Succeeding In Weight Loss

Many factors can impact the success or failure of a new diet or exercise program, so we often spend a lot of time researching and choosing the best weight loss program, finding the most effective workout routine or eating the right foods. But there are also a mental attitude  that can affect whether or not you lose weight. One of these factors is self-efficacy, and it’s easy to change.

What is Self-Efficacy?

Self-efficacy is your belief that you can successfully carry out a specific task. Simply said, You have to believe you can do it. If you start your weight loss journal with the words, “I can lose weight!”, your self-efficacy with regards to weight loss is probably high. You noticed I said weight lose journal, I know most of us don’t keep a journal, but today it’s easy. The traditional way would be to buy a book with blank pages and write everyday about the goal you have. Today, you can start a journal on your computer or tablet by using any text writer that comes with your computer. 5 minutes a day and you can jot down the things you ate, and if you work out, even if it’s walking put down what exercise you did. O.K., you might ask yourself why go thru the bother? Well, first it shows that this time your serious about losing weight and your going to keep a record of your progress. Remember, if you haven’t done this before, start your journal with a statement of your goal. And if you ever get discouraged just read the journal from the beginning. It’s a reminder of why you decided to lose weight. Also a journal can help you when you hit a stopping point and you can’t lose any more. Read the journal and you can see what you are doing differently and why you stopped losing. 

If you are going to succeed in weight loss you have to have a plan that includes your goal and how you're going to reach your goal. How your going to reach your goal is the important part. In order to succeed you have to know how you will reach that goal. 

The plan is the part that will take some research. Read about the different ways that people have succeeded in losing weight. There are dozens of ways to lose weight, but only very few ways will work for you. You can skip those stories about people who are selling something. You don't have to spend money to lose weight. If you want to try some new weight loss product, talk to your doctor first. Many of these products have side affects that they don't tell you about.

Self-efficacy generally relates to a specific goal. For example, you may have strong beliefs that you are capable of skipping a high-calorie late-night snack. That means your self-efficacy regarding late-night snacking is high, but you might have doubts about whether you’re going to get up early the next morning to work out. Your self-efficacy regarding the morning workout is low.

Self-Efficacy vs. Self Confidence.

It might seem as if self-efficacy is just another version of self-confidence, but that’s not true. Let’s use an example: say Carol is a graphic designer who has worked her way up the corporate ladder to become the head of her department. She’s proud of her accomplishments, comfortable in social settings, strong but respectful in dealing with her boss, and positive about her personal relationships. Carol has a strong sense of self-confidence.

But let’s say that Carol is overweight. She’s tried dieting repeatedly, has worked with personal trainers to stick to an exercise program, and has even gone to weight-loss camps to shed her excess pounds. Nothing has worked. Carol now believes that she just can’t lose weight. So even though Carol is self-confident, her self-efficacy about her ability to lose weight is low.

Why Does Self-Efficacy Matter?

Researchers have found a strong link between one’s beliefs in her ability to successfully perform a task, and her completion of that task. Quite a bit of research has been done with regards to self-efficacy and weight loss — most confirming a relationship between strong beliefs (either negative or positive) and actual success.

To see why it matters, let’s go back to our example of Carol. Let’s say that Carol’s new diet coach has identified a weak link in Carol’s diet: she’s good for most of the day, but she tends to eat too many of the cookies and cakes that are left in the lunchroom at work. Let’s say that Carol has never been able to pass up those treats in the past, so her belief that she can do it now is minimal. When she’s faced with a tray of brownies, she’s not likely to muster the willpower to walk away, because she knows that she always fails anyway. Her attitude is, “why bother to make the effort?”, and she eats a brownie. Carol’s beliefs about her abilities have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But let’s say that her diet coach was able to build her self-efficacy. The coach was able to remind Carol of the many other situations where she has successfully passed up treats in order to stick to her diet. He tells her that he believes she can do it. Now, when Carol is equipped with the belief that she can, in fact, walk away successfully, she’s more likely to do so when she’s faced with the tray of brownies.

How Do I Build Self-Efficacy?

So how do you turn a negative belief system into positive thoughts? Researchers have identified four things that impact self-efficacy: mastery of experiences, social modeling, social persuasion, and emotional responses.

