How Many Calories Do I Need?

Good Question. It's a different amount for all of us. But I can say that most of us eat and drink too any calories. The average adult American will consume about 3500 calories a day. We only need about 1800 calories a day maybe 2000 if we do a lot of strenuous work. 

I think you're going to be surprised, you don't need that many calories. Many people eat less than 1000 calories a day. For instance, Vegans and many vegetarians. What's the difference, you might say? If you do a little research on vegetarians you'll find there are three different kinds. A very strict vegetarian will stick to all the rules, others eat dairy and vegetables, and others will not eat meat or poultry, but eat everything else, like fish. Vegans are very strict and only eat plant food, and rely on protein supplements from soy and rice.

The Most popular plan trending now is the "16/8 plan". You can pick any 8 hour period during the day and consume all your calories during those 8 hours. I picked 11am to 7pm. The other 16 hours I don't eat or drink any calories. The theory is that after the 8 hours that your eating it takes 12 hours to process and burn those calories and the other 4 hours which is 7am to 11am, in my case, your body will burn your stored fat. I was a skeptic but after a couple weeks I started to lose weight. 

This diet is so popular because it's easy. I just skip breakfast and start eating at 11am what ever I like about 3 hours later I eat again and then about 6pm I eat my last meal, finish with dessert and by 7pm I stop eating. I restrict red meat for my health. If you eat quality food and fast for 16 consecutive hours you'll lose weight. You have to stick to it until your body adjusts to the new meal plan. I lose about 3 pounds my first month

I know for most of us, we think a diet without meat is just crazy, but science has proven that a diet without animal protein will extend your life and you'll be a lot healthier. 

Every diet should start with basic questions about calories. To begin with, you should know how many calories you need each day. It sounds simple, but depending on the method you use to get your number, you might get different answers. So how do you know which number is right? Something  you might not be aware of; Americans and Canadians and part of Northern Europe are the only places in the world where most people  consume about 3500 calories a day.  That's about twice the caloric intake  the average person needs. Most of us consume just as many calories from drinks as we do in food. I would have to workout 8 hours a day to burn all those calories.

There are different ways to determine your caloric needs. You can get a quick estimate online or a more specific (and expensive) test performed in a lab.

There are pros and cons to each method. The best method for you depends on your goals, how much money you want to spend, and your access to various health services.

Look at these five different methods for determining your caloric needs and evaluate the pros and cons for yourself.

One of the simplest ways to determine your caloric needs is to keep a pre-diet food journal. Before you start a weight loss program, take one week to evaluate your current caloric intake. Don't make any changes to your diet, just write down everything you eat and drink and the number of calories in each one. You should do this at a time when your weight is stable and your daily activity is typical.

After a week of recording your food intake, add the total number of calories for each day and divide by seven to get an average daily caloric intake.
This should provide a general guideline for the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight. To lose weight, you need to decrease that number by roughly 500-600 calories per day.

Pros: Inexpensive, reinforces good weight loss habits such as food journaling. Online or smartphone apps make this method simple to use.
Cons: Requires tedious recording and may not be accurate if you aren't specific about measuring and recording your food portions.

There are several easy-to-use online caloric needs calculators, like the one at CalorieCount.com. These tools provide a quick and easy estimate of the number of calories you need to eat to lose weight. To get the most accurate number, you need to know your current weight, height and goal weight. You also need to assess your daily activity level.

The number generated from these calculators is usually based on the Harris-Benedict formula for determining basal metabolic rate (BMR).

The formula is widely recognized by experts as a reasonable estimate for daily caloric need. However, it is only as accurate as the information you provide and the answer is based on general guidelines. Daily activity level, for example, varies widely from person to person and there is no way for a single formula to accurately predict the metabolic impact of your specific activity level.

Pros: Provides a fast answer, free to use
Cons: Only based on general guidelines and estimates

Many gyms and other health centers now provide metabolic testing for a fee. Metabolic testing measures the number of calories that your body burns at rest (RMR) and the number of fat and carbohydrate calories your body burns while exercising at various exercise intensities. As part of your metabolic assessment, many trainers will also provide a metabolic training plan that will help you to burn more fat calories during exercise so that you lose weight more effectively. While this seems like the most accurate way to find out how many calories you need, there has been some criticism of this testing process. The accuracy of your test may depend on the quality of equipment used, how often it is calibrated and the skill level of the person doing the testing. The service can be expensive and may require a gym membership.

