat too much of the wrong foods and at the same time sit on our butts too much. Over time these are the things that are killing us. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Chronic diseases—such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes—are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. These diseases account for 7 of every 10 deaths and affect the quality of life of 90 million Americans.

As most sources agree, these diseases are usually the most preventable. Even when it isn't killing us right now, this lifestyle is aging us faster. Many of us have reached (or past) the point in our lives when we notice the signs that our age is jumping up and down on us while we sleep. Didn't you ever wonder why it's harder to get up in the morning, and about those dark circles under your eyes? For me it was time to fight back. The question was how do you recover some of that energy and vitality of youth? After a lot of research in books, online, and from people who seem to be very fit, I've come to the conclusion that it really all goes back to the basics. A lifestyle of good nutrition, exercise, proper rest, and healthy habits is the best way to fight the clock.

Nutrition

Good nutrition lowers your risk of getting many of the chronic diseases, including diabetes, osteoporosis, some cancers, strokes, and heart disease. Even though I consider myself a very long way from "obese" I began noticing I was getting a little soft around the waistline. I know this happens naturally as we age, but, you see I'm just not ready to go there yet. I still want to be able to define myself in the "athletic" category. Even further, how can one know when the health risks begin to become a factor? The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute says:

The more body fat that you carry around and the more you weigh, the more likely you are to develop heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers.

Even those who are not considered obese (too much body fat) can still be nutritionally deficient in other areas. Of course, If you wish to remain lean and trim, and possibly expand your life span, you have to make a long term lifestyle choice.

Exercise

Exercise is associated with reduced risks for many causes of death, especially for cardiovascular disease. Most of the same risks that are reduced by good nutrition are further reduced by regular exercise, especially heart attack, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Of course exercise has a great influence on body fat and the health risks associated with it, by helping to burn off those excess calories. Exercise improves blood circulation and cholesterol levels. At the same time you get the benefits of stronger muscles, more limber joints, denser bones, and a better overall appearance and self image. Besides the health benefits, who doesn't want to look good next to the pool.

Rest

Though it is often overlooked as a factor of good health, proper rest is just as important as the other components. This includes sleep and relaxation to reduce stress. Sleep is the time of growth and repair for the body, and is essential to getting the full benefits of nutrition and exercise. Many of us maintain such busy schedules that we are too wound up when it's time to sleep, or feel like zombies when we should be active. Yet it is important that we adjust our lifestyles so that we get the proper amount of rest to let those nutrients clean and repair our bodies and to recover from those workouts. We should also take time to do things we like just for the fun of it to help fight the effects of stress.

Transition

Trust me, most of those things we enjoy that are not good for us will not seem as important when your health is gone. Many people feel they don't have the time for a healthy lifestyle, but if you scrutinize your schedule you may find that some of the time you spend doing unhealthy things could be rerouted to healthier activities. Pull yourself away from the TV to get some exercise. Turn it off (yes, it turns off) if that's what you need for a good nights' sleep. That time spent driving to and sitting in the drive thru line could be spent chopping some vegetables for a healthy meal. Cook some extra meals on your time off and freeze them for when your too busy. Invest a few dollars into storage containers and take healthy food with you to work. In fact, learning to cook healthy meals can be a fun, stress relieving activity in itself.

A healthy lifestyle is not difficult when we put our minds to it. It just comes down to changing our priorities and making better choices.There are countless opportunities to make healthy choices, it only takes the will and focus to make those choices. Just remember nutrition, exercise, and rest are some of the major factors in greatly reducing your risk of getting many chronic diseases, and slowing down the biological clock. Eat well to live longer, exercise to live stronger, and get some rest to feel better and happier.