4 Ways to Improve Self-Efficacy to Lose Weight

1. 1. Set and reach small goals. To improve your mastery of experiences, you want to successfully complete small goals that will act as stepping stones to larger accomplishments. Break each long-term goal into smaller achievable goals, and as you complete each one, acknowledge it in your journal and remind yourself of your success. The completion of each small task will build your level of self-efficacy for completing larger tasks in the future.

Surround yourself with positive messages. If the people that surround you are successfully completing the goal that you want to achieve, you’re more likely to believe that you can do it, too. Find friends that have some habits you admire. Skip the lunchroom snacks and spend your break with a crowd that eats a healthy meal. Instead of going to happy hour with your buddies, find a few friends that want to hit the gym and exercise. You can also surround yourself with positive messages electronically. Sign up for newsletters that provide healthy messages, fill your Facebook feed with posts from weight loss coaches and successful dieters, and follow health-oriented Twitter feeds.

Social Persuasion. Let friends and family know that their encouragement and positive messages make a difference. Then, make it a habit to acknowledge the compliments when you get them. Often friends and family have a similar problem, then maybe you can’t talk about it, this is another area where social media can help. Several recent studies have found that positive messages sent electronically can help people lose weight. Get connected with other dieters who have lost weight. Your friends and family will come around to your way of thinking after they see the progress you made. Then watch the complements come in.

Learn to Relax. Emotions can trigger overeating. If or when you become stressed, that can trigger a food binge.

If the concept of self-efficacy is new to you, don’t worry. Simply your awareness of your positive and negative beliefs may help you change the things you need to adjust in order to lose weight. Remember to start small, make changes gradually, acknowledge your successes and move forward from there.

Don't worry if you tried and didn't succeed, remember I said there are dozens of ways to lose weight, not everyway will work for you, so try another way, the trick is not to give up. 

Follow me on Twitter or X @ray0369

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want to Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want to Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Want to Get Off Junk Food; Make a Plan

 

Better: Formulate A Plan

Going into the grocery store with a meal schedule, shopping list and some extra willpower will help you avoid caving in and buying junk like frozen pizzas, doughnuts and ice cream.

Plus, having a plan will likely save you some time, as it will keep you from wandering aimlessly through the aisles, trying to figure out what to buy and cook. 

Your bank account will also benefit, since sticking to a list will prevent you from buying a bunch of random items that you don’t really need, or already have hiding in the back of your pantry. 

So make your list and check it twice -- then make it your personal mission to enjoy a shopping trip with health and wellness -- rather than chips and dip -- in mind.

Best: See It Through

It's a commonly held notion that people don’t like change. When it comes to making edits to your daily diet, that can certainly be true... until you start to see noticeable differences in your appetite (lower), energy (higher) and waistline (shrinking by the day). 

The fact is, humans aren't naturally programmed to require all of the added sugar, fat and salt we’ve become accustomed to eating via the consumption of prepackaged, restaurant and fast food. “Our taste for salt doesn’t develop until six months of age,” says Moss. “You can get unhooked on salt in about six weeks.”

Think about that for a minute: six weeks to a healthier, stronger, leaner you. I’m not saying it won’t be challenging, but that kind of payoff has the potential to boost your self-esteem and overall health. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and start the process of ditching unhealthy junk!

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

How Often Should I Eat?

 

How Often Should You Eat? The Starvation Mode Myth

If you eat frequently to avoid starvation mode, you might not like the news you're about to read. Many dieters need to understand the concept of eating frequency, and it may cause your weight loss plan to fail.

When dieters talk about starvation mode, they usually refer to the effect that infrequent eating can have on your metabolism.  The commonly held belief is that if you don't eat every three hours or if you skip a meal, like breakfast, your metabolism immediately slows to preserve energy and prepare for starvation. As a result, weight loss grinds to a halt, and weight gain can occur.

Some science-savvy dieters might also confuse starvation mode with what researchers call "adaptive thermogenesis."  Scientific studies have confirmed that people who have successfully lost weight have a slower metabolism than their same-weight counterparts who have never dieted.

These people often (reasonably) complain that they are gaining weight but eating less.

