You never have to limit yourself to one exercise when trying to meet your fat loss goals. Many people out there immediately jump to the image of having to buy new jogging shoes and going for a run at the gym. Or maybe exercise involves riding a bicycle in their neighbourhood for some people. It’s really up to you, but remember there are plenty of ways to stay active and one of the easiest is to go for a walk at any time of the day. For people who like a more complicated way to stay active where they can keep track of their own progress, then the perfect answer might come in the form of home exercise equipment. Exercise equipment might not fit your personal style but if it does, home gym can be extremely beneficial and offer an incredible level of practical convenience. Whether you want to know how to lose weight in a week, or you just want to generally healthy lifestyle, exercise equipment can play an important role.

There will probably be some pieces of equipment that you enjoy using more than others. When you use some types of exercise equipment there is no wasted movement and you can really start burning a lot of calories. Making a gym in your home is also great for people who are otherwise extremely busy and it will eventually save you money in the long run as long as you keep using your equipment. Obviously one of the downsides of using exercise equipment is the heavy price tag, but these days there are also cheaper affordable options in all categories of equipment ranging from treadmills to rowing machines. It won’t be that hard to get your hands on a starter piece of equipment, and you always have the option of building up your collection as you progress in your fat loss diet and exercise plan. The high price tag attached to some pieces of equipment can be intimidating, but rest assured that they pay for themselves in time if you make sure to keep up with regular use.

There are several things that you can do to take back control of your diet. The first thing you are going to want to do is maintain a healthy, balanced diet. It is important to do this if you truly want to get rid of the fat, and maintaining a healthy diet and eating the right portions can go a long way.

With the amount of fad diets out there though it can put a damper to someone’s hopes of being able to do this. Fad diets generally only have you losing excess body water and muscle instead of losing the fat. You may think you are losing weight, but in turn you are not. Fad diets are one of the major causes for people to become part of the classic yo-yo dieting.

By burning excess water and muscle you are also minimizing your energy and metabolism, which will now make you gain weight more easily. This means even though you’ve lost all that weight, the moment you stop the fad diet you put it back on, much more quickly then before.

Instead of using one of those so called amazing diets, that turn out to be a complete hoax, maintain a healthy diet by minimizing the amount of junk you eat and drink and you are already making a difference. Being involved with a quality diet that is designed to help you burn fat can really make a difference. There are a variety of these diets out there that can help. These are generally known as meal replacement diets. They are designed to help you eat properly by going on meal replacements and in turn allowing you to understand better meal choices and the amounts that you should be consuming.

Another thing that you should ensure to do when attempting to control your weight is take part in moderate exercise. This is something many skip when it comes to dieting because their fad diets say you don’t need to exhaust yourself with exercise. Do not believe this! Fad diets tell you this because they know you are going to have minimal energy and it will be the first give away to the diet having bad affects on your health.

When it comes to exercising, avoid over doing it. When you exercise too much you are once again going to burn muscle, decreasing the amount you can exercise over an extended period of time. Moderately exercise without over exerting yourself and you will experience the difference. For the best results for fat burning exercise at 60% of your max heart rate for approximately 30-40 minutes only 3 or 4 times a week. This may not sound like a lot, but it will make a huge difference. Exceeding this won’t help you burn more fat.

How do you know what your max heart rate is? Here is a formula to determine this…

This formula is designed for a person around the age of 42. 220 are utilized for each individual to determine their maximum heart rate.

220-42 = 178
60% of 178 = 107

This means you should exercise at the maximum heart rate of 107. Many exercise machines are designed to check your heart rate and you should utilize these if you are exercising or use a heart rate monitor.

As you can see there are many ways in which you can control your weight and help yourself maintain a healthy lifestyle. All it takes is a few changes to your eating habits and exercising regularly, and you’ll soon see a difference in your health. Control your weight with the proper diet and exercise; it is something everyone can do without becoming part of the fad diets leading you towards the realms of yo-yo dieting.

Get involved with a diet program that will help you maintain your diet if you are worried you won’t be able to on your own. The options are there to help you control your weight without all the stress and frustration like before.

There are essentials that must be part of any weight loss workout (and it isn’t doing 1,000′s of crunches or tricep kickbacks).

