How To Lose Weight And Keep It Off

Why am I not loosing weight? Was a question I was asked recently by a friend of mine, who was trying to loose a couple of kilograms along with her husband - I'd like to add that she was not trying to loose her husband, but that her husband needed to loose some weight too !!

She had the right idea, taking control of what she and her husband were eating and her hubby was successfully loosing weight, but she on the other hand wasn't loosing any weight and she couldn't see where she was going wrong.

Whilst my friend had taken charge of the type of foods that they were eating and that now they were eating their main meal at lunch time - it is better for us to eat our main meals during the day if we can, as it gives our bodies more time to burn the calories as opposed to eating a main meal in the evening and going to bed with a belly full of food, when our bodies don't need the calories and the excess calories end up getting stored as fat. The mistake she had made was that she was not taking into account their individual calorific needs.

She is five feet and one inch tall whilst her husband stands at five feet and ten inches tall. That fact alone would mean that in order to loose weight her portion sizes would need to be considerably smaller than her husbands. Her big mistake was portion control, she had cut down on her husbands portion size a lot, but had not cut down on hers so much as she didn't have so much weight to loose. In fact her portions were as big as her husbands which meant in three weeks her husband had managed to loose almost a stone, but she had hardly lost any weight and she was feeling a little confused and deflated. I pointed out where I thought she was probably going wrong and as long as she has taken on board what I have said she should be loosing some weight this week.....Fingers crossed!!

Portion control....

The fact is that loosing weight is just a case of basic maths. It's not what we eat, but the amount we eat that determines our weight. Whilst it is highly recommended to eat as healthily as we can on a day to day basis, we can and will become over weight if we continuously eat more than our body needs, even if our main food intake is healthy. It also works the other way too, meaning that we can loose weight by eating predominantly unhealthy or junk food just as long as we take in less calories than our bodies need - which is really inadvisable!! I've used it as an example of it being the amount we eat and not so much what we eat that causes weight loss and I really don't recommend eating unhealthy foods daily.

One easy way to help determine how many calories you need in a day is to use a BMR calculator that will tell you how many calories your body needs in a day just to tic over - compare it to a car idling...I've supplied a link to a BMR calculator on the right of this hub...All you have to do is tap in you height, weight and sex and it will give you the approximate amount of calories your body needs to idle. The more active you are the more calories you will need, but it's good to give you some idea of the minimum amount of calories you need.

Once I'd shown the woman in question the calculator and she had filled in her and her husbands details it was easy for her to see where she was going wrong. As you can see in the chart....

Activity levels....

My friend also isn't as active as her husband, although she is relatively active around her house and garden. Her husband likes to cycle and will get on his bicycle to potter off for a newspaper or a pint of milk making him more active in general.

Whilst we all like to think of ourselves as pretty active, when it comes to loosing weight we have to be totally honest with ourselves. Are we always on the go or are we spending most of our time sat on our bums doing not much physically. It makes a difference to the rate at which we burn calories. The more active you are then the more calories you need to maintain your weight. You can even loose weight just by being more active and without having to cut calories, which is good way to loose weight if you only need to loose a few pounds. Being more active isn't difficult, a brisk walk outside in the fresh air for half an hour a day or just down to the shops if you would normally take the car, can make a big difference to the rate at which your body will burn calories.

• Use a smaller plate when dishing up your food, there's nothing worse than looking at a half empty plate when you are famished. At least you will still have had a plateful of food, you won't even notice that your portion was smaller.
• Really take the time to enjoy your food, chew it properly, take the time to chat with your family, partner or the dog even. Just don't rush your food, it's not going anywhere. Give your body a chance to realize it's been fed, then you won't feel the need to eat so much.
• Don't follow any fad diets, they may work short term but you want to make being a healthy weight a lifetime goal and fad diets aren't practical for the long term. You won't be able to maintain eating a fad diet long term and then the weight will go back on and end up as heavy as you started.
• Do make an effort to be more physically active, not only will you burn more calories you'll become healthier over all.

If you do overeat occasionally, it is not the end of the world, maintaining a healthy weight isn't about being so obsessed with what you eat that it rules your life or makes you miserable. You cannot live your life like that. If you overeat today, just eat a little less tomorrow or do some extra exercise. It's just a simple case of maths....

Follow these few simple tips and you can keep the weight off long term!!

For more advice to help with cutting calories and weight loss follow this link.

Copyright © 2012 Debbie Roberts