Researchers believe that a slower metabolism is an adaptation to eating fewer calories over an extended period of time.  Adaptive thermogenesis makes it harder for people who have lost weight to maintain a healthy weight.

So why is the distinction between starvation mode and adaptive thermogenesis so important?  Even though the concept of adaptive thermogenesis has been validated in clinical studies, researchers don't necessarily blame infrequent eating or skipping meals (starvation mode) for the slower metabolism.  So dieters shouldn't necessarily use the evidence-based concept of adaptive thermogenesis to justify eating more often.

Can You Gain Weight Without Eating?

So can you gain weight without eating all the time?  Dr. Fuhrman explains that eating less can have an effect on your metabolism, but not in the way that you think.  In fact, he thinks that the idea of starvation mode is "ridiculous."

"Caloric restriction can have an effect on metabolic rate but on the rate at which you lose weight, not on whether or not you lose weight," he says.  Fuhrman says emphatically that dieters will not gain weight by restricting calories. "If starvation mode was a real thing," he says, "then anorexics would be fat."

In short, Fuhrman says that dieters should never try to eat more to avoid starvation mode. Snacking frequently or increasing the number of meals you eat during the day doesn't work if you want to lose weight.

"When people increase the number of eating occasions during the day, they increase body weight."

How Often Should I Eat to Lose Weight?

So what really matters if you want to lose weight?  Fuhrman believes that the quality of your diet—not eating frequency—makes the difference. In The End of Dieting, he offers a scientific explanation for why we want to eat all the time.

He explains that what feels like hunger is often just our body's natural response to withdrawal from junk food.  "People get uncomfortable, that's all it is." He says that weight loss happens when we increase the amount of healthy food we consume, not the frequency of eating episodes.

So should you worry about starvation mode?  Nope.  Starvation mode doesn't make you fat.  Eating less does have an impact on your metabolism, but that is a natural and expected part of the weight loss process and it shouldn't derail your attempts to eat a healthy, calorie-restricted diet. If you eat too often to avoid starvation mode, your weight loss plan is headed for trouble. 

I reblogged this post from a popular health and fitness website but it's been quite a while and I'm not sure where it came from. The doctor has a point and I respect his opinion but I don't agree. You will slow your metabolism by limiting or drastically cutting calories. The thing is that all of this takes more time than we think. Your body does adapt to the changes you make, but it doesn't happen in a couple days unless you're a small child. An adult's body might take weeks to adjust to changes. So you can go into starvation mode if you cut your food drastically but it's only temporary until your body makes the adjustment. 

I'm getting a little off the subject but if I was on a junk food diet for several months or even years and then decided to change to a healthier low-fat, low-carb diet, the body wouldn't know what was happening and would be craving the old food. Even though my body wasn't getting enough nutrition on the junk food diet, the body grew accustomed to the junk food. The body doesn't understand longevity, the body doesn't know how long you will live or might live. Your body lives in the moment and it will adapt to whatever you eat or whatever you're doing if you give it enough time.

I still think that by losing your body fat you can live a longer, happier, and healthier life. To get to that point is the journey that you have to take. I can tell you how I lost my fat or most of it, but my way might not work for you. You have to find the way that works for you. It will involve eating nutritious foods and it will involve giving up foods that you like and it will involve more activity and these are the things you have to decide for yourself. The journey is long and you will stumble along the way, but it will be worth it.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

Dinnertime Dining Mistakes

 I’ll start with the one I think is the most important. As much as we know about healthy eating. Our dinner meal is still the biggest meal of the day. I realize that’s a hard habit to break but this is the most important. For some reason, we are always too busy during the day to eat a proper meal. We race out of the house in the morning with a drink in our hand and that carries us until we get to work and if we can’t find anything else we get something in the snack machine. That carries us until break time when we get something else from the snack machine, then have some coffee and return to work. If we have time to go out to lunch, we usually end up at a drive-thru window somewhere and then hit the snack machine later in the afternoon. 

By the time we get home, we need some real food. Eating crap all day long has left your body crying for something better. Dinner is the only time we have to eat something healthy and most of us do, but is that one real meal going to make up for the whole day of sitting behind a desk or behind the wheel of a car or truck and eating nothing but junk. No, it won’t. This is the worst time of the day to be eating a big meal. You're probably going to sit the rest of the day and all evening. Even if you have to go out again, you’re not going to get any exercise. 