Pros: Results are personalized and based on your specific performance.
Cons: Expensive and not widely available and some say that results are not as accurate as advertised.

So, back to the question, How many calories a day do I need?

The answer isn't easy, I don't think it's just a number. If a person is eating Pizza, Hamburgers, Carry-out chicken, Chinese carry-out and Sausage sandwiches, just cutting back on the quantity isn't going to help. These are foods that will pack on the pounds. It's not just the calories in these foods but the amount of fat, salt, and other food additives. The average guy on this kind of diet may be eating about 3500 to 4000 calories a day when you add in the drinks and just cutting back on the quantity say to 2500 calories a day isn't going to reduce the amount of body fat. Yes, he might lose a few pounds but most of the loss will be muscle weight.

If you really want to lose your body fat than 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 $1.99. 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, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

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

Is More Exercise Better For Weight Loss?

This post published on WebMD confirms my belief that your diet is the most important part of the weight loss journey.

If a little exercise is good, then more is better in terms of calorie burn and weight loss, right? That's what most of us tend to believe.

But it's not necessarily true, a research team says. They found that people who exercise a lot don’t burn extra calories for their efforts beyond a certain point. Their new study is published in Current Biology.

Don’t drop that gym membership just yet, though. WebMD asked two experts to discuss these findings and the role of exercise.

On one point both agree: The new research is not discouraging exercise, which is crucial to keeping your body and mind healthy. But it does provide more evidence that diet, not exercise, is the key to losing weight.

What did the study find?

Pontzer and his team measured the daily activity levels of more than 300 men and women -- along with how many calories they burned -- over the course of a week. They came from five different countries across Africa and North America: the U.S., Ghana, Jamaica, the Seychelles, and South Africa. People in some of those nations tend to be more physically active than many Americans.

The researchers had everyone's body mass index (BMI). They measured activity and calorie burning for a week but didn't track whether people gained or lost weight.

Exercise did have an effect on how many calories people used, called energy expenditure. But the amount of calories burned didn’t increase dramatically as people got more exercise. Those who had a moderate activity level burned a few more calories daily, on average around 200, compared with the most inactive people. But those who exercised beyond the moderate activity level saw no effect of their extra effort as far as how many calories they burned

Although the study didn't define ''moderate'' in hours of activity, Pontzer describes moderate exercisers as those who are active ''but not serious athletes” -- someone who walks a couple miles a day or bikes to work and back, for example. Pontzer's team did find that those with higher body fat percentages actually burned more calories with exercise -- presumably, he says, because there is more fat to burn.

What do the findings say about the role of exercise in weight loss?The study didn’t focus on this specifically, but Pontzer says exercise ''can be part of a successful weight loss strategy. We need to think about exercise and diet as two different tools."“Exercise is good at lots of things, such as maintaining heart health,” he says. “Diet is going to be the better tool for managing your weight."The findings may show that the inactive lifestyle of many Americans hasn't contributed as much to the nation’s obesity epidemic as public health officials believe, Melanson says. He stresses that the study does not prove that, but simply adds information to the ongoing debate about why Americans are so overweight.The study finding, in Melanson's view, seems to tip the scale a bit more toward overeating, not under-exercising, to explain the current U.S. obesity epidemic.

Why is it that more exercise is not better? Do we hit a kind of plateau?Yes, Pontzer says. "If you are more active, your body might be adapting,'' he says. "We hit an energy expenditure plateau. It's part of the reason your body adapts to your new exercise routine." That may be why many find it so hard to lose weight, he says.But, he believes, there is such a thing as an exercise “sweet spot” -- the point at which workout benefits, including calories burned, peak. That spot is probably different for everyone, Pontzer says, although the new study didn’t look into that.

How do you find your ''sweet spot"?Pay attention to your body, Pontzer says. You know you're out of the sweet spot and overdoing it when you feel worn out constantly and you need more time to recover from exercise, he says. At that point, it's time to work out less.

