Set Weekly & Monthly Weight Loss Goals

If you set a weekly and monthly weight loss goal, and record each morning's weigh-in, it'll help you stay focused on your diet.

That's because it breaks up your overall goal into smaller, more manageable blocks.

The reason why a lot of people give up on their weigh loss efforts is because they're focused on the long-term goal, rather than the short term. After a month of dieting, the long-term goal begins to look like a long and daunting task.

But most people can plan out their meals and activities on a weekly basis. So if you can tell yourself that your goal is only to lose two pounds each week, the goal continues to look easy, every week.

Keep a wall calendar hanging above your scale, with a pen nearby. Each morning, weigh yourself, and write down the weight into the corresponding day on the calendar. Or you can use a spreadsheet like Excel, or Google Docs.

As the week progresses, you'll be able to tell if you're on target to meet your weekly goal of two pounds lost, and if you're on your goal of meeting eight pounds lost for the whole month.

A two-pound per week, and eight-pound per month weight loss is actually perfect for most people. That works out to about 90 to 100 pounds lost in a year.

Manage your dieting and exercise on a weekly & monthly level, and record each day's weight into a calendar or spreadsheet, and you'll find that weight loss is much easier.

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Building Muscle Increases Metabolism

One of the best ways to boost your metabolism is to build muscle mass.

Building up your muscles provides a "double whammy" towards burning calories, in that it burns calories directly through exercise, and that it forces your metabolism to replenish that extra muscle tissue.

When you have more muscle mass, your metabolism has to work harder to keep that extra muscle tissue energized.

Likewise, the less muscles you have, the lower your metabolism works.

So if you want to burn fat more quickly, do weightlifting/resistance training exercises. In fact, focus more of your exercise time on this than cardio.

But raising your metabolism should not be your final goal. Rather, it should simply be a tool towards burning fat. Once you've achieved your desired weight, you really should keep a low metabolism. This is what will ultimately help you live a longer, healthier life. Read more about this in my previous article, "A Low Metabolism Leads to a Longer Life".

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How to Lose Weight by Constantly Eating

Probably the number one most-often published diet tip is, "Don't starve yourself".

When your body has no more food to digest, it actually slows down its metabolism to a crawl, and tries to conserve energy. But as long as you have food to digest, it keeps the metabolism running at a high rate. And metabolism, of course, burns calories.

So what you want to do is to keep some food in your belly at all times.

To leverage this as a weight-loss strategy...

• Eat foods that are low in calories. Look for foods low in fat, and have no sugar added. Look at the ingredients, and stay away from anything with sugar, brown sugar, molasses, cane juice, corn syrup. When your blood sugar level increases, the body stops burning fat, and starts burning the sugar. Read, "Carbs are OK, Just Not Sugar".


• Focus on fresh fruits and vegetables. Even though these do contain sugar, they contain so many more vitamins and nutrients your body requires, and you're going to need them if you're dieting.


• The very first thing you do in the morning, is eat something. When you wake up, and you're sure not going to back to sleep, put something in your belly right away, and get your metabolism back up to speed.


• Eat something when your stomach feels hungry. I try to shoot for one small meal every three to four hours.


• Plan your meals. To lose weight, my goal is to consume about 1,000 calories a day. To achieve that, I have to figure out what I'm going to eat throughout the entire day, and then spread those items out.


• Keep a supply of healthy snacks with you in the refrigerator, pantry, or at your work station. This way when you feel hungry, you won't opt for something bad. Read, "Keep Healthy Snacks in the Fridge".

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How Many Calories Do You Burn in a Day?

How many calories does the average person burn in a day, if they did nothing but sit all day, and sleep all night?

That depends on much you weigh. For someone weighing about 150 pounds, most of the research seems to suggest the answer is 2,000 calories.

I used some online calorie calculators to figure out how many calories a 150 pound person burns in a day, assuming they spend 14 hours sitting down, and 8 hours sleeping at night. That leaves only 2 hours for standing and walking.

Here's what I came up with...

