one man's battle of the bulge
one man's battle of the bulge |
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| Most Read Post How To Lose Weight - It Really Is This Simple |
How To Lose Weight - It Really Is This Simple Tuesday January 1st 2008, 10:01pm I’m no dietician or nutritional expert, but I do know one thing. The secret to losing weight is that there is no secret. Because losing weight comes down to one thing. Calories in and calories out. Calories in is determined by what we eat and drink. Calories out is determined by how many calories we burn during the day. A calorie is simply a unit of measurement for energy. It’s the amount of energy needed to increase the temperature of 1g of water by 1°C. When we talk about “calories” in food we are really talking about kilocalories (units of 1,000 calories). So when we say a typical apple has 50 calories, we write it as 50kcal. And here’s the deal. If we consume more calories than we use then we gain weight. If we consume as many calories as we use our weight stays the same. And if we consume less calories than we use then our weight falls. And that’s weight loss in a nutshell. Consume less calories than you use. So how many calories should we be consuming on a daily basis anyway? The (unopened) bag of crisps in front of me tells me that men should consume 2,500 calories a day and women 2,000 calories a day. Now when it comes to losing weight, a crisp packet probably isn’t the best place to seek dietary advice. Especially for someone like me who loves crisps and can tell wild and lurid tales of scoffing family bags of Golden Wonder all by myself while watching Eastenders repeats on UK Gold. The truth is that there is no “one size fits all” answer here. How many calories you need to consume on a daily basic will differ between individuals based on a number of factors including sex, weight, height and lifestyle. But we can work this out with the help of a little scientific knowledge (I take it you are sitting comfortably) and an online calculator. I’ll save what I discovered about this for a separate post because it truly is explosive stuff that explains so many things about weight loss and dieting. For now, all I have to remember is that to lose weight I need to consume less calories than I use. |
Useful resources Check your Body Mass Index - all you need to know is your height and weight in either the old imperial units or the modern metric ones  The Calorie Carb And Fat Bible is a 520 page monster of a book - giving calorie, protein, fat, carbohydrate, and fibre content for over 21,000 UK brands and basics. Plus there's a section on eating out at the likes of Starbucks and JD Wetherspoon. It also contains tables and charts showing how many calories individuals need, how many calories are burned during popular exercises. Truly a dieter's best friend! Buy it securely online from amazon.co.uk and have it delivered direct to your door. |
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