eBay Guides - Weight loss Tips Understanding Weight Gain

Why are you overweight?

You are taking in more calories than your body is using. Excess calories that you consume are stored on your body as fat.

Unless you have a medical disorder, it really is that simple.

Get permission from your Doctor before beginning a diet or exercise program.

CALORIES are units of heat energy used by the body in daily functions, such as breathing, sleeping, work, activities, exercise, etc, etc.

The amount of calories that YOUR body uses daily is determined, for the most part, by your metabolism, muscle mass, & activity level.

Learn how many calories are in common foods. This is important, because, no matter how you lose weight, no matter what fad diet you jump on, you will gain the weight back if you don't understand how calories work.

If you eat 3500 more calories than you burn, you will gain 1 lb of fat. It doesn't matter if the food was made up of fat, carbohydrates, or protein... if you don't use the calories, they will be stored on your body for possible future use. That fat that keeps you out of your favorite jeans is your own personal energy savings account.

Most products have nutritional labels w/ calories listed, but you can get an inexpensive calorie book.

Some include your favorite restaurants. Calorie Counting Books

The nutritional label can be misleading, and even complicated at times.

For calorie counting purposes, make sure that you look at the servings per container. If calories are listed as 150, w/ 3 servings, the package has 450 calories, not just 150.

If you grab a Starbucks Grand Caffe Mocha w/whipped cream on your way to work, you've just consumed 400 calories.

If you want to change your current body shape, you need to accept that you have to account for everything you put in your mouth.

This includes beverages, gum, coffee creamer, snacks, breath mints, etc.

How many calories do you see?

1250 Calories

Big Mac without cheese 590
Medium french fries 450
Medium regular soft drink 210

If you burn 1200 calories a day, this is all that you can eat the entire day without gaining weight. No breakfast, dinner, or snacks, nothing. Or, select food for lunch w/ less calories.

Eat something low in calories, preferably high in nutrients, that you enjoy enough to allow you to stick to the diet.

A salad can usually help the busy dieter. Lettuce is low in calories, and salads are sold by almost every restaurant. BUT, don't get a salad that has tons of calories. If you do, you're not going to lose any weight.

Avoid High calorie salad ingredients:

Regular dressing: creamy types- ranch, blue cheese, thousand island, etc.
Some light or low fat dressing are still high in calories - Read nutrition panel. Select low calorie dressing or vinegar. No oil, or a very small amount, measure & count calories.
French Fries
Fried chicken
lots of cheese
Guacamole
Taco shell, beans, hamburger - NOT A DIET SALAD

BMR

For diet success, you need to know how many calories you are using, your BMR( Basal metabolic rate - calories used by your body just by being alive. ) It's difficult to get an exact number for your BMR, because this guide can't calculate your muscle mass or fat percentage.

There are nutrition experts that can calculate this information for you. You probably don't want to spend the time or money. There are ways to estimate the number. - start with a calorie diary, record what you eat daily. Then, slowly lower your calorie intact, watching your body's response.

Weight loss centers work for some dieters.

For discussion purposes, we'll use a fictional person - "Sarah"

Sarah burns 1200 calories daily during her normal activities. (During normal body functions, sleeping, working, doing dishes, etc)

She wants to lose 10 lbs before her high school reunion.

1 lb. of body weight equals approximately 3500 calories.
For Sarah to lose weight, her body must be forced to take some of it's energy needs (calories) from her fat storage.

Sarah plans to restrict her daily calories to 1000.

Her body needs 1200 calories, so each day it will use 200 calories of her stored fat.
It will take her 17.5 days to lose 1 lb, because 1 lb equals 3500 calories of stored fat.

What can she do to speed this process? She can add some exercise into her daily routine to burn more calories.

Sarah walks for 20 minutes at a rate of 4 miles per hour. She weighs 174 lbs, so this burns 120 calories.
(people who weigh more will probably burn slightly more calories.)

This increases her usage of stored fat to 320 calories daily. Now it will take her 11 days to lose 1 pound, or 110 days to lose 10 pounds.

Sarah doesn't have 3 1/2 months before her reunion.

She decides to take a 30 minute walk twice daily.

Each walk will burn about 180 calories, increasing her daily negative calorie amount to 560.
This will allow her to lose a little over 1 pound of fat per week.
7 days times 560 calories =3920 stored fat calories burned weekly.