Brush teeth, 5 min, 14 calories
Stretching, (bending or reaching to grab something), 5 min, 22 calories
Sex, 30 min, 96 calories
Standing (little bit all through the day), 30 min, 40 calories
Reading, 60 min, 72 calories
Talking on phone, 60 min, 72 calories
Showering, 15 min, 72 calories
Walking 2 mph (little bit all through the day), 30 min, 94 calories
Walking up stairs (little bit all through the day), 15 min, 137 calories
Shopping, 60 min, 161 calories
Cooking (includes all preparation), 60 min, 180 calories
Sleeping, 480 min/8 hours, 504 calories
Sitting (general sitting), 600 min/10 hours, 720 calories

Total Calories Burned: 2,184

So you can see that just by being lazy, you're still burning off a good deal of calories. If you're burning 2,184 calories a day, just by being lazy, then all you need to do is consume fewer than that, and eventually you'll lose weight.

The amount of calories burned is proportionate to your weight. Thus if you weighed double (300 pounds), then your calories burned would be double, at 4,368. If you're 200 pounds, it would be about 2,912 calories burned.

But remember that you have to burn 3,500 calories just to burn off one pound of fat.

So, let's assume you weigh 200 pounds right now, and your day's activities is typical of what I listed above, meaning you're burning about 2,912 calories a day.

If you can manage to limit your diet to 1,500 calories, then you'll end up with a net calorie burn of 1,412. If you stick to that, you'll burn off three pounds of fat in about one week.

So is that good news? It only proves that one of the biggest keys towards losing weight, is to count the calories you consume daily. If you can keep a calorie count of what you consume, and stick to a daily limit, the pounds will come off.

If you want to look up calories burned for other activities, HealthStatus has a pretty good tool...

http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

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Place Your Order First!

When going out with friends to a restaurant, always be the first to place your order. Don't wait to hear what other people order, because it will more than likely change your mind.

And for that matter, when everyone is looking at the menu don't ask out "What's everyone going to have?" You're better off not knowing.

Just decide what's best for you, try to tune out what everyone else is talking about having.

How many times have you gone into a restaurant determined to eat something healthy, only to have changed your mind and gotten something that put back the two pounds of fat you burned off earlier in the week?

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What is the Best Fruit for Weight Loss

What is the best fruit to eat for weight loss? That depends on the way you look at weight loss. But for just the lowest calories, it appears lemons is the big winner. But there's more to losing weight than that.

Here's a sheet I put together listing all the most popular fresh fruit you'd find in most grocery stores, along with their calories and basic nutritional content.

This data comes from the USDA Nutrient Database...


Click on chart for larger size

• The numbers in this graph represent a 100 gram serving, which is about 3.5oz. Obviously, you're not going to measure out 3.5oz when eating an orange, but rather eat a whole orange. But I did this to create an equal comparison.


• The Sugars column is important because to lose weight, you want your body to burn fat. As sugar enters your bloodstream, your body stops burning fat, and tries to burn off the sugar. The more sugar you consume, the less fat you burn. So look for fruit with low sugar, not just lowest calories.


• The Fat column is largely unimportant, but I put in there to show you how high in fat avocados are. Even though they are very nutritious, your goal is to lose fat, not gain more fat.


• I added the Protein, Magnesium, and Potassium columns because I believe these three are the most important towards preventing muscle loss. Pick fruit with the highest values in these columns.

So here are my picks for the best fruit to lose weight...

1. Cantaloupe - Not the lowest in calories, and not the lowest in sugars, but yet it's still in the lower echelon of these columns, but still in the higher echelon of potassium. If you can have one whole medium sized cantaloupe for lunch, you'd consume only 188 calories, and gain 43gm of sugar (equivalent to half a pint of frozen yogurt). Moreover, you'd consume 40% of your daily requirement of potassium (for women), and about 15% of your daily requirement of magnesium.


2. Papaya - This comes in at a close second. If you prefer the taste of papaya over cantaloupe, definitely go with this one. A whole medium-sized papaya is only 119 calories (because its smaller in size than a cantaloupe), and just 18gm of sugar, which will help you spend more time burning fat. It's lower in magnesium and potassium than cantaloupe, but not much.


3. Strawberries - This is another close one, but could easily be the top pick on anyone else's list. It's even lower in calories and sugars than cantaloupe and papaya, but also lower in potassium, though actually higher in magnesium. If you bought a container of strawberries (measured at one US dry pint), you'd consume a measely 114 calories, and gain only 17gm of sugar. But you'd lose out on potassium.