To burn fat at the highest rate possible I’m sure you know nutrition and healthy eating is number one. To get rid of excess bodyfat you must be in a calorie deficit. If you are able to burn more calories then you take in, then you lose weight. The more intense your fat burning workouts are the more calories you burn and the more weight you can lose.

Let’s talk intensity in your workouts. Do you workout out with a full charge ahead intensity? or is it more of just going through the motions? You would be surprised at the lack of intensity I see in some peoples weight loss workouts.

Everyone is different most of us are not world class athletes able to stick with high intensity fat burning workout. Does that mean they have failed? No, but I also know that most of us are capable of more intensity than we think. Look if you are a beginner and out of shape you aren’t capable of the intensity of a seasoned trainer.

Let me give you an example. Let’s talk Tabata Training. Doing a pure Tabata workout 20 seconds on 10 seconds off for 8 sets might be the most intense fat burning workout there is. Without being very well conditioned can anyone do a full scale tabata workout? No. So does that mean you shouldn’t do them? No, scale it back a little as an example, do 20 seconds on 30 seconds off. Every workout decrease your rest times (this is upping the intensity).

The key to fat burning success is consistancy and being persistant what matters is that you make progress. Each person has to find the intensity level. There is no need to go insane with your training.

As I mentioned before some people are able to go through much more intense workouts, then they actually are. Intense fat burning workouts also mean you can get better results while spending less time in the gym. Most importantly high intensity training provides greater benefits not only for losing excess bodyfat but also for your heart health.

What should you consider when looking at diets and weight loss, the purpose of any diet is to bring about a certain amount of weight loss. Simple enough right? With your diet all you need to do is substitute poor calorie choices for choices that are not only lower in calories, but healthier. In addition, your diet should be flexible enough to allow the dieter to maintain their weight in the long term.

Let’s face it, you can’t go through your life subsisting on lemon juice and laxative tea. This is where most diets fail to meet these two “gold standards” of dieting. That’s what happens when you use one of those fad diets for weight loss you remain unsatisfied, undernourished and most importantly, overweight. But there is a solution to this diet problem.

The best diets and weight loss programs are those diets that meet and exceed the two standards talked about above. When deciding what diet is right for you, remember the best diets for weight loss all contain these standards. Here are a couple things to look for in a good diet program.

1. Diet and Exercise Go Together

No diet program is successful without exercise on a regular basis. You cannot keep off any weight you may lose while dieting without exercise. This is because exercise not only burns calories, it also raises your metabolic rate. A higher metabolic rate burns calories more efficiently and actually allows you to consume more calories without gaining weight. In other words, regular exercise maintains your weight and helps prevent you from gaining weight.

2. Think About Getting Healthier Not Just Focusing On Losing Weight

The best diets for weight loss are less focused on weight loss. Instead, they focus on healthy lifestyle changes that bring about weight loss as a side effect.  As an example focus on cutting out processed foods. That’s makes a big difference. Instead of obsessing over a number, think about how good you feel, how much energy you have and how good you look. The goal of a good diet is overall better health, not pounds per week.

3. Eat To Live And Live Well Portion Control

The best diets for weight loss understand that portion control is a big key to losing weight. In the last 20 years, food portion sizes have grown astronomically. As the portion sizes have grown, so have our waistlines. A good diet teaches how to make portion sizes sensible, as well as teaching how to only eat until satisfied. In this age of “super sized” everything, that’s an important lesson to learn.

So there you have the basic’s of what you should look for in a diet and weight loss program. Now take it a step further and go to Fat Burning Diets And Workouts and get going on that healthy lifestyle.

Just recently, I attended a personal development workshop and had experienced emotional releasing.  I returned home to find that I had dropped 5 pounds effortlessly!  I learned that I was holding onto some feelings & past experiences which was making it difficult for me to release the weight.  So, even though I would lose weight by dieting and eating right, I would gain it all back because I was stuffing my negative feelings which was showing up as extra weight.

In your attempt to lose fat do you have your fat burning manual? Questions to ask yourself.  How do I know what exercises, workouts, activities and healthy eating habits will help me lose fat, and which ones will only hurt my fat burning efforts?

 Now you can relax – I have a list of the top ten fat burning super tips. These are tips and tricks used by fit people on a daily basis to control their cravings, lose fat, and avoid extra calories!