What's the best take-home advice from this research?Even if researchers eventually decide that diet plays a bigger role than exercise in weight control, Melanson says, ''the public health message is not going to change one bit. Exercise does matter [for overall health], whether you lose weight or not.''Working out has lots of health perks, including diabetes prevention, blood pressure control, stress reduction, and boosting your mood to help with depression. It can also contribute to brain and immune system health, experts say."This [study] says the first thing to do is diet and it won't hurt to throw in exercise," Pontzer says.

If you really want to lose your body fat than 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 $1.99. 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, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

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

Looking For A Healthy Way To Live?

I found a great article I want to share with you. I added a few comments along the way. These are the same beliefs I have and I write about in all my blogs. The chef who wrote this is a typical full-time worker who squeezes in family time and a busy work schedule. The whole idea of 5 or 6 small meals a day is not a new concept. In some parts of the world this is the way they eat everyday. But because this country began as a country of mostly Europeans, we adopted their ways and in part we still do.

The three heavy meals per day really became popular as the population became more industrialized. As more and more of the population worked in factories and other types of production jobs, people got use to eating before and at mid-day and in the evening, after work and around the work schedule.

In the day when man was a nomad and traveled with the herds or like some spent their day's fishing, man would eat while on the move, eating more fruits, berries, root type vegetables, nuts and things they could find along the way. Man didn’t farm in those nomad times, but people did fish and most of the population lived around the shore of the seas and oceans.

I believe man started to do damage to himself or damage to his or her health when we fled to the cities for work. The industrial revolution that started in the 1800's in England would change our lifestyle forever. Today, I believe we realize what our lifestyle is doing to our health and we are looking for a better way.

Published on Health and Fitness website:

I'm a chef (and a mom). You might think that eating frequent meals wouldn’t be an issue.

I understand the concept: Five or six small meals a day takes the edge off your appetite, evens out blood sugar levels, and keeps your energy steady. But I confess: I don’t always eat this way.

Although my fitness trainer encourages me to eat healthy food every few hours, my meals usually look like this: coffee, a bit more coffee, lunch at 3 p.m., dinner at 9 p.m. I start over again the next morning.

When I decided to change this habit, I found that doing these five things helped:

Plan ahead. Five meals a day equals breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. To do this right, you need to plan what you’ll eat every day for each “meal.” And you need to schedule eating every 2 to 3 hours.

Stock up. Face it: You’re going to grab whatever food is closest. So stock up on veggies, fruit, healthy carbs, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese.

Go for taste. Choose snack foods that will sustain you and taste good. Remember, healthy food can be satisfying.

Whip up a smoothie. Blend fruit, milk, yogurt, and a little honey for a sweet, filling snack packed with vitamins, fiber, protein, and calcium. Combine carbs and protein to stay full longer. Try whole wheat toast with peanut butter or a hard-boiled egg; whole-grain pasta with olive oil and cheese; or oatmeal with fruit, milk, and honey. Or make yourself a big pot of soup (like my Tuscan chicken soup) to heat up for lunches or snacks.

Eat foods rich in antioxidants to help fight free radicals -- unstable oxygen molecules that contribute to the aging process. Antioxidants can be found in colorful vegetables and fruits like berries, beets, and tomatoes. For a balanced diet and to help you reduce your risk of developing cancer and heart disease, add at least five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables to your diet each day.

Olive oil is a tasty monounsaturated fat that may positively affect memory. A compound in extra-virgin olive oil called oleocanthol is a natural anti-inflammatory and produces effects similar to ibuprofen and other NSAIDs. One study of men showed that olive oil, especially extra-virgin, increased HDL, the good cholesterol that clears fat from blood vessel walls -- a condition known as atherosclerosis.

Berries are a great source of antioxidants. Strawberries, blueberries, and acai berries are just some examples of polyphenol-rich berries. These powerful compounds may help combat cancers and degenerative diseases of the brain. Frozen berries contain polyphenols, too. Check out the grocery store's freezer case and include berries in your diet year-round.