4. Grapefruit - It has the same low calorie content as strawberries, but higher in sugars, and still relatively in the middle of the ballpark in magnesium and potassium. But grapefruit has also been reported to give people that feeling of being full, which should help curb your appetite. One medium sized grapefruit comes in at 172 calories.


5. Blackberries - While still lower in calories than most fruits, it's very low in sugar, comparable to strawberries. However it's much higher in magnesium than the four fruits I placed above it, and a bit higher in potassium than strawberries. If you bought a container of blackberries (measured at the standard 170gm), you'd consume 73 calories. But if you ate three of these containers in one sitting, which you can easily do and not feel full, you'd get 25% of your recommended daily intake of magnesium.

Watermelon gets an honorable mention for having an even lower calorie content than any of the above five. But due to its size it becomes a challenge to store, cut, and take to work. But you can go to grocery stores and find diced watermelon in sealed containers. If you can do that, definitely make watermelon a part of your diet.

And what about lemons and limes? Well I would've put them on this list but most people I know don't eat these things whole, and certainly not in enough quantities to suffice as a meal. But if you like to eat lemons for lunch, definitely do it. It's probably the best fruit to keep your metabolism going, and burn as much fat as possible. Just don't put any sweeteners on these please!

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How to Diet with Ramen

Ramen is a popular food for folks on a very tight budget.

I know ramen pretty well, I've eaten lots of it in my time. I'm half-Japanese, and I grew up on the stuff!

As far as eating ramen while on a diet, the trick is simple. When you open up a package of ramen, throw away the soup base packet. Don't use it. That's where much of the fat and sodium is.

Instead, substitute it with plain old soy sauce. Soy sauce itself is fat-free, and sugar-free. If you can, add some garlic, and red pepper for some spice. If you want to get more creative, throw in some chopped green onion, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and pea pods.

The soup base packet that comes with ramen is very high in fat, and very high in saturated-fat. In fact, the soup base contains "chicken fat" as an ingredient, that's assuming you've bought the chicken-flavored ramen. And oddly enough, the soup base contains a small amount of sugar.

Here are the nutrition facts labels for Top Ramen (top) and Maruchan Ramen (bottom), both Chicken-Flavored...





Notice that both nutrition facts labels claim that each package contains 2 servings. That means you have to double the numbers, assuming you're going to eat the entire contents. Thus the 7gm of fat is actually 14gm of fat. And the 3.5gm of saturated fat, is actually 7gm. Ouch!

By throwing out the soup base packet, you'll spare yourself from all that fat and cut those calories way down. In fact, you'll cut those calories in half, and you'll spare your blood vessels from all that saturated fat.

But what if you were to use the soup base packet anyways, but did not drink the soup? Well, the fat will still stick to the ramen noodles. So, you'll still end up consuming more fat than if you were to substitute the soup base packet with soy sauce instead.

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A Low Metabolism Leads to a Longer Life

I've read some articles out there suggesting that longevity, or living a longer life, is the result of a lower metabolism. And I believe that's true.

People say that when you first start dieting, it's easy to lose weight quickly. When you're already fat, any amount of dieting will result in quick weight loss. But as you get thinner, it becomes harder to lose weight.

Why is this?

Metabolism.

The bigger the body you have, the more calories you need to sustain it. The smaller the body, the less calories are needed.

Therefore, if you're already overweight, your metabolism is already running at a high level, trying to convert as much food into energy as possible. Hence, if a fat person consumed half as many calories as usual, their body is forced to burn large amounts of fat.

And the converse is true. It's very easy for a skinny person to gain weight, simply because their metabolism is running slowly. If they were to double their calorie intake, their body would store all that food as fat.

But you might ask, "Then how come there are skinny people who can eat, and eat, and eat, and never gain weight?"

That's because metabolism runs at varying levels for each person. Some people are born with high metabolic rates, while others are born with lower rates.

Also, young people naturally have higher rates. Plus, young people tend to be more energetic, and just exercising will raise your metabolism. The older you get, the slower your metabolism runs. Typically, your metabolism decreases by 5% every 10 years, after the age of 40.