Fat Burning Super Tips:

1. Protein Pack Your Meals: No, we’re not talking Atkins here. However, a portion of protein added to your breakfast, as well as to snacks, will help you stay full and feel satisfied longer. Peanut butter is a great, cheap way to add protein.

2. Be Active Everyday:  No you don’t have to do full blown workouts everyday. Invest in a pedometer. This great device counts your steps throughout the day. Strive to increase the number each day, and you may not even have to take the time to work out. Include movement throughout your day.

3. Include Healthy Snacks: Three meals a day is all well and good, but sometimes snacks are even better. To help keep your metabolism stable, add a snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Try for 100-150 calories per snack for optimum fat burning success.

4. Avoid Drinking Your Calories: ( this is a big one most people don’t consider) Drinks such as soda, sweetened tea, and juice all pack a caloric punch. Avoid damage to your diet by sticking to water, diet soda, or other zero calorie beverages.

5. Wear Clothes that Fit:  Wearing clothing that is the correct size helps to make you more aware of your body size. As you lose or gain weight, it will be much more noticeable.

6. Listen to your Mother Eat Your Vegetables: If you’re still feeling hungry after a meal, begin adding an extra serving of vegetables or a salad at meal time. Vegetables add fiber and bulk, without excess calories.

7. Use Portion Control: Read labels, and measure your portions carefully. Many small bags of chips, for example, contain two to three servings( and if you want to lose fat why are you eating chips hey I’m just asking). You could be consuming double or even triple the amount of calories you think you are, so be sure to read those labels.

Take the time to incorporate some of these fat burning and fat loss super tips into your healthy eating diet today. You’ll be amazed at how little effort is required. These tips help to take the “die” out of diet, and will have you on your way to your goal weight in no time. Include one, or several, today, and watch the pounds melt off!

It is not surprising that many people are looking for a new and different approach to losing weight. People tend to look for a new approach whenever the one that they were using before did not work. Even if the approach got them to lose weight, it did not last. Several surveys have shown that just about every person who has tried to lose weight—and that is a lot of people—has tried a variety of different approaches.

In one survey of adults, a general diet and exercise approach was the most frequently used method for both men and women, followed by vitamins, meal replacements, over-the-counter products, participation in a weight-loss program, and diet supplements. In another survey focusing on younger people, skipping meals was a method used by almost half of all women (interestingly, men did not seem to employ this method).With so many approaches to try, the idea of a new and different one not only makes sense, it is appealing.

The science of weight management as we know it is only about fifty years old, a baby in the world of science. In the early 1960s, therapeutic starvation was the treatment of choice.This particularly diabolical trend was followed by low-calorie diets that restricted particular foods, then moved on to protein-sparing modified fasts that took the idea of food completely out of the weight-loss equation. If you are more than a few decades old, you probably remember these approaches and can attest to the fact that they rarely resulted in sustained weight loss.

Fortunately, the science of weight management has advanced over the years. Dr. Albert Stunkard, the researcher who said back in the 1950s that 95% of diets fail, frequently talks about the advances that have been made in weight management treatments since he put forth his discouraging statistic over fifty years ago. In an article he published in the 1990s on the topic in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine, Dr. Stunkard attributes the advances to the recognition that a variety of factors must be included in a comprehensive weight-loss program. He also credits improved weight-loss success rates to the realization that weight management cannot be viewed as a one-time, weight-loss event that disappears with the achievement of a weight goal. It is not the same as completing a course of antibiotics to get rid of a bacterial infection. Rather, sustained weight loss involves making ongoing lifestyle changes.

The Whole Truth

The central theme of this book is that weight loss that lasts requires a comprehensive method including making wise food choices, getting more active, making positive lifestyle changes, and creating a supportive atmosphere.

This article focuses on making wise food choices. Most weight loss methods address only this component of weight loss, and it is an important one. But you might be wondering how to choose from the hundreds of food plans out there.

Three Steps to Finding the Right Approach for You
Start with the hundreds of diets that are available, then ask yourself:
1. Does it create a calorie deficit?
2. Is it healthy?
3. Does it fit my life?
If you answer yes to all these questions, it’s the one for you!

