Weight Loss Program-Body Fat Percentage-Weight Loss Plateau-Weight Training

HOW TO STILL LOSE POUNDS WHEN WEIGHT LOSS SUDDENLY STOPS AND FLAB IS JIGGLING: W...

HOW TO STILL LOSE POUNDS WHEN WEIGHT LOSS SUDDENLY STOPS AND FLAB IS JIGGLING: When you start a new weight loss program, especially if you have significant amount of weight to lose, the pounds often fall off rather easily the first few weeks. However as your journey progresses its common to hit a point where even though you're still exercising and dieting, the scale stops showing results. This is commonly referred to as a Weight Loss Plateau. There are a couple of different reasons why the scale isn’t budging. With a few tweaks to your routine, you’ll find that you can start losing weight again. Take a look at some of the most common reasons why you may not be losing weight:
1. YOU ARE UNDERESTIMATING THE CALORIES YOU EAT. When you start a diet, you’re probably quite strict about counting your calories. You may even use a scale or measuring cups to make sure that you are eating the right portion size. However, as time goes on, you tend to get less rigid, eyeballing portions instead of being accurate. This could be adding extra calories without you realizing it.
2. YOU ARE OVERESTIMATING THE CALORIES BURNED. If you’re following the calories burned guide on the exercise machine or relying on estimates from the internet, you may be overestimating how much you are burning when you work out. Get yourself a heart rate monitor that tracks calories and to make sure you’re working at your target heart rate. PS: How Many Calories do You Burn as per Activity http://www.indiadiets.com/Calculators1/Activitycalburn.htm
3. YOU ARE NOT EATING ENOUGH. People who are more active need more calories just to survive. If you eat too few calories, your body thinks that it’s starving and it tends to hold on to the fat. The barest minimums are 1200 calories for women and 1800 for men. People that are larger, more active, or breastfeeding may require much more. I’d venture to say that most people need much more than the 1200/1800. Calculate how many calories you should be eating http://www.indiadiets.com/Calculators1/Total_caloric_requirement.asp
. YOUR BODY IS IN A RUT. Our bodies are made to be efficient. If you’ve been doing the same exercise routine since you started a diet, your body may have adjusted to the activity, so that it’s not burning as many calories as when you first started. To remedy this, try switching to a different aerobic exercise, or increase your frequency, duration or intensity. If you’re weight training, try different exercises and be sure to increase the weights if the exercises are too easy.
5. YOU ARE LOSING FAT BUT GAINING MUSCLE. If you’re new to exercise (or getting back into it after a long layoff), you may be losing body fat but gaining muscle at the same time. I’ve had this happen to me several times. If this is the case, rejoice! That’s the holy grail of fat loss. How can you tell if you’re losing fat and gaining lean body mass? Track your body fat percentage over several weeks. You may see your weight staying the same but your body fat percentage dropping.
If you don’t think that any of these reasons apply to you, you may want to discuss your concerns with a Nutritionist. Be sure to keep a detailed log of your foods and activities so that your nutritionist can get a better idea of the whole picture.
PN: To know How much Overweight You are visit http://www.indiadiets.com/BMI/Health_Analysis.htm read more..

Body Fat Percentage-Unhealthy Foods

   Excuse my ugly-ish self. This was me about 3 years ago (10th...

