Low Calorie Diet - Does It Work?

Looking for a quick and uncomplicated solution to drop a few pounds so that you can fit into that little black dress of your desires or just to attain your pre-pregnancy figure? Many diets out there are boasting ultra quick weight loss results.
From a dietitian's perspective, that is total rubbish. In order to lose the fats in a controlled manner the low calorie diet plan would be recommended. There has been proof that this diet works and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to carry it out.
Before I elaborate in depth about the low calorie diet, lets get the basic terminology right. The term calorie(kcal) refers to a unit of measurement for energy, and more commonly applies to the measurement of energy in food. So what's the big deal about calories? We need food to give us the energy to carry out our daily tasks. And our body uses these calories to carry out its daily activities or to fuel our workouts.
The problem with most people is they are eating way more calories than they actually need.
Calorie in > Calorie out = Weight gain
Okay now that you understand what causes us to gain weight, follow me though a 3-step plan to help you embark on a low calorie diet plan effectively.

Step 1: Find out what your daily calorie requirement
The amount of calories your body needs is a combination of your basic metabolic rate (BMR) and activity level. So basically anyone can calculate their BMR following the equation below.

Women:
BMR = 655 + (9.6 X weight in kilos) + (1.8 X height in cm) - (4.7 X age in years)

Men:
BMR = 66 + (13.7 X weight in kilos) + (5 X height in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)

To estimate your daily calorie requirement, multiply your BMR using the following table:

Activity Level Total Daily Calorie Requirement
Sedentary (BMR x 20 percent) + BMR
Lightly active (You exercise 1-3 times a week) (BMR x 30 percent) + BMR
Moderately active (You exercise 3-5 times a week) (BMR x 40 percent) + BMR
very active (You exercise intensely on a daily basis) (BMR x 50 percent) + BMR
Extra active (You do hard labor or are in athletic training) (BMR x 60 percent) + BMR
I would assume many of us would be classified as 'lightly active'. Most of us will fall into the category of sedentary of lightly active. So let me give you an example on how it works. The estimated calorie requirment for a 47 year old sedentary woman who is 68kg and 163cm tall will be:
BMR = 655 + (9.6 X 68) + (1.8 X 163) - (4.7 X 47) = 1380 kcal
Total daily calorie requirement = (1380 x 0.2) + 1380 = 1656 kcal

Just to give you an idea, a typical western diet provides 3000-3500 kcal a day which is twice the amount that an average woman needs. This is not surprising given the number of overweight and obese people.

Step 2: Decide on how much you need to cut out from your diet, create a calorie deficit
To lose weight, you need to eat less than what you body needs. If you cut out about 500 calories from your daily diet, that would mean 3500 calories less in a week.
So to put it in simple terms, the lady who requires 1656 kcal will lose approximately 1 pound after a week if she consumes approximately 1150 kcal per day. This is in theory. I would not suggest anyone consuming less than 1200 kcals per day as this will cause your body to lose it's effectiveness in burning fats.
3500kcal deficit = 1 pound of weight loss
If you need to lose 10 pounds, you will need to create a deficit of 35000 kcal. One thing to rememeber is to slowly cut your calories. Don't start jumping on the wagon and starve yourself for the entire week to create a 35000kcal deficit.
A healthy weight loss diet is one that helps you lose 1-3 pounds per week
There is no STATIC DIET. What it means is that if same lady who consumes 3000 kcal per day makes a conscious effort to cut down her calorie intake to 2500kcal daily, She will shed those unwanted pounds. This is because even though she is still consuming more than her actual calorie requirement, her body is reacting favorably to her decreased food intake. Sounds easy in theory? Think again. The hardest part is in the execution.

Step 3: Take note of what you eat
By taking down what you consume you will have a better understanding of your eating habits. You may discover that you are taking in more calories than needed. Okay I admit it is a chore but I guarantee you won't regret it!
Write down all the food and drinks you consume and the estimated amount (in household measurements e.g. cups or tablespoons etc) over a period of 3 days. Try to be as detailed as possible. Do include condiments you may consume e.g. salad dressing, sugar). Remember, keep your diet as normal as possible.
There are many online tools that can assist in calculating your daily calorie intake.
By doing this, you can easily know where the unwanted calories are coming from. You can then decide what to remove from your diet to create the calorie deficit.
As with all dietitians, I love to write meal plans. Here is a sample nutritionally balanced low-calorie meal plan.

Breakfast:
a wholegrain bagel with a thin spread of light cream cheese (300kcal)
1 glass of low fat milk (90kcal)

Mid-morning snack:
1 cup of Low-fat yoghurt (130kcal)

Lunch:
Wholegrain sandwich bread, with a spread of mustard, salad veggies and lean meat (chicken/beef) (350kcal)
1 serving Minestrone soup (150 kcal)

Afternoon snack:
1 serving of fresh fruit (70 kcal)

Dinner:
cup of pasta with tomato sauce + 1 palm size grilled meat/fish or chicken OR cup of lean mince (400kcal)

Side salad with fat-free dressing (70 kcal)
1 serving of fresh fruit (70 kcal)
Total Calories: 1630 kcal

This is just an example and not a definite eating plan. If you follow through with the food diary activity and get yourself familiarized with the general calorie content of foods, you would have already known by now what are the high calorie foods that you need to reduce your intake of.