Weight Loss Means Cutting Calories, and There Are Many Ways to Do It

The fundamental scientific truth of weight loss is that it can occur if a caloric deficit is created.This is the first question when considering any weight-loss method.To lose a pound of fat “costs” about 3,500 calories and those calories have to be “paid” by eating fewer calories than the body needs to stay the way it is, by burning more calories than the body needs to stay the way it is, or a combination of the two. But the number of approaches that a person can take to create the caloric deficit is infinite.

Then, the question is whether the food plan is healthy. Is it nutritionally complete? Does it encourage healthy eating habits? It is possible to eat just enough bacon or chocolate-chip cookies during the whole day to create the calorie deficit you need to lose weight. But your goal is to get your essential nutrition from healthy meals from all the food groups.

Because you are a unique individual with your own personality, lifestyle, preferences, and eating style, the path you follow to achieve sustained weight loss must be your own. The notion of a single approach that works for everyone could hold true only if we were all the same. The laws of thermodynamics for weight loss are universal (1 pound of fat = 3,500 calories), but the laws of human nature (no two human beings are identical) hold true as well.

To lose weight and keep it off, it is critical to find the approach that is right for you. Does the eating plan fit your preferences and your lifestyle? Does is it encourage healthy eating habits you can keep up? Counting and writing down calories is an effective approach to self monitoring food intake for many people, but that does not mean that it is right for everyone. For some people, finding another mechanism that will ensure they eat fewer calories than they burn is preferable. The guideline is to monitor food intake—the approach of how this is done varies.

The focus of credible weight management research today is to define and refine the factors that are critical in a comprehensive weight-loss program, then provide a set of guidelines that reflect the findings. For example, the preponderance of evidence shows that about sixty to ninety minutes of moderate physical activity per day is
associated with sustained weight loss. Science does not say that the exercise has to be walking or swimming or that it has to be done in a single session or spread throughout the day.Your approach is how you create the caloric deficit needed to lose weight.

The remainder of this chapter explores some of the most important things for you to consider in sorting through the myriad available weight-loss approaches.

Wonder Diets Are One-Hit Wonders

It is safe to predict that at least one new wonder diet or product will be promoted this year. It is also safe to predict that next year and the year after that will bring new wonder diets and products. The trend has been well established. A recent online search of books under the title or topic of weight loss revealed 2,214 matches! As the problem of excess weight has increased in the United States and around the developed world, the proliferation of diet books has followed suit.

Every year, new diet books promise a revolutionary approach to weight-loss success. Call these one-diet wonders, much like the one hit wonder bands in popular music that release one hit song and rarely are heard from again. Like the one-hit wonder bands, these diets come onto the weight-loss scene with a splash. Devotees gush over the new diets. But like hit songs and bands, new diets and their creators vanish quickly once the reality of short-term weight loss overtakes the promise of thinness forever.

Most bestsellers do not last, whether they are songs or books. According to a conference report from the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, most diet bestsellers do not stand the test of time. They are on the shelf today and out of print only a few years later.Trendy ideas in weight loss change very quickly and do not make for true longevity.

Testimonials Are One Person’s Story

Almost any approach to weight loss will work for at least one person. Every approach can offer testimonials about how it led to weight loss. While motivating and fun, testimonials need to be read with caution. If the testimonial is one example of the real-world success of many people who have followed the diet, then it can be a valuable resource. But testimonials are just one piece of the evaluation process. They are usually most helpful for learning about the practical aspects of a weight-loss method—which foods are encouraged or discouraged, tips for following the recommended approach to eating, and how making the recommended changes affected the person’s life.They are only useful if they go beyond headlines like “I lost 50 pounds in one month.”

Sort the Truth from the Fiction

Most new diet approaches are simply nonsense, although some are legitimate. Unfortunately, at times it can even be difficult for health professionals to tell the difference because scientific explanations that sound so believable. What are some of the tricks for spotting short term fixes? Typically, they are promoted with grand words like “revolutionary”
or “miracle.” Beneath their title, they often include a tag line with an appealing promise, such as “based on a scientific breakthrough” or “the only program you will ever need.” The front or back cover of the book will include other appealing promises: “lose weight forever,” “never be hungry,” “drop pounds quickly and painlessly.” When it comes to weight-loss promises, if it sounds too good to be true, it often is too good to be true.