Top your salad with tuna or salmon instead of chicken. Fish has been called "brain food" because its fatty acids, DHA and EPA, are important to brain and nervous system development. Eating fish one to two times a week may also lower the risk of dementia. Omega-3 fats found in fatty fish can lower cholesterol and triglycerides. It can also help ease the inflammation that leads to atherosclerosis.

Add fiber-rich beans to your diet three to four times a week. Fiber may help lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol, prevent constipation, and help digestion. And because you feel full longer, eating a diet high in fiber can help you lose weight. Top a salad with chickpeas or use beans in place of meat in soups. Beans contain complex carbohydrates to help regulate glucose levels, which is important for people with diabetes.

Veggies contain fiber, phytonutrients, and loads of vitamins and minerals that may protect you from chronic diseases. Dark, leafy greens contain vitamin K for strong bones. Sweet potatoes and carrots contain vitamin A, which helps keep eyes and skin healthy and protects against infection. Studies suggest having a serving of tomatoes or tomato products every day may prevent the DNA damage associated with the development of prostate cancer.

People living near the Mediterranean regularly incorporate olive oil, fish, vegetables, whole grains, and an occasional glass of red wine into their meals. Instead of salt, they rely on spices and herbs to flavor their foods. This "Mediterranean diet" can be beneficial to heart health, can reduce the risks of mild memory impairment, and may ward off certain cancers.

Whether eaten whole or ground into paste, nuts are packed with cholesterol-free protein and other nutrients. Almonds are rich in vitamin E, an antioxidant that protects the body from cell damage and helps boosts the immune system. Pecans contain antioxidants. The unsaturated fats in walnuts can help reduce LDL and raise HDL cholesterol. But nuts aren't fat-free. One ounce of almonds -- about 24 nuts -- contains 160 calories. So eat nuts in moderation.

Drinking vitamin D-fortified beverages like milk helps increase calcium absorption. That's especially important for bone health. Vitamin D may also help reduce the risk of colon, breast, and prostate cancers. Eat yogurt with live cultures to aid digestion.

Eating whole grains can reduce your risk of certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Choose whole-grain breads and pastas and brown or wild rice instead of white. Drop barley into soups or add plain oatmeal to meatloaf. Whole grains are minimally processed, so they retain more nutritional value. The fiber in whole grains helps prevent digestive problems such as constipation and diverticular disease.

Keeping off extra weight puts less pressure on your joints, less strain on your heart, and can reduce your risk of certain cancers. It gets tougher to do as metabolism slows and as you lose muscle with age. Select proteins like lean meats, tuna, or beans. Include vegetables, whole grains, and fruits. It takes more energy for your body to break down complex carbs, and the added fiber will help you feel fuller.

Sometimes as people age, it's difficult for them to keep weight on. You may have a harder time recovering from illness or injury if you're underweight. Eat three meals a day, with healthy snacks in between. Try whole milk instead of skim but limit your overall saturated fat to avoid high cholesterol. Eat the most calorie-heavy item in your meal first. If needed, add a meal supplement until you reach your desired weight.

The concept of small meals throughout the day made my weight loss easy and with almost no exercise, now I wish I had done more but with a hectic work schedule exercise for me was off and on as time promoted.

I found the trick to several small meals is planning. You have to stay less than 300 calories per meal, so at first it took a lot of research and making notes until I found 6 small meals that gave me enough nutrition for the energy I need and still stay under 1800 calories a day. The first meal was at 7 a.m., then 10, then 1 p.m., then 4 and finally 7p.m. I try never to eat the last two hours before bed. Now that schedule worked good for me, but some people are active till late in the evening and they might get hungry again, so hours have to be adjusted to your schedule.

I still follow the small meal plan even today and I'm not trying to lose weight, I just want to maintain and after your body is use to a different schedule you'll like it. I never have any of those problems caused by over-eating. I do pack my own food more than before so I'm not eating from the snack machine. But I can go to lunch with friends and have something small, but still healthy and not feel left out. At first you will be eating the same things over and over, but you can vary your diet by doing more research and trying new foods for the first time.

If you really want to lose your body fat than 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 $1.99. 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, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

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

Do You Want To Be Thin?