After dark we go into hibernation mode to get ready for sleep, so that food inside your belly will sit there all night and rot. You won’t have any appetite in the morning so you run out of the house with that drink in your hand and the cycle starts all over again. 

Ten years go by and your pants don’t fit or you have to buy a bigger size. You go see your doctor and he tells you that you weigh 30 pounds than you did 5 years years ago and you scratch your head. It’s not always about that large meal at night, it's a combination of things. 

We are all very busy people in this new world we live in. I’ve been retired now for about 5 years and I don’t know how I had time to work. I write blogs and volunteer at a Senior Learning Center show people how to use a computer and that’s only two days a week. I do workout but it’s hard to find time for that. Sometimes it’s 10 pm before I finish writing. 

I’m not complaining, I’m just stating a fact. We are all busy today even if you don’t have a regular job, but I find time for everything. Maybe I don’t watch as much TV as some people but I think of TV as a way to entertain yourself and the way I look at my life, “I have things to do” and if I don’t have time for entertainment then it will wait until I have time. I’m not going to make time just to entertain myself. 

I live a healthy lifestyle not because I took a class that taught me how, I did the work and read about how to live better and live healthy, now I do. Don’t wait to fix your life until you have nothing better to do. The longer you wait the more work it will be. 

I’m not telling you to exercise after dinner, that never works out well. Everyone will find a way to live healthy and eat healthy themselves. It will be different for everyone. I found a six-meal-a-day plan that worked well for me. You can find an example on the internet. The idea of eating more frequently is to eliminate food cravings. A lot of food cravings come from an addiction to things like salt and sugar. Food manufacturers got smart and found chemical substitutes for both of these. They can save money by using substitutes but also they can hide these things on the food label so you don’t know what’s really in the food you buy.

Now I just eat fresh foods and fresh seafood. I feel better about what I’m eating if I can make it myself. When I’m out of the house for the day I pack food and take it along. If I have to eat out, I’ll get a salad and use wine vinegar or lemon juice for seasoning. When you follow the six meal a day plan you want to make all the meals about the same size. I’m talking about the calorie count. As a rule of thumb, I use 300 calories per meal and eat every 3 hours. With the exercise program I followed all I needed was about 1800 calories a day. I saved all my calories for the food. I didn’t drink any calories. 

So if you want to lose body fat the key is to change your eating habits, the food you eat, don’t drink calories, don’t eat before bed, and cut out salt, sodium, sugar, and fructose of any kind. Stop the food addiction. 

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

Which Diet Is Right For You?

 Trying to lose weight? If you’re a more-meat-than-potatoes kind of person, two new studies should encourage you.

That’s because both concluded that a low-carbohydrate diet appears to be at least as effective as a low-fat diet, challenging the long-held notion that eating fat is what makes you fat.

Ok, If you’ve been dieting for a while you probably know that all diets don’t work on everyone and it’s almost impossible to find one that works for you. I’ll explain, whatever you choose as a meal plan may work for a short time but your body will adjust to the changes after a few weeks and you stop losing. So what’s the answer, Well this is not only true with diets but the same thing applies to exercise. Whatever changes you make in your routine your body will adjust to the change after a couple weeks. Don’t fight your body, go with it and you change up what you're doing. 

You can trick your body. The body’s primary function is to keep you from starving. Sounds crazy, ah. Millions of years ago, humans couldn’t always find food and your body would store fat to preserve life between meals. We know that finding food today isn’t a problem but the body doesn’t know that, so it stores the excess food that it doesn’t process. Your body doesn’t dispose of the excess. It has no mechanism to do that. It only disposes waste from the food it processes and it only processes what it needs to supply you with the energy you need at that moment. Your system is working in real-time.

I’ll explain, low-carb diets have always been high protein like meats and low-carbs like potatoes or rice. Which meant we should eat more meat and less of the other stuff. But the low-fat diet is the opposite, low-fat means less animal fat and more carbs like potatoes and vegetables.

One study, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, randomly assigned 148 men and women to follow either a low-carb or low-fat diet. After a year, the people on the low-carb diet had, on average, lost nearly 8 pounds more than those on the low-fat diet. The low-carb dieters also saw more improvement in their blood cholesterol levels than the low-fat dieters.