Public health organizations have become more active in helping people make informed choices about weight loss. Overweight is a big problem, and the potential for harm or good has greatly increased. Organizations like the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Dietetic Association, as well as government agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Trade Commission, provide information and resources to help people sort through the many options available to them.

AHA has declared war on fad diets. As part of its comprehensive education campaign, AHA provides information to help identify ineffective or questionable weight-loss diets and claims. AHA discourages following programs that do not advise people with diabetes, high blood pressure, or other long-term health problems to seek advice from their physician or other health care provider. It also disapproves of programs and diets that do not call for increased physical activity and specifically cautions against certain types of fad diets.

The American Heart Association Does Not Endorse:
Specific combinations of foods or food combining
Diets that eliminate dairy
Liquid-only diets
Programs that require the purchase of packaged meals
High-protein diets
Juice fasting
“Cleansing” diets
Bizarre quantities of only one food (hot dogs, cabbage soup)
Magic or miracle foods that burn fat
Rigid menus with limited foods
Rapid weight loss of more than 2 pounds a week
Source: Adapted from www.americanheart.org.

Find Credible Resources

Armed with strategies for sorting out truth from fiction, it is time to turn to credible resources for information on weight control. According to the government’s National Institutes of Health Weight-Control Information Network (WIN), “Experts agree that the best way to reach a healthy weight is to follow a sensible eating plan and engage in regular physical activity.Weight-loss programs should encourage healthy behaviors that help you lose weight and that you can maintain over time.” Because activity is covered more fully in another article, this article will focus on what to look for in the food plan of a comprehensive weight-loss program.

A credible source for weight-loss information is the Partnership for Healthy Weight Management. Coordinated by the government’s Federal Trade Commission, the mission of this partnership is to promote sound guidance on strategies for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. A core principle of the partnership is that no single weight-loss approach will work for everyone. The partnership offers general guidance that is in agreement with the principles in this book: nutritional balance, nutrient intake consistent with recommendations for health promotion and disease prevention, and a rate of weight loss that promotes loss of body fat rather than lean muscle. Its brochure available at www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/health/wgtloss.pdf  includes a personal checklist for helping select a weight-loss method in line with the partnership’s mission.

Questions to Ask When Choosing a Food Plan
Does it encourage sensible, balanced eating?
Does it include foods from all food groups?
Does it meet all my nutrient needs?
Does it provide information on healthy eating?

Consider Other Factors

In addition to the general factors promoted by the Partnership for Healthy Weight Management, these other factors should be considered when evaluating a weight-loss food plan

Is the plan clear and up front about the role of calories in weight loss? Experts agree that the overwhelming driver of weight loss is the creation of a caloric deficit—fewer calories in than out. No good scientific proof of any kind supports changes in metabolism or other magic approaches to melt away body fat.

Does the plan support an eating pattern that fits your individual lifestyle and preferences? Eating plans are easier to follow when they fit the dieter’s lifestyle and include foods that the dieter enjoys eating. Recently, the AHA revised its dietary guidelines to emphasize the importance of flexibility in food selection.

The number of daily meals and snacks should be based on personal preference. There is no right or wrong approach when it comes to a plan with three meals and a snack versus six or so mini-meals per day. People who have a low level of dietary restraint and respond to food cues by being tempted to eat or overeat may prefer fewer meals and snacks in order to minimize exposure to food. Using an extreme method like skipping meals is not recommended, and eating in an overly strict way to comply with a specific method is not, either.

Does the plan give eating satisfaction? Eating provides pleasure, so you want to enjoy the food that you are eating both while you are losing weight and while you are keeping the weight off. Eating satisfaction is a complex issue, and there is no one meal plan or eating style that is satisfying for everyone.

Factors Affecting Eating Satisfaction

Eating satisfaction is linked to a variety of factors. What works for one person when it comes to eating satisfaction may not work for another. Finding what works is key because being satisfied affects the ability to lose weight and keep it off. While there is no single formula for eating satisfaction, there are threads that can guide you toward finding the
pattern that works best.

Body processes involved in the regulation of appetite are very complex and involve a number of hormones and biological systems. Other factors that affect eating satisfaction include taste, palatability, and energy density. Likewise, the composition of food affects eating satisfaction. In general, high-protein foods are more satisfying than foods with carbohydrates, and carbohydrate foods are more satisfying than high-fat foods. Alcohol stimulates eating.