Here are some easy ways by which you can reduce your calories
1) Go for a diet soda instead of a normal soda
2) Use fat-free salad dressing and low fat mayonnaise
3) Have 2 servings of fresh fruit instead of 2 cups of processed fruit juice
4) Use less oil in your cooking
5) Always choose lean cuts of meat
6) Reducing your portion sizes by a quarter
7) Sharing a dessert instead of having the whole thing by yourself
8) Cut down on the amount of fried stuff you consume
9) Switching to low fat dairy products
10) Drink less alcohol

The key to a successful low calorie diet plan is consistency. Treat yourself to a little something 'sinful' at every milestone. Just don't end up eating a whole chocolate cake and regret it later. Do not be hard on yourself in you exceed your daily calorie intake. It is a collective effort over a period of time that will help you get to the weight you want.

Source

Why Measuring is Important to Fitness

Improving fitness is a performance-based concept. Fitness is generally related to improved health and wellness, both physically and mentally. Most people associate fitness to lower weight. This is not always the case.

 Let us begin by reviewing a definition of fitness:

 "Total Fitness is the ability to combine disease avoidance, efficiency in everyday life, ability to do desired activities, (e.g. sports, dancing, playing with children), healthy mental attitude, and good social behaviors, in order to achieve an optimal quality of life.

[1]

  This definition of fitness calls for enhancing both the physical and mental qualities of life. For a review of how psychological activity relates to fitness, see "Do Not Underestimate the Psychological Affects of Fitness". The best way to determine fitness is to establish measurements that relate to the above definition. Measurements are the best way to determine performance.

Why are measurements so important? Measurements are the premise for feedback. Feedback links directly to improving performance. In a research project conducted by Miriam Erez it was found that feedback, "Facilitates the display of individual differences in self-set goals on the basis of knowledge of individual past performance. Then when self-goals are set, it provides knowledge for future performance to be consistent with the self-set goals.

[2] " Feedback begins with a study of your current reality, e.g. current body fat percent, body circumference. The next step is to create a vision that establishes a desired future state. Once this is done you need to define the measurements for the future state using the same measurement criteria you used to determine your current reality. After completing this step, it is easy to compare the two measurements and realize the performance gap. It is important to realize that knowing this information (knowledge) does not ensure a change in performance. How you use the information (monitoring & action) dictates change that leads to performance that is more effective.

 

Now that we understand knowledge alone does not lead to performance improvement, it is important to understand how monitoring can lead to action resulting in performance change. This concept becomes more important as you learn to take accountability for sustained fitness.

Many people hire personal trainers because of their ability to establish measurements and monitor the progress of their clients. Unfortunately, this can lead to dependence on the trainer. This is bad for two reasons. First, the dependency is costly. Second, it transfers the client's performance accountability to the trainer. When the client decides to cease using the personal trainer, there has not been enough learning on the client's part, to transfer the skill sets of monitoring and action planning for continued fitness performance. Consequently, the client often abandons their monitoring resulting in non-performance. This often leads to abandoning fitness development and a regression back to the previous state.

Performance improvement accountability rests with the individual. When hiring a personal trainer it is important to make sure the trainer's focus is to educate the client on the monitoring process and provide them with the skills and tools to monitor their own performance. There are several internet and PDA tools available via the internet. These tools provide goal setting, body measurements, food monitoring, calorie tracking, activity tracking, and behavioral tools, e.g. mood monitoring and journals. Monitoring tools establish feedback, e.g. calories burned vs. calories consumed, activity calorie expenditure, and comparison of mood-to-calories. Individuals who establish fitness goals and use such tools have a better chance of achieving the self-fitness goals than those who do not.

Monitoring and feedback also establish effective performance behavior patterns. Once the link between feedback and successful results are established, people make the connection between what they did, and the improved performance results, i.e. when a person sees a correlation between reduced body inches and intense resistance training; they are more likely to continue the resistance training on their own. Over time, a person who monitors his protein, carbohydrates, and fats soon recognize the foods that provide the right balance of these nutrients. 

They then instinctively begin to select the right foods and portions that keep their nutrition program on track. Monitoring is self-regulated and feedback is done on an exception basis, i.e. a person realizes they have eaten too much for the holiday and records the data for that holiday, sees how much they have detoured from their nutritional program, and what they need to do to correct the situation.

Feedback through monitoring becomes less cumbersome and frustrating as you move to a maintenance program vs. a progressive fitness program. The people who sustain fitness and continuously improve fitness always have well established feedback-monitoring systems in place. These tools have become second nature to them, because of the repetition. You never want to eliminate monitoring and feedback. As you reach your goals and establish a maintenance program, you will use these tools less, but never abandon them. 

