With so many weight loss and weight management plans on the market why are so many people struggling to lose weight?  Because we cannot just go on a diet, lose weight, and expect to keep it off.  We need to find a way to integrate weight loss, fat loss, building muscle and weight management into our everyday life. We need a healthy plan.

At its most basic, losing weight is about burning more calories than you eat. Sounds simple right? If it were that simple, we wouldn’t be overweight. The real secret to weight loss is to make small, lasting changes. The key is to forget about instant results and settle in for the long run.

To lose one pound of fat, you must burn approximately 3500 calories over and above what you already burn day to day. That’s a lot of calories, and you can’t burn 3500 calories in one day. But if you take it step by step, you can do it.

Obviously, exercise is a key component in any weight loss program. The best way to lose weight is with a combination of cardio, strength training and a healthy diet. But how do you pick an exercise that will maximize calorie burn? The best cardio exercise for weight loss is one that you will do regularly.

• Impact cardio exercise like walking, will boost your heart rate quicker than no-impact exercises like swimming or cycling.
• High impact cardio exercise like running or jumping, burns more calories than lower impact cardio.
• Whole body cardio exercise, exercises that involve the upper and lower body, like step, group kick and group groove make it easy to get the heart rate up, and keep it up. This is a great way to burn excess calories.

 Contact Answer is Fitness in your area for more information on a weight loss program.

It has happened to plenty of people, maybe even to you. Diet and lose weight, come off the diet and gain the weight back. But who wants to diet forever? There is a way to lose weight without a special diet plan, books, or medicine.

Do you want to lose 5 lbs, 10 lbs or 50 lbs? How much weight your lose and how fast you lose it is determined by only one set of principles. We learned that principle when we learned first grade math. Our body weight is determined by the amount of energy that we take in as food and the amount of energy we expend in our daily activities.

Calories are energy. So if you do not gain weight, it isn’t that you do not or cannot gain weight. Rather, you are probably taking in the same amount of calories that you burn each day. If you're slowly gaining weight over time, most likely your caloric intake is greater than the number of calories you burn throughout the day.

Our intake of calories in any given day is completely within our control through the amount of food we eat.  To a large degree, we can control the number of calories we burn each day. The number of calories we burn depends upon the number of calories our body burns just being alive, and our physical activity.

Our weight does determine how much energy (or calories) we burn at rest. Keep in mind that muscle mass burns more calories than fat. So while many say cardio, cardio, cardio is the path to weight loss, a strong muscular body burns more calories, so you should have a plan for both cardiovascular exercise and weight bearing exercises in your fitness program.
 
Lifestyle and work habits partially determine how many calories we need each day. For people who do not have jobs that require intense physical activity, exercise or increased physical activity can increase the number of calories burned.

An average woman 31-50 years of age who leads a sedentary lifestyle needs about 1,800 calories per day to maintain a normal weight. A man of the same age requires about 2,200 calories. Keep in mind this is a very rough estimate. Participating in a moderate level of physical activity (exercising three to five days per week) requires about 200 additional calories per day.

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