The term carbohydrate encompasses thousands of foods from sugar to wheat germ. The effect of carbohydrates on eating satisfaction varies. Research suggests that whole grains provide greater eating satisfaction than refined grains. Dietary fiber, a component of carbohydrate foods, has been shown to reduce hunger and increase satiety. Increasing fiber intake as a weight-loss strategy appears to be related to the amount of excess weight—the more weight to lose, the more effective the strategy.

Energy density plays a role too. Some recent research has shown that from a very young age, people are trained to eat a volume of food, not a certain amount of calories. For example, most people will fill the same bowl every time they eat soup; they will not fill the bowl less full if it is a high-calorie bisque or have a second bowl if it is a low-calorie
broth. An effective approach to reduce caloric intake is to choose foods with a low energy density because the amount of food that can be eaten for a set number of calories is greater for a low-energy-density food than it is for a high-energy-density food. In other words, you get more food for the calories, and more food is associated with higher eating satisfaction.

For example, a cup of boiled corn is 130 calories. A cup of airpopped popcorn is 30 calories. Both are kernels of corn, but with popcorn the kernel has been pumped up with air and that makes popcorn a low-energy-density food that is low in calories.

Foods with a low energy density increase eating satisfaction with fewer calories because these foods usually are higher in water or air, lower in fat, and/or higher in fiber. Fruits and vegetables, for example, are rich in water and fiber. As such, they are low-energy-density foods that are useful for weight management. A review of studies looking at weight loss over at least six months concluded that a dietary pattern lower in fat and higher in fiber provided the best results.

For the same calories, a portion of a low-energy-density food is larger than a higher-density food portion. High-energy-density foods, many of which are concentrated sources of refined carbohydrates, sugars, and/or fat and taste good, are more likely to be overeaten.They are harder to stop eating in a single setting and over time.

Several studies have looked at whether altering the amount of food provided or altering the calories in the amount of food makes people eat differently. The findings are consistent. The daily amount of food eaten influences appetite; the number of calories eaten does not affect appetite.

Self-Monitor to Stay on Track

Finding an eating pattern and foods that provide eating satisfaction are critical to lasting weight loss because eating in a way that works for you enables you to stay the course. But there is one more component that is essential: self-monitoring. Without a system in place that helps you monitor what you are doing and eating, it is easy to stray off the path of weight loss and return to old habits without even realizing it. Several studies have found that self-monitoring makes a significant difference when it comes to successful weight loss. One study showed that 25% of weight-loss success is attributable to consistent self-monitoring. The people who are the most consistent in self monitoring have the greatest success.

There is no right or wrong way to self-monitor. Self-monitoring takes different forms and measures different things. It works when you find a method that you are comfortable with and are willing to do over time.

Most people benefit from monitoring two separate but related things when it comes to weight loss: food intake and body weight. Tracking food intake can be as simple as counting and writing down some measurement of food eaten, for example, calories or POINTS values of foods. Tracking may be expanded to include recording the food item and the portion that is eaten in addition to its calorie or POINTS information. To add even more detail, the tracking can include information about what time of day a food is eaten and/or feelings experienced while eating. Information can be written down on a piece of note paper, on an index card, or in a journal, whichever is most convenient.

When used consistently, tracking food intake in writing produces superior weight-loss results. However, not all dieters are consistent in their short-term tracking and over time.

Assessing internal cues for and feelings of hunger and satiety is an alternative method of monitoring eating habits and patterns and eating satisfaction. In practical terms, this means eating the amount of food needed for eating satisfaction, then stopping. Internal cues are closely linked with the person’s level of dietary restraint and disinhibition. One theory says that overweight people do not recognize their body’s cues for hunger or satiety because they never learned how to do this. Learning to recognize and self-monitor these cues may be a helpful technique in weight management.

Monitoring food intake helps keep track of the weight-loss process; monitoring weight loss keeps track of weight-loss progress.Weight loss can be monitored in several different ways: body weight, body measurements, or the clothing test.