The other study, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, pooled the results of 48 randomized trials, involving nearly 7,300 people, of brand-name diet programs, such as Atkins, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and the Ornish diet. It found that all of the diets, whether low-carb, low-fat, or somewhere in between, led to weight loss, and the differences between them were small.

Writer Rita Rubin asked obesity expert Ken Fujioka, MD, who was not involved with either study, to help sort out the low-carb vs. low-fat research. Fujioka, an internist, treats people with weight problems at the Scripps Clinic in California.

Q: Were you surprised by what these new studies found?

A: I wasn’t surprised at all. Believe me, I was on the low-fat bandwagon for eons. You get twice as many calories from a gram of fat vs. a gram of carbs or a gram of protein. But it’s clearly more complicated than that. The type of fat also is an issue. I would agree a lot of saturated fat may not be a good thing. But if you look at olive oil and canola oil, these are clearly not bad things and, if anything, can be very good.

Q: Besides what foods they prefer, are there other factors people should consider when deciding what diet will help them lose weight?

A: There are certain groups of people who clearly do better on a low-carb diet. They’re pre-diabetic, they’re patients with polycystic ovary syndrome — what we call insulin-resistant diseases. Patients with insulin resistance do better on a low-carb diet and will lose more weight on a low-carb 1,300-calorie [diet] versus a low-fat or balanced 1,300-calorie diet. But not everybody can follow a low-carb diet.

We really want to find what diet that patient can follow. (If they say) ‘You know, I really will do well on Weight Watchers,’ we tell them, ‘Okay, enroll in Weight Watchers.’ Admittedly, we may tweak it a little bit, but in general, we’re looking at what’s going to work.

Q: Do certain people tend to prefer low-carb over low-fat, and vice versa?

A: As a group, men really seem to find a low-carb diet relatively easy to do and actually relatively easy to do long-term. They’re fine eating steak one night, a lot of chicken the next night, and pork loin the next. They’re really happy. A lot of women don’t gravitate toward a low-carb diet. It’s not a diet that they find interesting or fun or something they can adhere to. As a group, they’re more comfortable with a balanced diet.

Q: After people slim down on a low-carb diet, can they stick with it to maintain their weight loss?

A: Typically, just like anyone else, they really would like to have some carbs and pasta and bread. In our practice, I will have them see a dietitian who will teach them how to follow a more balanced diet after they’ve lost the initial weight. There’s one study, it’s called the National Weight-Loss Registry, and they noticed that people who kept off weight for a long period of time do in fact have low-fat diets.

I actually follow a low-carb diet. I find it easier. I can eat more protein and feel satiated, and then I don’t have to have all those carbs. A typical lunch for me is a salad with chicken on top. For dinner, I typically will have at least one starch and meat. I’m very fortunate — I’m married to a dietitian. When I come home, I have freshly cut-up vegetables waiting for me. I think the secret to long-term weight loss is to marry a dietitian.

Q: What does the future hold as far as helping people pick the diet that’s best for them?

A: We’re not there yet, but eventually we’ll be taking somebody’s genetics and we’ll be looking at markers for what’s the best diet to do. It sounds sci-fi: In the next 5 to 10 years we’ll be able to use someone’s genomic information, with just a mouth swab or spitting into a tube, and give them a good idea of the best diet for their genetic makeup.

Like the Doctor said, “We’re not there yet”, but soon your doctor can tell you the best type of diet for you. Today, we can still do it the old-school way. If low-carb diets don’t work for you, try a low-fat diet, just don’t give up just because your diet doesn’t work.

When picking a diet, you can be eating all the right foods but still can't lose weight. That's when you should start counting calories. You may be eating too many calories for your activity level. Simply reduce the calorie count per day by 200 calories. If you were eating 1500 calories a day, drop it to 1300 per day by lowering the portion size. If you feel sluggish and have lost some energy, stay with the 1500 calories and increase your exercise program to burn more calories. 

Another tip is not to worry about your weight but to track the inches you lose. Losing inches is the real goal, forget the scale, and get a measuring tape.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

How Many Carbs Do We Need?

