I have been very fortunate to learn a lot of good habits in nutrition and health and I would like to share these with you. I am putting together a new website on losing weight www.tipstolose15lbs.com
15 Tips to lose 15 pounds
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Tip 1
COUNT CALORIES
The first step to losing weight is by counting calories is to understanding what a calorie is and how it applies to your weight. A calorie is a unit of measurement that measures the amount of energy contained in a food or beverage. Figure Out How Many Calories You Should Eat A Day to Lose Weight
Tip 2
FIND OUT YOUR BASAL METABOLIC RATE
Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is BMR (kCal)
Body Weight in lbs x 15 plus moderate activity (minutes per day) x 3.5
Since you wish to lose weight , your target weight = BMR – 500 cal
Example: For instance, you weigh 140 lb and you perform 20 mins of moderate activity every day. BMR of this example = (140 x 15) + (20 x 3.5) = 2100 + 70 = 2170 kcal. BMR minus 500kcal; it would be 2170 – 500 = 1670 kcal. Therefore 1670 kcal is the target in this example to losing 1 lb per week.
Tip 3:
DIETARY CONTROL.
To lose weight it is essential to pay attention to food labels. Counting calories is impossible without this skill. You should know how to find a food’s caloric content and its serving size. Comparing labels among different foods and beverages is crucial for making the healthier choices required to lose weight.
Tip 4 :
SMART SNACK
You can help prevent overeating and maintain blood sugar levels by eating something about every three hours. Getting too hungry will backfire on your efforts to eat healthy and practice portion control. Aim for a healthful, satisfying snack, such as an apple and some reduced-fat cheddar cheese. Eating more may seem wrong, but if you eat the right foods this will help you lose weight.
Choose healthier snacks Snack on fruits and vegetables instead of candy, cookies, and chips Try pretzels, low-fat popcorn, or low fat frozen yogurt.
Tip 5
DO NOT SKIP MEALS
Do not skip breakfast. People who eat breakfast lose weight easier. Skipping meals makes you hungrier and you are more likely to overeat. Meal skipping is one of the worst ways to lose weight. Many people think skipping meals is a great way to cut calories, but in the end, they fail to lose weight. You’ll be more likely to overeat or even binge (when you finally do eat) if you do not eat regular meals. Plus your body may go into “starvation mode” if don’t eat enough, causing you to maintain (or even gain) rather than lose weight!
You really should plan your meals here is a website that can help you with your plans. Daily Meal Planner.
TIP 6
PORTION CONTROL
Practice Portion Control
Measuring food may seem like a drudgery, but it will prove invaluable in your efforts to lose weight. Start out by comparing a measured standard serving of foods to your typical helping. You may find you usually consume two or even three times the recommended serving. In time you will reprogram your brain to eyeball portion sizes, a key skill for losing weight. When you go out order smaller portions, ask the waiter for smaller portions, they will only be happy to help.
TIP 7
EAT THE RIGHT FOODS
Every body is different. It stands to reason that everybody will lose weight differently. Even if you do the exact same things that I do, you won’t lose weight at the same rate. The key is in finding your triggers. Keep your goal in sight, and do whatever you have to do to meet that goal. When you start looking at someone else’s habits, you’re only going to become discouraged and quit without even realizing that it’s physically impossible to be anybody but yourself.
TIP 8
EAT SLOWLY
Eating slowly can lead to weight loss, sit at the table and eat your meal and enjoy each bit. Don’t sit in front of the tv or newspaper eating your mind won’t register the food going down.
Did you ever notice that thin people take an awfully long time to eat their food? Eating slowly is one method that can help take off pounds. That’s because from the time you begin eating it takes the brain 20 minutes to start signaling feelings of fullness. Fast eaters often eat beyond their true level of fullness before the 20 minute signal has had a chance to set in. The amount of calories consumed before you begin to feel full can vary significantly depending on how quickly you eat. So slow down, take smaller bites and enjoy and savor every tasty morsel.
TIP 9
WRITE IT DOWN IN A DIARY
The first thing anyone who wants to lose weight should do is keep a food diary.
Write down what you eat in a diary, put aside a little bit of time at the end of your day.
All you have to do is jot down what, when, and how much you eat in a notebook. A food diary will give you a clear picture of your current eating habits so you can identify the changes you need to make to lose weight.
TIP 10
DRINK PLENTY OF WATER
Drink Plenty of WaterWater helps you lose weight in several ways: If you tend to have a problem with “water weight,” drinking more water can help alleviate bloating. Replacing high-cal drinks such as soda with water cuts hundreds of calories. You shouldn’t wait until you’re feeling thirsty to drink water; thirst can be mistaken for hunger, causing you to overeat. Proper hydration improves your sense of well-being, which will keep up your motivation to lose weight, this is an essential diet tip.
TIP 11
EXERCISE and WEIGHT TRAINING
It is virtually impossible to lose weight and keep it off without exercising regularly. Start out today by taking a brisk walk or riding a bike. Work your way up from 10 minutes to 30-40 minutes a day, most days a week, and you could reap health benefits and weight loss results in a matter of weeks. Plus, exercise boosts your metabolism, making it even easier to lose weight. It is very important to lose body fat and working out is the best way to lose weight.
We chose to list this separately from the “exercise” category because of the significant weight loss benefits attached to weight training in and of itself. The basic equation is this: the more muscle tissue you have, the more calories you will burn. This is why world class weight lifters must eat thousands of calories a day to maintain their weight.
TIP 12
MENTAL TOUGHNESS
Really focus on WHY it is important to you to lose weight. If the reason is not important enough for you, you are not ready to change. You have to want to lose weight for yourself and remain positive.
If a certain weight lose method hasn’t worked in the past don’t try that methos again, there are plenty of other ways to lose pounds, try an alternative method.Take the Atkins Diet, for example. It is easy to lose some weight with severe carbohydrate restrictions but that diet may have worked for a short time and then you couldn’t lose any more with that particular diet.
TIP 13
SET REALISTIC GOALS
Men and women are different and they should have different goals,it’s been proven that men can lose weight more rapidly than women can, which is due to our physiological makeup (women are supposed to have more fat than men, because they’re the birthing gender) females should expect to set separate goals than males – especially if you’re working on losing weight together, side by side.
TIP 14 LOSE WEIGHT SLOWLY
Try to remember that “losing 15 pounds in two weeks” is nothing to celebrate. It is important to realize that the more quickly weight is lost, the more likely the loss is coming from water and muscle, not fat. Since muscle tissue is critical in keeping our metabolism elevated, losing it actually leads to a decrease in the amount of calories we can each day without gaining weight. Fat loss is best achieved when weight is lost slowly. Strive for a weight loss of no more than 1-2 pounds per week. One pound of weight is equivalent to 3500 calories. By making small changes like eliminating 250 calories a day from food and expending 250 calories a day from exercise, you can lose one pound (of mostly fat) per week. You can calculate how much time you need to exercise to burn 250 calories and lose pounds slowly but surely.
TIP 15 JOIN A SUPPORT GROUP
A big key in long term weight control comes from receiving encouragement and support from others.This is one of the best ways to lose weight You can check to see if groups such as Jenny Craig offer programs and resources in your areas. You may also wish to check with your local hospital to see if their registered dietitian conducts group weight loss programs. The internet have forums and support groups.Tell your family what you are doing so they can be supportive, take photos-before and after.
For more information on how to lose 15lbs and how to lose that body fat.