Body weight is the easiest measure of progress. An added benefit of using weighing as a self-monitoring strategy is that it allows pacing of weight loss to equal a 1- to 2-pound loss weekly. Body weight measurement is more effective as a weekly weigh-in than as a daily weighin. Because body weight fluctuates a great deal from day to day for many reasons, including menstrual status and recent sodium and carbohydrate intake, it is easy to put too much stock into a change, be it up or down, with a daily weigh-in. A weekly weigh-in is a better indicator of true weight-loss progress and trends.

Body measurements are an alternative to weighing, especially for people who feel stressed from watching the scale numbers go down and up. Keep measurements simple by sticking to key body parts like the bust, waist, and hips. Because measurements change more slowly than weight does, body measurements should be taken only once a month or so.

The clothing test is the simplest method of self-monitoring. One way to do the clothing test is to monitor the fit of a favorite pair of pants or a favorite nonstretch shirt. Try the clothing on immediately after washing before it stretches out with wear. The belt-notch test is particularly useful for men.

Monitoring your weight-loss progress can be a solo event or it can be done with someone’s help. Some people find that being accountable to others is useful. Accountability can include weighing in weekly with a spouse or partner, participating in a structured weight-loss program that includes monitoring activities as part of its program (such as being weighed each week by trained staff), or having a monthly appointment with a physician or health professional to assess your progress. Regardless of the monitoring method chosen, the goal of keeping track is to learn how it’s working.

At the end of the day, paced weight loss is the yardstick for success and goal attainment. And, as shown in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report and the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) database, regular monitoring is key to keeping the weight off. The IOM report lists self-monitoring as a positive predictor of weight loss as well as maintenance of weight loss. Participants in the NWCR database say that they frequently monitor their food intake and their body weight.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to weight loss, one diet or approach does not fit all. While there are many ways you can create a calorie deficit, you should also choose a food plan based on whether it is healthy and a good fit with your preferences and lifestyle.We all are different, with different personal habits and preferences. That is why what works for one person may not work or be the right approach for someone else. The science of weight management continues to evolve as researchers learn which program elements help people sustain their weight loss.

Beware of being lured into trying the latest and greatest diets. They usually sound terrific and make big promises. Keep in mind that testimonials, as convincing as they sound, do not apply to everyone and may not tell the full story. Enjoy success stories as a way to get inspired and find out what following the weight-loss program might be like for you. Remember that many diet programs have not been proven with large numbers of people and have not passed the test of time for lasting weight loss.

It is important to look carefully at weight-loss programs for proof that they are healthy and that they work. Compare their features to those discussed by the American Heart Association and use the Partnership for Healthy Weight Management for guidance on selecting an appropriate program. Important features for effective weight loss include adaptability to individual lifestyle and preferences and a diet that is satisfying to eat.

Self-monitoring is essential. Monitoring eating habits and weight loss helps track the process and progress of weight loss. There is no right or wrong way to self-monitor, as long as it is sustainable and useful. Self-monitoring enables you to make adjustments in eating habits for a desirable pace of weight loss.

Weight gain is not associated with positive thoughts, so it is not surprising that a person who decides to lose weight often approaches it with a take-no-prisoners attitude. The intense motivation, dedication,and optimism that often initiate a weight-loss effort are terrific!And getting some good results early in the process is important.The Institute of Medicine (IOM) notes that a good weight loss in the first days and weeks of a weight-loss attempt is predictive of overall success.

All of us like to be rewarded for our efforts. That’s why losing weight quickly can be so satisfying. The feedback is virtually instantaneous—the number on the scale goes down daily, sometimes by even a full pound.

Any regimen that restricts food intake will lead to weight loss as long as you are eating fewer calories than you burn. It doesn’t matter whether the calories are cut by eliminating a major food group, cutting out certain foods, eating less of everything, or replacing meals with drinks, bars, or packaged foods.

Weight loss brings big health benefits. Several studies have shown that losing weight leads to decreases in disease risk factors like total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar. It does not take long for these risk factors to go down. Changes can be measured in a matter of days or weeks.

While losing weight and sustaining weight loss are often thought of as separate events, they are very much related. Sustainable Weight Loss includes a list of success factors for losing weight and a slightly different list for keeping the weight off. Taken together, the lists are more similar than not, and the factors that predict sustained weight loss are extensions of the same factors needed for successful weight loss.