Excuse my ugly-ish self. This was me about 3 years ago (10th grade) when I ate heaps of unhealthy foods and weighed about 118 pounds. I now weight 10 lbs less than that, at about 108 lbs. I didn’t intentionally lose weight. It happened from eating less in general (but still more than enough and still plenty of junk), then from eating less unhealthy and fast food, then from accidentally not eating enough for a week or a few last year while trying to get my IBS under control (I didn’t notice it until being weighed at the docs), and I am now at a healthy weight for my body, eating a plentiful, healthy diet.   After seeing this, I realized why there seems to be more concern for my need to eat more cheeseburgers. I see why I get more comments about how thin I am now, as opposed to before I’d lost the weight and got healthy. I mean, I knew I slimmed down a bit. I lost a bit in my thighs and in my face, but that’s all I could really notice. I did wonder where all that weight went. 10 pounds might not be much for some of you but it’s different for my body. I’d be in the double digits if I lost another 10. Seeing this… I definitely see the change. I didn’t realize how much thinner my stomach had gotten. Yes, I am sitting slouched over in this photo so it makes my stomach look the way it does (I feel like someone would have something to say about that so I’m explaining before I hear about it). But sitting like that now, I have tiny “rolls” and a much smaller pooch, my stomach is thinner from the side now, in my arms a bit, and I can see the bits of fat even on my sides in this photo (like underneath the bikini strap).   It’s just a bit crazy to think that was my body. I can’t imagine myself looking that way now. All I see in that photo is how unhealthy I was. I am much healthier at this lower weight that I am at, even if some of my bones show more and I have a lower body fat percentage. All of the fat in the photo above came from nothing but junk food. So, I just thought I’d share with you all what I used to look like before I was healthy and at my highest weight, and talk about it a bit. read more..

Body Fat Percentage-Calories Per Day-Chronic Dieters-Excess Calories-Water Retention

When a Pound Is Not a Pound

healthy-thin-happy:One thing many people don’t realise is that many factors can influence a person’s weight which do not reflect that person’s Body Fat. For example, two cups of water weigh one pound. If you tend to retain water or bloat, the scale can easily rise a few pounds without a change in what you have eaten. However, for dieters the effects of water weight can be severe. Here’s an example of when a pound is NOT a pound:

• You eat an extra dessert over the weekend
• You weigh yourself the following day or day after
• The scale shoots up 5 pounds - and you believe you’ve gained five pounds of fat.

Why is this NOT possible?

• Because you must have eaten a caloric excess of 17,500 calories to gain 5 pounds of fat.
• 3500 EXCESS CALORIES (by excess, we do not include your BMR and daily activity) make up 1 pound of fat.
• It is very very difficult to overeat by this amount, even when splurging.

So why is there this dramatic Weight Gain?Water weight. Any time the scale suddenly rises or falls, it is usually because of fluid shift in the body. Eating high-sodium foods can also provoke water retention (not fat retention) in salt-sensitive individuals. Yet how easily chronic dieters believe they did something wrong; they must have single-handedly gobbled five pounds worth of food. No, no no!Similarly, losing two pounds immediately from an hour or aerobics is not a two-pound fat loss. Rather, it’s mostly water loss from sweat. Jubilant dieters who think they have lost 10 pounds in a week may be in for an unwanted surprise. Whilst it may be true that the scale indicated ten pounds less than when they weighed one week ago, the question is: What KIND of weight did they lose? To lose ten pounds of fat in one week requires an energy deficit of 35,000 calories, or a deficit of 5,000 calories every day! The average woman only eats about 1,500 to 1,600 calories per day. The sad reality is that this person is losing a lot of water weight, usually at the expense of their muscles, due to the process of muscle-wasting. Muscle is made up of mainly water (about 70%)When a hungry body is not given enough calories, the body cannibalises itself for an energy source. The prime directive of the body is that it must have energy, at any cost - it’s part of the survival mechanism. When a muscle cell is destroyed, water is released and eventually excreted - that’s your precious Weight Loss. This whittled-away muscle contributes to lowering your metabolism. Muscles are metabolically active tissue - generally the more muscles we have, the more calories we burn. Hence why men burn more calories than women - they have more muscle mass.Increased muscle mass, while metabolically more active and desireable, weighs more than fat. Muscle also takes up less space than fat. Although beneficial, this often frustrates dieters by the rising, or unchanging scale number. The scale does NOT reflect your body composition. Just like weighing a piece of steak at the butcher’s does not tell you how lean it is. It’s better off to stay away from the scales for as long as possible and take measurements, or discover your body fat percentage instead and work towards body composition (less fat, lean muscle) goals rather than any kind of weight-loss goal that destroy the integrity of your structure and your well-being, too. read more..