 According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, about half your daily calories should come from carbohydrates. So that’s quite a lot. But, there’s more to it than how many carbs you need — some sources of carbohydrates are better for you than others. What the mean by “carbs” is vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, dairy, eggs, and whole grains.

First, what are carbs? Carbohydrates are mostly found in plants where they provide energy and structure. Sugars, starches, and fibers fall into this category.

And although animals need and consume carbohydrates, you won’t find any carbs in meat, fish or poultry. But you will find carbs in milk and dairy products because they contain lactose, which is also a type of sugar.

This is a good article that was first published by WebMD, but though dairy is a good source of carbs I substitute dairy with a plant based milk like Almond milk or Oat milk, there are several others on the market they may even be better for you then dairy.  

How Many Carbs Do You Need?

Your carbohydrate need can be based on your caloric intake. If you know how many calories you need each day, you can figure out how many grams of carbs you need:

Start by determining your daily calorie need and divide that number in half. That’s how many calories should come from carbohydrates.
Each gram of carbohydrate has four calories. Divide the number you got from the first step by four.
The final number is equal to the amount of carbohydrates in grams you need each day.
For example, a person who eats approximately 2,000 calories per day should take in about 250 grams of carbohydrates (2,000 divided by 2 = 1,000 and 1,000 divided by 4 = 250).

I think that way is too complicated, it's easier to count the carbs by calories, in the example above if you need 2000 calories a day, 1000 calories should come from carbs. This next tips is important. If you eat food in cans or boxes your calorie count will add up fast and you will have to eat less food. This also holds true for restaurant food. If you stick to whole foods, all natural foods, you will be able to eat more food per day and still stick to the 1000 calorie count of your carbs.

Tracking Your Carbohydrate Intake

Find the carbohydrate grams on the Nutrition Facts labels on packaged foods. You’ll find calorie information there too, but be sure to double-check the serving size and number of servings per package.
Use the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference to calculate carbohydrate amounts for fresh foods. It’s a large database that’s regularly updated.
Keep a food diary to track your information. You can print out your own pages and keep them in a notebook.
Join Calorie Count to track calories, carbohydrates, and all the other nutrients, plus you’ll find suggestions for a healthy diet. They also have a great smart-phone app so you can track your calories when you’re away from your computer.

Which Carbs are Best

This illustration make it easy to choose the best carbs.

Carbohydrates include complex carbohydrates, like starches, and simple sugars such as white sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and honey. As far as plant-based carbs go, choose 100-percent whole grains, and fruits and vegetables for most of your carbohydrates. The standard tip is to ‘make half of your grains whole.’ That way, as long as you eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables, you’ll add a substantial amount of fiber to your diet.

Of course, you don’t want to consume carbs only. You need protein and fat, just not as much. Balance your carbohydrate choices with protein sources such as lean meat, poultry, eggs, or fish, and some healthy fat such as olive oil, avocado or nuts, and seeds. Protein combined with high-fiber carbs helps keep you feel full between meals. The protein that is recommended by most professionals is seafood and poultry. The fat in these two food groups won’t contain any animal fats.

Watch Out for Sugars

The worst carbohydrates sources may be sugary foods, including things made with sugar, honey, corn syrup or maple syrup. These foods usually have too many calories and little or no nutritional value. Remember, you can't go over the 1000 calories a day so choose wisely. The trick to losing weight is to get the most nutrients possible from every calorie. My calorie intake is 1500 per day. 2000 calories may be too much for you and you won't lose weight. Try 2000 at first and after one month you judge for yourself, you might have to reduce your calories. Not everyone needs the same amount of calories.

Avoid sugary snacks, pastries, sugar-sweetened soft drinks, candy, and cookies. Watch out for heavily processed foods that often contain added sugars, even those that don’t taste sweet. A good rule-of-thumb is “don’t drink your calories”.

Follow me on Twitter or X @ray0369

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want to Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want to Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

For Those Losing Weight, Why Is Your Pulse Important

 

What Is Your Pulse? And why is the important?

I understand you just want to lose weight and you don’t care about the “How and Why”. But if you have been wondering why your having so much trouble losing weight, then maybe you need to read this. 