Some people believe "if I just lose a little weight, I can be thin too". Well, I never found it that easy. I guess I learned the hard way. I was always a little heavy. Even back in High School, I was what my family called chubby. After I finished school I worked as a truck driver unloading the truck by hand at every stop I made, usually about 40 stops a day. After about 5 years I changed to a construction worker. I did heavy construction, steel, and concrete for bridges and tunnels, the money was better and I had a family to think about.

Both the jobs were hard work and I lost about 10 pounds without trying. I was just burning several thousand calories a day. I was 6 foot tall and weighed about 172. After I left construction and bought a small business, I started to gain weight. I was 32 years old and the next 5 years following I gained about 30 pounds, and before I was 40, I weighed about 220 pounds.

Everyone I knew had noticed and I started to feel self-conscious.  I knew I had to lose weight. I had settled into a lifestyle of self-indulgence. Finally, I joined a Health Club. It was a complete gym with machines, running track, aerobics classes, a separate room for weight lifters, a pool, jacuzzi, steam room and expansive locker room with towels provided.

I did get plenty of exercise but I didn't lose much weight and after a few years, I stopped going. Like most people I was pretty discouraged throughout my 40's and then after I sold my business, I finally got serious about losing weight.

So the reason I'm writing about myself is because I want you to know that my battle with my weight went on for more than 20 years. But I did win the battle because I never quit. I weight 165 today after more than 30 years of trying to lose weight. I reached my goal now and just work on maintaining my weight. And even maintaining is a battle, an everyday battle of watching my calories and exercising. I have no regrets, the exercise has made me a healthier person and staying thin in my senior years lets me be active. I ride a bike, swim, walk a lot, I do yoga and weight train twice a week.

Being thin can be challenging, for some people it comes easy. They're born with the right genes and they can process food without absorbing the fat. Others like me have to work at it. But if I would have taken some advice when I was younger it might have been easier.

I always thought I could do it the easy way. "I'll diet for a few weeks and I'll be thin and ready for the summer." That was a pipe dream, it never happened. Sure, it's easy to drop 5 or 10 pounds, but in a couple weeks, it comes right back. I wasn't serious about my weight, oh sure I wanted to lose weight, but doing what was necessary never happened.

I didn't get serious until I started to feel sluggish, I was tired in the afternoon, my joints started to ache and walking became a chore. My whole adult life I was in denial about my weight and maybe that was because it didn't bother me to be overweight. Then you get older and you start to feel the effects of carrying around the extra pounds, but your still in denial and think the aches and pains are because you're getting older but it's not, it's from carrying around the extra weight and because you aren't active enough it's getting harder to carry the extra weight and your heart is starting to strain under the extra work it has to do.

I think I wrote about this before, but being a little overweight isn't going to keep you from living a healthy life. You can be just as healthy as a thin person if you do regular exercise. If you're not exercising your heart will wear down from the extra strain. Extra weight causes extra strain on your heart and at the later years of middle age your heart can start to give you trouble. So actually, if you're an overweight person, exercise is more important.

Carrying extra fat especially in the waistline is the hardest fat to lose,  and it's the most dangerous to your heart. I don't really understand why, but most of us start to put on the extra pounds in our thirties and forties. Like me, though, we don't work at losing it until it starts to cause problems. By that time, you can lose the ambition to lose fat and that's probably why you see so many seniors overweight.

If you truly want to be thin, you want to do something about it when you're young enough to have the motivation to make the hard choices and get into the exercise routine before it becomes too hard on your body. It's only recently that studies have shown us that extra inches around your waist will shorten your life. The bigger your waist, the shorter your life. Do something about your weight now, while you still have the motivation.

I know I wrote mostly about exercise today but the mistake I made was the diet. I thought exercise was all I had to do. If you don't eat the foods to lose weight, you can exercise half a day every day and nothing will happen. You can't exercise away a bad diet.

If you really want to lose your body fat than 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 $1.99. 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, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

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

Need Help With Weight Loss?