Eventually you get to a certain point of old age, when the metabolism runs too slow. The body has difficulty fighting infections because it needs energy to produce antibodies. It also cannot repair itself, because it needs energy to grow new tissues. People in this state tend to become shut-in, don't exercise, become overweight, and it all snowballs from there.

The trick therefore, is to keep your metabolism running efficiently for as long as possible. And that sheds light on why some people live longer than others. That is, by preventing your metabolism from "burning out" too quickly, you can maintain a healthy body for a longer period.

For example, you can probably walk all day long if you need to. But if you run, you'll likely collapse from exhaustion after 30 minutes if you're like most people. The same is true with your metabolism. If you keep it working efficiently at a low rate, you can sustain that metabolism for a very long time, and live to be a 100 years old.

People who manage to keep themselves slim, tend to have lower metabolic rates, and therefore can sustain that for decades and decades and enjoy good health.

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Boredom Can Create Weight Gain

One of the things I learned about myself when I was "training" myself to control the appetite, was that I put on a lot of calories as a result of boredom.

For example, I remember years ago when I worked in an office, I would get to a breaking point in my work, and go take a break. But I would do so by eating. I'd go to the vending machine, or walk down to the snack bar, and get one of those oversized oatmeal cookies plus a soda.

And it would happen at home too, anytime where I finished a project, or finished watching a movie, or anything where I found myself wondering what to do, I would gravitate towards the refrigerator and stare at the food figuring out what to snack on.

Even to this day, I still fight that problem.

So what I do is create a list of things I can do anytime I feel that boredom.

Here's some of the things I've put on my list...

• Go take a walk


• Mow the front yard


• Pull weeds, trim bushes in the backyard


• Organize some stuff in the garage


• Soak in the bathtub and listen to the TV


• Play some video games (we just bought a new Wii)


• Grocery shopping

Not all of these items are things I feel like doing at any given time, such as mowing the front yard, or pulling weeds. But I'll tell myself that I need to exercise, and that these things can count as exercise. Somehow, that helps motivate me.

Grocery shopping may sound somewhat contradictory in terms of controlling your appetite, but I found it helps me out. First, I need to keep a stock of healthy snacks in my fridge so that I don't end up reaching for fatty/sugary foods, and regular grocery shopping ensures that. Second, grocery shopping helps me become a smarter eater by perusing the aisles to see what's there and reading the nutrition labels and ingredients lists.

But don't get into the idea that you cannot snack. You should actually eat all throughout the day, but eat smaller portions, and eat stuff that's fat-free and sugar-free. If you want, you can use your breaktime to eat, as long as you're not putting more fat and sugar into your body. If you're at work, bring healthy snacks with you, or identify places you can go to get healthy snacks.

So there you go, if ever you find yourself looking inside your refrigerator or pantry to decide what to eat, ask yourself how you got there. Was it because you were bored?

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Carbs Are OK, Just Not Sugar

With all the interest over low-carb dieting, people often find themselves avoiding foods high in carbohydrates. But actually, what you only need to be concerned about is how much of the those carbs come from sugar.

Sugar is quickly dissolved and absorbed into your bloodstream. That means it creates a spike in your blood-sugar level. At that point, the body stops burning fat and burns only the sugar for energy.

What you want is to eliminate the sugar so that your body spends more time burning fat.

You can actually still eat carbohydrates like bread, potatoes, and pasta, as long as you don't add any sweeteners like sugar, syrup, jellies, ketchup, etc. Of course these carbohydrates will be broken down into sugar, and will increase the blood-sugar level, however it takes much longer for this happen than if you were to consume pure sugar, and the amount of sugar the body makes from these foods is much lower than pure sugar.

So the effect is that the body will still get sugar from bread, potatoes, and pasta, but because of how slow it takes and how little sugar the body gets, it still has to burn some fat to keep yourself going.

It's only when you eat pure sugar that your body stops burning fat.

Oh, and don't add any fat to those foods, like butter, cream, or peanut butter, because the point is to burn fat, not add more!

Examples of foods that have pure sugar in them include...

