Tag: Losing Weight

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Weight Loss Exercise

How Do You Know When You’ve Lost Enough Weight?


Losing weight is often a long process and many people struggle on their journey. However, after reaching your earlier set goal weight, you may ask yourself; ‘Have I lost enough weight?â? When figuring out if you’ve lost enough weight, there are a few things you must consider such as your BMI, body type, and more.

First things first, remember that a doctor is the most qualified person to tell you if you’ve lost enough weight, especially if you’re doing so due to a health condition. If you want an idea at home, however, then here’s how to do it.

Check Your BMI

Although there are a number of limitations with BMI (Body Mass Index), it can be a useful measurement. To calculate your BMI, just divide your weight (in kilograms) by your height squared (in meters).

The normal range for your BMI would be between 18.5 and 25, but this may not apply to everyone. For instance, if you naturally have a big structure and heavy bones, your ideal BMI would probably be above 25, which actually makes you overweight by normal standards. On the other hand, if you have a small structure, your ideal BMI is probably lower than others.


Measuring Your Body Fat

Measuring your body fat percentage is another good way to make sure whether you’ve lost enough weight, and is more accurate than BMI. Always use this to verify that your BMI is telling the truth!

There are a few ways you can use to measure your body fat with the simplest method being using a skin fold caliper. You do this by pinching your fat (usually around your waist) and measure the thickness with a caliper. You then compare the measurement you get to a body fat percentage chart which you can easily find online. Alternatively, you can also use BIA (Bioelectric Impedance Analysis) where you step on a scale that then estimates your body fat percentage.

See How You Look And Feel

The best and simplest way to determine if you’ve reached your ideal weight is to just stand in front of a mirror and see how you look. If you have lost quite a bit of weight and you feel that you look good and healthy, then you probably are at your ideal weight. Ideally you should also not feel tired and must have enough energy to go through your day.

Of course, the main reason for you to lose weight should be to ensure your health is good, and that you feel good in yourself. Therefore, you can also decide to either stop or continue losing weight depending on how you feel health-wise.


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Weight Loss Exercise

How to Keep A Food Journal


Though exercise and weight training are very important factors for increasing your fitness and losing weight, you absolutely cannot outwork a bad diet. Your body needs certain nutrients to thrive, and it needs them in the right quantities to create the physique you want. A food journal can help you to understand exactly what’s going into your body, leaving you better equipped to plan your workouts and calorie goals.

When you write down everything you’re eating each day, you automatically become a lot more mindful about food. It’s easy to snack away on junk all day without really thinking about it, but when it comes time to write down every single thing you’ve eaten you might be shocked! This alone is motivation enough for many people to lose weight.

What To Track In Your Food Journal

Food Journal

How to Track your eating in a Food Journal

If you’re trying to lose weight, it’s important that your food journal shows that you created a calorie deficit for the day – that is, that you ate fewer calories than those you burned off through exercise. If you’re trying to build muscle, on the other hand, you’ll need to eat extra calories. Although you might think you can track this mentally, a journal is far more effective.

If you’re into bodybuilding then you’ll also want to keep track of your macronutrients throughout the day. When working out your bodybuilding aims, you’ll know how many proteins, fats and carbohydrates you should eat each day. A journal will ensure you’re keeping on track. If you’ve made progress, or are suffering from a lack of progress, then you can even look back through your food journal to try and find out why.

So, on a most basic level you should include the name of the food, the size of the portion and the number of calories it contained. You can also include details of protein, carbs and fats, and you can make use of a digital kitchen scale or a smartphone app if you want to note down more detailed stats.

If you’re an emotional eater then you can also use the food journal as a place to note down how you feel when you eat certain foods. This will leave you more connected to your emotions and in a much better position to understand the triggers that cause you to eat more than you should.

Yes, a food journal does take effort. However, if you start a new weight loss or diet goal without keeping track of your progress, the chances are strong that you’ll just give up without really trying.


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How Can I Lose Weight For Christmas?


Christmas is just around the corner and I always have people asking about losing weight for this holiday or that and now people are wondering, how can I lose weight for Christmas?

Well truth is this is the worst time of year for most people to lose or even to maintain weight. We have lots of temptations and not a lot of support.


Temptations? Let me count the Christmas eating extravaganza that this season has in store for us. Christmas parties with lots of food and booze, cookie exchanges, Christmas baking in the office, holiday get together, eating food at the mall while shopping, Costco hotdogs. In fact this time of year is so busy that some people do not cook a meal between December 1st and December 24th.

And then the lack of support and motivation. Have you had anyone say, “Just one cookie, you are looking so good a cookie can’t hurt”. This is not the only chance for someone to stop you from making good choices, there are all the opportunities above to make sure that you have an excuse to blow off the gym for eggnog (double whammy) or just to sneak out for a bit of shopping. Even the best laid plans can be threatened by people that we tend to lean on for support.

So what’s a person to do? Gain 10 pounds of holiday fat? Maybe just be healthy for 11 months of the year and have a cheat month? There is some ways to make some good choices and makes the most of the month of December.


How Can I Lose Weight for Christmas

How Can I lose Weight for Christmas

How Can I lose Weight for Christmas

Make a schedule. I am bad for scheduling time until I get down to a crunch time and surely this is that time. All you need to really do is sit down and look at your social schedule, your work schedule, and your shopping schedule, and your family schedule…you get the point, look and see what you need to do and then fit in where the workouts can go. Most months our workouts will just happen on schedule but in a month like December that can be difficult so you just need to find the right times

Eat the Best Possible Foods. You will eat some bad food but the real problem this time of year is indulging in way too many white carbs and fats. What you need to do is control your breakfast and other meals as well as you can. You do have lots of control over at least breakfast but really you can control almost all meals.

We will get a lot of other foods that are terrible for us and if we keep control over all, or almost all of our meals and make sure that we are eating all those healthy fruits an veggies that will fuel our bodies and minimize all those crappy processed carbs and fats.

In fact if you don’t do this already I think it is great. Looks at the food you are about to put in your mouth and decide – is this fuel? or is this crap?

Social Events with bad eating and drinking. OK so I think that you kind of have the eating and exercise taken care of if you are planning your schedule and eat planning now there are those other times. The times out at the mall or at a party or other get together

First off I have to say don’t use fitness as a crutch not to be social there are lots of options when going out. You are out to socialize and there are lots of good things that come out of that, like having a life and stuff.

So eating can be a problem. I have found that there are always choices and whether you are at the mall or if you are at a Christmas party you can still find the meats, fruits, vegetables that will fuel you. Just try not to eat too many of the fried foods and cookies and keep a level head.

Don’t stay out too late. we all know that later in the evening our decision making abilities become hazy and sleep is a very important part of healthy lifestyle.

Drink in moderation. I tend to drink too quickly so my best hint here is to make sure to pace myself. I will have a beer and then have a big glass of water. Water is really good and the alcohol flows a little too freely in the Christmas season.

OK, I gotta say I always feel like a party pooper with a list of tips like these but really the fact is that most of us don’t have any willpower and that’s why most people gain so much weight in the month of December. It all comes down to planning, healthy eating, exercise, and willpower.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any great tips for how to lose weight by Christmas?



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