This is why most people give-up on losing weight. Most people who want to lose weight don't want to talk about it. Maybe their embarrassed. Maybe they think it's easy and they can do it. That's the typical attitude of someone who is try to lose for the first time. After trying several times and not being successful or put the weight back on, at that point most people will give up. The following article is about getting help for weight loss. It's just a matter of you realizing you need some professional help.

Help For Losing Weight

Is weight loss harder for you than it is for other people around you? Maybe you've watched friends and family members slim down with popular weight loss programs while you've seen no results at all with the same diet and exercise programs.  Are you just doomed to fail? No. In fact, a new study suggests that the lack of success may not be your fault.

A small study conducted by the National Institutes of Health found that weight loss is simply harder for some overweight patients.

Researchers said that “while behavioral factors such as adherence to diet affect weight loss to an extent, our study suggests we should consider a larger picture that includes individual physiology." In short, they said that since your body may be working against you, a personalized approach to weight loss may work best for you.

How to Get Personalized Weight Loss Help

Online weight loss programs and commercial diets work very well for some people. But those programs usually aren't customized specifically for you. You may need personalized weight loss help to slim down successfully and keep the weight off for good. A personalized approach should take into account your medical profile, your unique lifestyle, and even your emotional feelings about food. There are different ways that you can ask for weight loss help, depending on the type of support you need,

Medical Help For Weight Loss. Your best source of personalized weight loss help is your physician. Your primary care provider can tell you how your weight affects your health.

He or she can also explain to you how weight loss may improve your health.  For example, you may be able to decrease your risk of disease if you slim down. You may even be able to reduce or eliminate certain medications when you lose weight.

Your doctor is also a good place to get a recommendation for a registered dietitian (R.D.) or a physical therapist. An R.D. can create a personalized meal plan that takes your lifestyle into consideration. A physical therapist can work with you if you have mobility limitations to find exercise solutions. You can also talk to your doctor about weight loss surgery and prescription diet pills.

Social Help to Lose Weight.  Some commercial weight loss programs include social support as part of the program. For example, Weight Watchers provides meetings for their members where you gather with other dieters and a weight loss mentor to discuss challenges and successes. You may even be able to find a weight loss support community at your church or in your neighborhood. In addition to those sources, you can also build a personalized support network with friends, coworkers and family.

Emotional Weight Loss Help.  Food addiction can be the source of binge eating, overeating or emotional eating. Some behavioral health experts are trained to help you manage those concerns.  You can get a referral from your doctor, a registered dietitian, or you can find a psychologist who specializes in eating disorders through the American Psychological Association.

Remember, if weight loss feels unusually difficult, it probably is. Reach out and ask for the help that you need to build a personalized diet and exercise program for success.

The important thing is that you have the desire to lose weight. Just because you haven't found a good plan for you doesn't mean you can't lose weight. You have already taken the first step, the desire to lose, don't be discouraged that your plan hasn't worked. Consult an expert and start with your doctor. Even if he's not an expert, he may be able to refer you. Just explain about your budget and what your goal is. Remember that losing weight is more than just making the number on the scale go down. 

If you really want to lose your body fat than 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 $1.99. 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, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

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

It's "You" That Make Your Food Choices

When you pay attention and discover that your morning coffee drink and muffin is nearly 1,000 calories AND you know your body burns about 1,800 calories a day, you are empowered to make a smarter choice. When you use measuring tools to find out that your morning bowl of cereal is five times more than it should be, you can make an adjustment. When you read the nutritional guide in a restaurant and see your favorite salad is over 1,200 calories, you can choose something else.

Counting every single calorie to the point of obsession is probably not healthy, as most obsessions aren’t, but getting and staying informed about your body, your activity level and your food choices is 100 percent empowering. In my opinion, tracking is not a chore but a choice. A choice to pay attention and stay in control of my body and my health.

2/3 of adults in this country are overweight and 1/2 of those are obese, which simply means their BMI is 30 or more. BMI is the way a Doctor can determine your percentage of body fat compared to body mass. It’s not a perfect guide, but it’s widely used and it can be simply done without a lot of expensive tests. Doctors will use BMI as a guide to whether you need diet counseling or not. Under the new Affordable Care Act Doctors will get paid extra if the patient needs diet or weight loss counseling.