• Frozen confections (sorbet, frozen yogurt, ice cream)


• Condiments (ketchup, relish, steak sauce, BBQ sauce, jelly, salad dressing)


• Cereals (kids cereals, flavored oatmeal, flavored granola)


• Dairy (yogurt, kefir, flavored milk)


• Drinks (liqueurs, cocktail mixes, fruit juice, soda, Kool-Aid, sports drinks)


• Canned goods (canned fruit, fruit sauces)


• Desserts (cookies, cakes, pies, pudding, jello


• Dried Fruits (prunes, raisins, trail mixes)


• Medicines (cough syrup, cough drops, TUMS)

Even eating fresh fruits will have this same effect, though I would not suggest avoiding fresh fruits. There's still so much more positives in eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Just make sure you're eating them plain, and not adding more sugar, such as syrup or chocolate. In fact use fresh fruits to satisfy your craving for sweets. I particularly eat blackberries and strawberries for their smaller snackable size.

Always check the ingredients list when you're buying food at the store. Do not buy any foods with sugar added. Pure sugar can be found in the following ingredients...

• Sugar


• Brown Sugar


• Molasses


• Honey


• High Fructose Corn Syrup


• Cane Juice

I actually went through all the foods in my refrigerator and pantry and was surprised to learn what foods contain these ingredients. I recommend everyone do this, it's a great way to educate yourself and become a healthier shopper.

Finally, here's a great article I found that goes more into this topic, enjoy...
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/betteru35.htm

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How Many Calories Do You Burn Sleeping

How many calories do you burn while you are sleeping?

For myself, that answer seems to be about 500 calories.

That's assuming I sleep for about eight hours, and get a deep sleep with dreams.

I stand at 5'8" tall and weigh between 150-160 pounds. The larger the person you are, the more calories are burned sleeping. The calories burned remains proportional to weight, thus a 300 pound person would get double the calories burned that I get, about 1,000. A 200 pound person would be about 625 calories burned.

If you have a lot of muscle-mass, you'll burn even more calories during sleeping, compared to a similar-weight person with average muscle-mass. This is because your body has to feed energy to those muscles; the more muscles you have, the more calories it burns to fuel them. Likewise, the more energy you expended that day, the more calories it burns to replenish those muscles.

Sleep is when the body grows most of its new cells. If you suffered some damaged tissues, such as a cut, a bruise, a strain or a sprain, the body will grow cells to repair those tissues. And that requires burning more calories too.

You can also burn more calories if you are sleeping through cool or cold temperatures (as your body has to burn calories to create heat).

So, you can factor that into your overall weight loss plan as you count calories consumed and calories burned.

Here are some tips...

• To get the maximum calorie burn, get about eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.


• If you snore loudly, or have sleep apnea (which many overweight people have), consider a CPAP, which will help you sleep more soundly. You'll need a physician prescription.


• Don't eat or drink anything within a few hours before sleep. Drinking will cause you to wake up in the middle of night to urinate. And snacking before bed will negate any calorie burn you achieve through sleep.


• Don't drink any alcohol, that only causes the metabolism to slow down.


• Take an acid blocker, like Zantac, to prevent acid reflux so that it doesn't keep you up at night.


• To help go to sleep, try taking a hot bath just prior to bed.


• If your spouse keeps you up at night, sleep in another room, or on the couch.


• Try sleeping under cooler temperatures, perhaps setting the thermostat down in the summer, or leaving the heater off in the winter. If you can manage to sleep while your body's temperature drops below normal, it will burn calories to create heat.

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Use Salsa as a Salad Dressing

Salsa is a zero-fat, or in some cases a low fat, alternative for salad dressings. Most salsa however, is zero-fat.

These days, I almost always use salsa instead of salad dressing.

While non-fat, or low-fat salad dressings are ok tastewise, they still seem to have that "diet" taste. For me, salsa always tastes sinful but comes without the guilt.

I think the most attractive part of salad dressing is the salt, which salsa has also. But salsa doesn't have the fat. Salsa does have carbohydrates, but most brands sit around 2gm per 2 tbsp. Compare that to salad dressings which range between 2gm to 10gm per 2 tbsp.

The other advantage to using salsa instead of salad dressing is that you'll get more nutritional value, primarily vitamin C.