Your pulse is your heart rate, or the number of times your heart beats in one minute. Heart rates vary from person to person. Your pulse is lower when you are at rest and increases when you exercise (because more oxygen-rich blood is needed by the body during exercise). 

Knowing how to take your pulse can help you evaluate your exercise program. If you are taking heart medications, recording your pulse on a daily basis and reporting the results to your doctor can help your provider determine if the drugs are working properly. And it also helps you know if your exercise is really doing any good. 

How Do I Take My Pulse?

1. Place the tips of your index (second finger) and third finger on the palm side of your other wrist, below the base of the thumb. Or, place the tips of your index and second finger on your lower neck, on either side of your windpipe.

2. Press lightly with your fingers until you feel the blood pulsing beneath your fingers. You may need to move your fingers around slightly up or down until you feel the pulsing.

3. Look at a watch or clock with a second hand.

4. Count the beats you feel for 10 seconds. Multiply this number by six to get your heart rate (pulse) per minute.

Check your pulse: (beats in 10 seconds) x 6 = (your pulse)

What Is a Normal Pulse?

A normal resting heart rate is generally considered to be 60-100 beats per minute. The exact number will vary among individuals. Children tend to have higher resting heart rates than adults. Now, and I’m talking about adults, not children, If your at-rest heart rate is over 85 beats a minute and you have no heart problems, your probably overweight or in poor physical condition. If your not someone who regularly exercises then exercise will help you, but you need to be careful. You want to know your maximum heart rate and you need to monitor that so your not exceeding it. 

What Is Maximum Heart Rate?

The maximum heart rate is, on average, the highest your pulse rate can get based on your age. To calculate your predicted maximum heart rate, use this formula:

220 - Your Age = Predicted Maximum Heart Rate

Example: a 40-year-old's predicted maximum heart rate is 180.

Read carefully this next section because the formula above does work, but if your under a doctor’s care and taking prescription drugs then ask your doctor what your maximum heart rate is and then depending on your age, your target heart rate would be 60% - 80% of the maximum. 

Your actual maximum heart rate can be determined by a graded exercise test. Please note that some medications and medical conditions may affect your maximum heart rate. If you are taking drugs or have a medical condition (such as heart disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes), always ask your doctor if your maximum heart rate (and target heart rate) should be adjusted.

What Is Target Heart Rate?

You gain the most benefits and lessen the risks when you exercise in your ''target heart rate zone.'' Usually this is when your exercise heart rate (pulse) is 60%-80% of your maximum heart rate. In some cases, your doctor may decrease your target heart rate zone to begin with 50%.

Be careful not to exceed your target heart rate. This increases both cardiovascular and orthopedic risk and does not add any extra benefit. Instead, slow down until your heart rate gets into the proper range. 

The reason all of this is important is because, and this is a simple example, You want to start exercising so you start walking everyday. But after a few weeks you don’t think the exercise is doing any good. That’s when you should be monitoring your pulse. For example, if your target heart rate is 140 beats a minute and you walk 30 minutes a day, then for 20 minutes your heart rate should be at 140 beats a minutes. The first 5 minutes you start slowly building up and the last 5 minutes slowly cooling down. If you do this properly it’s good for your heart and it works to speed up your metabolism. I know what your thinking, for beginners keeping track of your pulse is very difficult. But they make fitness trackers that help you with that. It straps on your arm and tells you your heart rate. Some do much more, they can tell time, keep track of your steps and even how many calories you burn during your work out or during the day.

If your not monitoring your heart rate your can do damage to your heart, or if your going to slow you might not be doing yourself any good. 

To sum this up, You should have a resting heart rate at 70 or below and when you exercise depending on your age and health your heart rate can be twice your resting heart rate. When you have a higher resting rate you need to talk with your doctor and he will advise you how high your heart rate should be during exercise. It will vary with age and weight.

The reason for this post is that some beginners with exercise can't seem to make any progress and give up. That can be because you need to exercise for about 20 minutes at max heart rate in order to boost your metabolism. But you can't rush into that max heart rate, you have to warm up for about 5 minutes, gradually increasing to your max rate. Then later do a post-workout slowing bringing the rate back down.

It can be very dangerous for beginners to stress the heart muscle.

Follow me on X, the former twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my lastest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.