The formula is simple: diet + exercise = successful long term weight loss. Sure you may think you have heard this before...but are you really understanding it? So many people I know crash diet, or live off of juicing cleanses or exercise or hours and hours on that elliptical or treadmill and still find themselves struggling. None of those fads I just mentioned are going to get you results that last. Sure you may lose some water weight or you may feel 3 sizes smaller after juicing for a week but that is not a healthy, happy (or practical) way to live your life and when you go back to your normal eating (which you will) the pounds come back just how they came off... like magic! News flash! Magic is not going to give you a healthy and happy body that you can live with for the rest of your life. And here we are back to diet and exercise. Whether you are trying to lose a couple pounds or 30 pounds, you need to expend more energy than you consume. The two ways to do this would be to limit your intake of calories OR burn off the calories consumed. This is called creating a negative caloric balance. For further understanding: let's say right now you consume 2,500 calories per day. throughout daily living and maybe some exercise you burn off 2,000 of those calories. That leaves you with 500 that are stores as fat; increasing the size of your fat cell OR creating a new fat cell. 3,500 calories is equal to one pound of fat...therefore in about a week you are one pound heavier. But don't fret! Through diet let's say you consume only 2,000 calories per day and through exercise you burn 2,500. That is leaving you with a -500 calories meaning that fat from your storage cells is sent to the muscle site to be used as energy. Score!!! So knowing this you can lose 1-2 pounds per week(the healthiest reduction rate) by limiting your intake and exercising. So....what are you waiting for now that you know the key to success?!?