You can also try hot sauce too. I found that Cholula hot sauce is pretty good on salads. Hot sauce even burn some extra calories for you because the capsaicin in chile peppers will force your body to raise its temperature, which means having to burn calories to do so.

And in fact, if you use salsa with jalapeno peppers in it, you'll get the same calorie burning effect.

If you want to try salsa on your salads, look for plain salsa. Stay away from stuff with added fruit, or beans, corn, as these ingredients adds to the carbs.

If you're at a restaurant, go ahead and ask for salsa when the server asks what salad dressing you want. I do that all the time. If they don't have salsa, I ask for hot sauce.

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Hot Baths Can Burn Extra Calories

Soaking in a hot bath can help burn some extra calories, but only if you can get the water hot enough.

The body has to burn energy to keep itself at the proper 98.6 degrees F. The colder the outside temperature, the harder the body has to work to stay warm. In that sense, colder temperatures help you burn more calories.

But when you sit in a warm bath, the water will keep the body at warm enough temperature that the body no longer has to burn calories to maintain the proper temperature.

However, if you can get the water temperature hot enough, your heart rate will increase. This increase will result in some extra calories burned. You won't burn a lot, but you'll still burn some.

Instead of laying on my bed, watching television, I'll soak in a hot bath, and listen to television from within the bathroom. I'll spend about 30 minutes soaking. It's a way to burn some extra calories, and still be able to listen to the news.

You'll actually end up losing more weight from sweating out excess water as well.

Soaking in a hot bath also helps me go to sleep. AND, if you can good night's rest, about eight hours worth, the average person will burn about 500 calories sleeping. That's another way a hot bath can help you lose weight.

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V8 Juice is a Great Source of Potassium

When you're dieting, it's almost a given that you'll become deficient in potassium, if you're not managing your nutrition carefully.

Potassium is found in just about every food, but the body requires a lot of it, and even if you're not dieting, there are still people who become potassium deficient.

I like to drink V8 Juice, for one because I like the taste, but more importantly because it's high in potassium.

More specifically, Low Sodium V8 Juice is has even more potassium, about double. And in fact, that's what I drink.

• Regular V8 Juice = 670mg Potassium per 11.5oz can


• Low Sodium V8 Juice = 1180mg Potassium per 11.5oz can

And each 11.5oz can is only 70 calories, with no fat.

Potassium is a very critical nutrient, it's largely what makes up the interior substance of cells. Without potassium, your cells die. When you become potassium deficient, the body strips out potassium from your muscle cells. That's a condition called hypokalemia.

You want to lose fat, not muscle. If you notice yourself losing weight, be wary of the possibility that you might be losing muscle.

The average adult male should consume 4,700mg of potassium per day.

The average adult woman should consume 3,500mg of potassium per day.

I'll shoot for about two cans per day, and then supplement the rest of the potassium with the other foods I eat.

Unfortunately, you cannot buy potassium supplement pills off the shelf that contain more than 2% of the recommended daily intake (RDI). The only way to add enough potassium is to eat high-potassium foods.

Low Sodium V8 Juice is your best bet, while keeping the calorie count down.

You can also eat lots of potatoes, but that will cost you a lot in carbohydrates. You can also eat lots of fresh tomatoes which are much lower in carbs. But you'll find that buying a case of Low Sodium V8 Juice to be cheaper than buying the equivalent potassium in fresh tomatoes.

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Use the USDA Nutrient Database

The USDA Nutrient Database is a great tool for managing your calorie intake. It will tell you the nutritional content of just about any food out there.

For example, you can look up "tomato", and it will show you several food items containing that word, including "tomato soup", or "tomato juice".

Or, you can look up "tomatoes", and find fresh tomatoes.

When I'm trying to trim off a few pounds, I'll use this database to figure out the calorie content for a variety of food items, then I'll determine what I can eat for that day. Eventually, I'll get to memorize the nutritional content of certain foods I eat all the time.

One afternoon, I looked up every fruit to find out which has the lowest calories, but the highest fiber. Seems like the strawberries and blackberries came out the winner. That's how I know today to buy lots of strawberries and blackberries and keep them in my refrigerator for snacking.

Find the USDA Nutrient Database here...
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

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