What you put on your plate might affect what you see in the mirror. But a few tweaks to your dining habits can go a long way to keeping your skin youthful and your body healthy. The key approach? Eat better.

"Poor-quality foods, like trans fats, cause inflammation -- and aging is basically a chronic inflammatory state," says Timothy Harlan, MD. He's assistant professor of medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine. "Can you look older because you're eating crap? Absolutely."

For example, eating too much sugar and processed carbohydrates (like some pasta, bread, and baked goods) can lead to damage in your skin's collagen, which keeps your skin springy and resists wrinkles, says Andrea Giancoli, MPH, RD. She's a policy analyst for Beach Cities Health District.

“What's more, these foods put your overall health on the line. They are tied to diseases like heart disease and diabetes”, she says. Did you know that Obesity can cause heart damage without any symptoms. 

Other foods, like fruits and vegetables, are good for your body and your overall appearance. When you look good, you feel good and your body is working the way it should. 

A person can be considered middle-age even past 65 or even 70 by the condition of their body. Your body doesn’t know what the calendar is.Your body only knows that your not fully grown or that your are fully grown and that your getting close “to end of life”. And your body can determine this by the condition of your body. This is what is call your “biological age”. 

Aging is really not about how old you are in chronological years, aging is about how old you are in biological years. A study done in a university in New Zealand recently showed that out of the 1000 people in the study of people in the late 30’s, Some had a biological age as high as 60 and some of them have actually stopped aging.




You can’t reverse aging but the study shows that in some cases people have actually stopped aging. Yes, some of this may be caused by the genes you were born with, but most of these people have stopped aging because of their diet and activity levels.

If you really want to lose your body fat than 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 $1.99. 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, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

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

Why Should I Lose Weight?

We all lose weight for different reasons. Some lose weight for health reasons, your doctor is pushing you. Maybe like me your spouse is pushing you. Maybe you feel funny at work because your co-workers stare, talk behind your back. Or maybe you just want to wear the same clothes others wear.

I lost weight because I became out of shape, out of breath when I was working outside, in the garage or mowing the lawn or just vacuuming carpet in the house. My clothes didn't fit I had to buy pants with a 38 inch waist, and then finally I said "stop". I have to stop this insane way of over indulging. That's exactly what was happening. I was in my 30's and owned a restaurant that was doing well. Success was going to my head, and all I thought about was the business and shopping for things I wanted but couldn't afford before.

My wife was power walking everyday and wanted me to join her, but I always had an excuse. I stayed at the restaurant about 14 hours a day. I'd take some Sunday's off, when I'd spend time with the kids or relatives; maybe walk thru the mall and do some shopping. My wife was the one that pushed me into exercising. We joined a local health club with all the equipment, pool, steam, sauna, track and aerobics classes. My wife probably made more use of the gym than I did. She did get me interested in Racquetball. We played about 4 times a week and then slowly I got more interested in the other things in the health club. The club opened at 6 a.m. so we could go before work.

Even after several months of this routine of 30 minutes of racquetball and then using hand weights for another 20 minutes, I hadn't lost much weight. By this time I had sold the restaurant and had bought a different business that didn't involve food. I worked less hours and had more time for the gym but I still battled the weight problem. I had lost about 20 pounds over the past couple of years but was still way to heavy. My wife wanted me to change my diet, eat less, eat more greens and less meat. Reluctantly I was changing but with little results. Now that I think back I was still rewarding myself. Drinking many high calorie drinks during the day. I wasn't counting calories and I snacking too much. I know that snacking and store bought drinks can add 1000's of calories a day. I was only counting the food at meals and thought I was doing good, and that's what happens when your not serious about losing weight.

I remember my mother smoked a few cigarettes a day, and even after my Mom and Dad had quit, when my Mom was at work she was smoking. When she was around smokers then she would smoke. The same thing happens to over-eaters. When they are around others who over-eat, for example, a man or women who are doing fine at home following their diet, but at work their tempted with the snacks in the lunch room and the sodas they keep in the frig. When everyone else does it, then you thing that a little bite isn't going to hurt.