It will take her 9 weeks to lose 10 pounds.

How many of us are willing to diet and exercise for 9 weeks to lose 10 pounds? We are in a hurry, we want everything now!

If Sarah is in a hurry, can she just starve herself?

No, she really shouldn't . This will cause problems with Sarah's metabolism, making it harder every time she tries to lose weight.

We've already discussed that Sarah's metabolism requires 1200 daily calories to sustain her current weight. If she cuts her calories too low, her metabolism will slow down. The body slows the metabolism rate to prevent Sarah from starving to death.

We know that Sarah is dieting for her school reunion, but her body thinks that the food supply has been cut off. The body's ultimate goal is continued survival.

If Sarah lowers her calorie intake to 600 or 800 calories daily, her metabolism can potentially lower her daily needs to that many calories, resulting in NONE of her stored fat calories being used, & ZERO lbs of weight loss.

Another problem caused by severe calorie limits - When the body is forced to burn it's own storage due to little or no food intake, lean muscle mass is burned at the same rate as fat.

*Some women may not mind losing muscle mass, but consider this side effect: You can lose 10 pounds by starving - But, the problem fatty area is not completely gone. ( You didn't lose fat only)

And, due to the loss of muscle tissue, your body now needs less daily calories.
This makes it easier for you to regain the 10 pounds or even additional weight.

The best way to combat extra weight is through regular exercise. Not only does exercise help with weight loss, but it can help to prevent many health problems such as diabetes & heart disease.

There are many products available on eBay that can assist you w/ an exercise program.

You may even find coupons for a gym membership listed on eBay. Gym Discounts

Some quick weight loss tips:

1. Experiment to find the best diet and exercise options for you. Make sure that you can live with your plan. If you select a plan that's too restrictive, you may end up heavier than you are now.

2. If the calories aren't listed on the package, it's most likely high in calories, and you probably shouldn't eat it.

3. Don't say " I'll start my diet tomorrow " - and then eat whatever you want, because all of that extra food that you will eat today, before the diet starts, will take many, many days to work off.

4. Don't blindly trust product labeling. If the spray butter says zero calories, but the ingredients say "sweet cream buttermilk" Then you know that there are calories in the product. The government doesn't make companies list what they call "trivial" amounts of calories per each 1 spray serving. That little bottle of spray butter has about 900 calories of 100% fat.

5. Fill up on water. Your body desperately needs it, and it is calorie free.

Why do companies run these advertisements?

"Is stress causing belly fat? "Are your bowels sluggish, and causing you to be fat?"

70 to 80% of America is overweight or obese. Companies see the HUGE amount of available customers. Who wouldn't rather believe that stress was causing their pot belly, when, in reality, high calorie food & lack of exercise are usually to blame?

Advertisers know that we're looking for the fast fix, the easy way out of our battle of the bulge. They also know that many of us don't understand nutrition, or how the human body works, so they try to sell us a theory.

For example: A company trying to sell a "colon cleansing" treatment for $30 will say that your bowels are full of old decaying food, making you sluggish and causing your weight problems. One company even advertises how much Elvis's intestines weighed after his death.

Hello? Where does your body absorb nutrients? In your intestines. You eat, your stomach mulches up the food, and then it passes through your intestines. That's where you get your vitamins, minerals, etc. After the food makes it all the way through, you use the restroom, and eliminate what your body didn't want as waste.

So, unless you are starving to death, that is what is supposed to happen - you are supposed to have food in your intestines.

If you buy the "Colon cleansing" treatment, all it will do is make you temporarily weigh less on a scale,

rob you of some of your vitamins, remove your protective, healthy bacteria ( the kind you get from yogurt), and also lighten your bank account by $30. If you continue to eat as you normally do, your bowels will fill up again in the digestion process as the food travels your system.

Why would advertisers lie to you like this? To get your money. If only 1,000 overweight people try their product, that's 30,000 in sales revenue. That's with 1,000 customers. The US has approximately 200 million overweight potential customers. See the incentive to mislead you?

Don't be a sucker. Don't buy some dangerous pills or treatment just because you don't want to spend the time on exercise.

Exercise is so good for you, you'll feel so much better - what if you need to run for your life from a mugger or rabid dog? Don't you want to be able to get away??