Simple Planning For Losing Weight and Burning Fat

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Doing the math is pretty easy and simple. One pound of fat equals 3500 calories. Want to lose a pound a week? You will need to intake 3500 calories less a week than you use. That is roughly 500 calories a day. You can lose one pound per week if you cut 500 calories from your normal daily diet and keep your activity level the same.

All right - that doesn’t sound like much, especially if you’re more than 25 pounds overweight. Study after study has shown, though, that those people who lose weight gradually - at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week -are far more likely to keep the weight off and maintain a normal weight for a lifetime.

So how much is 500 calories exactly? If you are going to reduce your intake of calories but 500 a day, you need to know what to cut out? Here’s how easy it is to lose 500 calories a day:

*You can use milk in your coffee instead of creamer. Savings? 50 calories per cup.

* Skip the butter on your baked potato. Savings? 100 calories

*Drink fruit flavored water rather than soda. Savings? 200 calories

* Skip the Big Mac and have a salad instead. A Big Mac weighs in at a whopping 460 calories. Have a fresh salad along with a light dressing? Less than 100! Savings? 360 calories

* Pass by the bag of potato chips. The average snack bag of chips has over 300 calories. Savings? 300 calories

*Eat corn on the ear. There is 165 calories for every 1 cup serving of canned corn. An ear of corn has 85. Savings? 80 calories.

* Switch to low-fat cream cheese on your bagel. Savings? 90 calories per ounce.

*Love french fries and have a hard time giving them up? Swap the skinny fries out for thick steak-cut ones. Thin French fries absorb more oil than the thicker, meatier ones. Savings? 50 calories per 4 ounce serving

If you’d rather look at losing weight from an exercise perspective, you can also lose one pound a week by upping your activity level by 500 calories a day. How easy is that to do? Take a look:

* Take a half-hour walk around the park. Aim for a pace that’s a little faster than a stroll, but not fast enough to be breathless. Burn:160 calories.

* Get out your bike and take a ride. Tackle a few moderate hills and aim for about five miles total. Burn: 250 calories

* Go dancing - and really DANCE. The longer you’re out on the floor instead of at the table drinking up high-calorie drinks, the more you’ll get out of it. The kind of dancing that makes you breathless and that warms up your body will give you a nice calorie savings. Burn: 400 calories per hour

*Swimming is something that is great for you to do and a ton of fun as well. The water resistance means you burn more calories, and you avoid the stress impact on joints from aerobics, dancing or walking. A few laps as a slow crawl is wonderufl-if you can get up to an hour you’ll be doing even better! Burn: 510 calories

* You should get out and do some gardening. An hour of gardening tasks that includes bending and stretching can burn up to as many calories as a brisk walk. Burn: 250 calories.

*Play a game of tennis. Hook up with a friend for a weekly tennis game and you’ll be amazed at the difference. One hour of vigorous tennis is one of the best calorie burners around. Burn: 800 calories

It’s important to keep in mind that all exercise/calorie numbers are based on a woman weighing 130 pounds. If you weigh more, you’ll burn more fat. Would you like an additional bonus to burning calories through exercise? When you exercise, you build muscle by converting it from fat. Do you know which kind of body tissue burns more calories-even when your not excersing? I’ll give you three guesses. Your right-your body uses more energy to maintain and feed muscle than it does fat.

For best results, mix and match food savings with exercises that burn calories. Do keep in mind that eating less than 1000 calories a day for more than a few days will convince your body that it’s starving and slow your metabolism. Keep calorie ranges reasonable, and consult a doctor if you want a quicker, more drastic weight loss.

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