You get home after work and eat a meal with the family and all that food is a temptation and you consume too many calories; then we all do this; at night we pull out the snacks, now your over your calorie count for the day and your not active enough at night to burn those calories and you gain weight.

There are people, and I was one, that had been over eating most of their lives, and when I was young I burned all those calories, but with age comes a slower metabolism. You just don't burn as many calories a day as you use to. That's when most of us start to gain weight because we are still eating the same amount and we’re less active.

If you want to feel healthier, feel like you did when you were in your prime, you want to get back to the weight you were when you got out of school. Usually that's when people are the healthiest. They're not taking any prescriptions, they're at their normal body weight. They don't have the opportunity to snack all day when their in school and they get exercise. Most people remember school years as some of the happiest times of their lives. I guess I remember those years as a time when I was in my best physical condition.

Now I thing I've returned to that time. I lost 50 pounds since those restaurant years, I weigh the same as I did in high school but I have lost some muscle and strength which is natural so I still watch my calories, but not as close. I've keep the weight off for a few years now and I don't want any of it back. I hate this phrase but I'm going to use it, " I feel great for my age", I feel like I'm 40 again and I don't ever want to go back to feeling tired and bloated.

I know for me the whole secret to feeling better and looking better was to lose the weight. I don't have to take any prescription drugs I can eat anything in moderation, but I know about 1800 calories is my daily limit. When I go over, I'll gain weight. But there are more reasons for losing weight, serious health reasons.

Obesity still looms large in the United States but the scale's relentless climb may have leveled off, according to the latest results of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, one-third of adults and 17 percent of children and teens, are obese, said CDC researchers who focused on more than 9,000 adults and children in 2011-2012 and compared them to five previous obesity analyses dating back to 2003-04."We found overall that there was no change in youth or adults," said study author and epidemiologist Cynthia Ogden. But within specific age groups, weight shifts were apparent. More older women are obese, but very young children seem to be slimming down.

One specialist in childhood obesity was pleased with the overall findings. "I tend to be an optimist. The fact that we are seeing a leveling off is actually a good thing," said Dr. Sara Lappe, a pediatrician at Cleveland Clinic Children's who specializes in childhood obesity. Obesity in adults is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. BMI is a calculation of body fat based on height and weight. A 5-foot 9-inch adult who weighs 203 pounds has a BMI of 30 and is considered obese, for example. Obesity in kids is defined as a child who has a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. Ogden said the results for preschool-age children are a bright spot in the findings. "We found among preschoolers, 2- to 5-year-olds, there was a significant decrease in obesity," Ogden said. Prevalence of obesity in children that age dipped from 14 percent in 2003-2004 to about 8 percent in 2011-2012, she noted. Young parents want to see their kids healthier.

Overall, more than two-thirds of adults are either overweight or obese, and more than 6 percent are extremely obese.There hasn't been a big impact on prevalence in the last eight years, but at least there's a leveling off, said obesity expert Dr. William Yancy, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C."There are a bunch of competing factors that make it hard for people to manage their weight," Yancy said. "Genetics are involved, chemicals in foods and the environment may be involved. Clearly, the food environment stimulates us to eat more and more higher-calorie foods, and our environment also encourages us not to be active. Those factors make it really difficult to maintain a healthy weight, he said. "I liken it to how difficult it is to get people to stop smoking," said Yancy. "People have to eat but they don't have to smoke, and there's a lot of controversy about what's a healthy food and what's not," Yancy said.

The word “Obesity” is used a lot today and to put that in easier terms to understand, when your BMI goes over 30, your obese. “O.K., and why is that important?” Because that’s the point when the amount of body fat reaches 30% of your body mass. And that’s important because science believes that at this point your body is spending too much of your available energy trying to maintain your fat. Stored body fat is totally non-productive. It does nothing to make your body work, yet your body has to use it’s energy to keep stored fat alive. Some stored fat is necessary but your BMI should be below 15. A number of medical problems can be contributed to being overweight and I’m sure you’ve heard them all, and it’s all true, but the only one you need to remember is that being overweight shortens your life.

You decide for yourself, "How bad do you want to lose weight?”



If you really want to lose your body fat than 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 $1.99. 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, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.



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