You need to find the right monitoring and feedback tools that work for you. Everyone has different needs and different circumstances. The important point is to find monitoring and feedback tools that you will use. Once the tools become second nature you will become more proficient at designing and implementing a strategy for fitness.

Source:Vic Vogel

Fit n Healthy Challenge !!

With our 16 Week Challenge we are searching for 10 committed people , who want to transform their health and their physique.

This program is a 16 week program, broken down into 4 sections, which you can follow from home..--> Lose Fat
--> Build Lean Muscle
--> Clear Skin
--> Energy and Vitality
--> HEALTHY Clean Body
--> Re-set your Metabolism to Fat Burning Furnace
--> Understand how to Fuel your Body Long Term
--> Closed Facebook Forum for Support
--> Personal Mentoring and Support
If you would like to be considered, please like and head over to our FB Page and message us https://www.facebook.com/fitnhealthyu 

Damian@FitnHealthy

Difference Between BMI and BMR Calculators

Unlike Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Body Mass Index (BMI) is determined by an individual's height and body weight. It is widely used to determine whether the individual belongs to a healthy weight group. In simpler terms body mass index is the value that represents the weight status of human body in relation of the amount of fat present in it. Similar to Basal Metabolic Rate now it is also possible to easily calculate body mass index using BMI calculator for men and women. Similar to BMR calculator, body mass index calculators are simple tools those can be used for figuring out the amount of excess body fat present in one's body and also have a clear idea of the risks associated with this excess weight.

Body mass index is calculated depending upon the height and weight of an individual man and woman and can be broken down into four categories - underweight (BMI less than 18.5), normal (BMI between 18.5 and 24.9), overweight (BMI between 25 and 29.9) and obese (BMI is 30 or higher). According to researchers and experts these numbers are just fine as a general measurement of obesity for close to 95% of the population. But traditionally obesity has been defined as a certain cut off in the BMI scale and judging a person's obesity depending upon only his height and body weight, which is done by any BMI calculator for men and women is probably inadequate and not sufficiently efficient too. For people who are overweight but still maintain a good health - there body mass index doesn't properly reflect the health risks associated with their excess weight.

BMI and BMR calculator for both men and women are now widely used by doctors and health care professionals as quick screening tools but the BMI calculator for men that is now being widely used also has a number of possible drawbacks users are required to be aware about. One major drawback of both BMI and BMR calculators is the fact that they don't reveal anything regarding body composition like the amount of muscle and fat present in the body. This is a reason that conclusions based upon the results of these calculators might not always be accurate and also misleading in certain situations. People like players or body builders whose weights are pushed up by their muscle tissues have body mass index that is pretty high but they also have only little body fat. Activity level of the concerned individual, body type and location of fat in the body, age and ethnicity are other factors those should also be playing determining role in Basal Metabolic Rate and body mass index calculation but the current calculators those are now being offered online don't involves this factors in their calculations and that is precisely the reason that the results they show are only accurate up to a certain standard and it might not be a very good idea to fully depend upon them.

Source Harish Shinde | GO 

Guide To Perform HIIT Workouts

High Intensity Interval Training, otherwise known as HIIT, is a category of cardio exercise that is primarily worked out to melt the excess fat as well as calories off from your body. However, HIIT exercises are not just worked out to burn calories and lose weight. They are also considered beneficial to improve aerobic and anaerobic endurance, strength building, and enhance BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate).

In fact, HIIT training programs are regarded as effective for anyone who wants to lose their weight by burning off unwanted calories and increase the metabolic rate. Further, this type of exercise is also indispensable for athletes who want to participate in sport activities whose intensity differs persistently, such as basketball, soccer, boxing, and wrestling. But HIIT workouts could give you the expected results only if it performed in a proper way. Discussed below are some important tips that help for the appropriate performance of HIIT workouts.

Since HIIT is not recommended for beginners and people with heart diseases, it is important to consult with a registered medical practitioner and make sure that you are fit to perform HIIT workouts. 

For best results, it would be even better if you can seek the assistance of a professional physical trainer to help you choose and devise the most effective HIIT workout regimen. Further, when you begin the HIIT program, make sure that you do not overstrain or injure yourself, as these workouts are intensely demanding. Hence, prior to starting any HIIT fitness program, it is important to check that you will be able to work-out for at least 30 minutes without any problem or strain.

Once when you begin the HIIT exercises, it is vital to warm up as well as cool down for at least five minutes, after every HIIT workout session. This, in turn, will minimize the chances of injuries. Further, to help for speedy burning of fats, ensure that you workout as hard as you can in between the HIIT routine intervals. The success of a good HIIT routine depends on proper timing. As such, curtail your work intervals or elongate the recovery intervals on the basis of your heart rate during recovery intervals. Above all, if you feel any kind of difficulties in the form of pain or breathing problems, it is advisable to stop the exercise and calm down instantly.