The Whole Truth

The Method Matters

In the war against excess pounds, true victory is weight loss that lasts. To claim victory in your battle of the bulge, you need to think like a general, choosing strategies and tactics that will lead you to your goal weight and then keep you there. More than anything else, the method by which you lose weight determines how successful you will be.

While the temptation may be great to choose the method you believe will take the weight off fastest, it can also be a mistake. Most weight-loss methods will include some kind of eating and activity component. But how the method requires you put these components into practice needs to be evaluated to see if you are taking careless health risks, if you may be setting yourself up for out-of-control eating, or if the composition of the pounds you are losing is helping or hurting your weight-loss efforts. While the goal of weight loss is to lose the fat, depending on the weight-loss method you choose, the pounds you lose may be more water and muscle than fat. Choosing a comprehensive weight-loss method will help you lose fat, tone your body and muscles, and build skills that will help you keep the weight off.

Early Weight Loss Is More Water Than Fat

Virtually any weight-loss method produces a rapid drop in pounds during the first few days and weeks.This phenomenon is a natural part of the weight-loss process and reinforces the decision to lose weight in the first place. However, the pounds that are lost in the early days need to be kept in perspective. The purpose of losing weight is to lose body fat. And while it would be wonderful if all of the pounds lost early were fat, that is not the case. A person needs to accumulate a caloric deficit of about 3,500 calories to lose a single pound of fat. To lose 5 pounds in one week, one would have to eliminate 17,500 calories, or 2,500 calories per day. Most people do not even eat 2,500 calories daily. If the weight loss is not fat, what is it? Numerous studies have looked into this and they always come back with the same answer: the early weight loss most diets bring is mostly water.

The human body, with all its component parts of blood, bone, muscle, and fat, is made up largely of water. Fat-free mass is 70% to 75% water, and body fat is 10% to 40% water. The more fat a body carries, the lower the water content of the fat. For the average adult woman, 50% of her body weight is water; for the average adult man, 59% of his body weight is water.Women have less body water than men because they are less muscular, so they have a smaller fat-free mass. Regardless of gender, however,water is part of every single cell in the human body.

Let’s take a brief look at why the body sheds water in the early days of weight loss. Glycogen is a type of carbohydrate that the body stores in the liver and muscle. It is like a sponge, holding on to three or four times its weight in water. During the early days of weight loss, the body releases and burns its glycogen for extra energy since food calories have been reduced. As the glycogen is burned, it lets go of its water. The result is that the body loses a total of 4 or 5 grams of weight for every gram of glycogen that is burned.

The next time you are at the market, pick up a bottle of water.You will quickly notice that water is heavy—a pint weighs 1 pound; a gallon weighs 8 pounds. When you lose body water with early weight loss, you notice the pounds on the scale. This creates the illusion that a great deal of weight is being lost. A lot of weight is being lost because water is so heavy. But this is not sustainable weight loss because the body eventually gains back the lost water.We all need a certain level of body fluid in order for our bodies to function properly.

Once the body uses up its glycogen, it begins to burn fat for energy. Each gram of fat has more than twice the calories of a gram of glycogen. That means you need to burn more than double the calories to lose 1 gram of fat as you would need to lose 1 gram of glycogen. Fat also does not store much water.Weight loss defined by the pounds on the bathroom scale is much slower when the body burns fat.The natural course of weight loss is a quick loss from water followed by a significant slowdown as the body pulls from fat stores to meet its energy needs.

The rate of weight loss after the body uses up its glycogen stores should average 1 to 2 pounds per week. More rapid weight loss is too fast and means that the body is losing excess pounds from one of two places. The first is less common—additional water loss from a health complication like heart failure or a serious gastrointestinal disease.The second source of extra energy for the body is muscle, which is lean tissue or fat-free mass.

Fast Weight Loss Equals Muscle Loss

One problem with extreme diets is that they often lead to muscle loss. The faster the weight loss, the more likely it is that a significant portion will be lean muscle. Muscle loss works directly against sustained weight loss.

Drastically reducing calories forces the body to rely more and more on lean tissue—muscle—to meet its energy needs. As calories are restricted, the body starts turning to any energy source it can find to fuel its daily energy needs.The body literally starts to cannibalize itself. In many extreme weight-loss methods, as much as 40% of the weight lost may be from lean muscle! Muscle tissue, like glycogen, is about 80% water. So when the body breaks down muscle tissue, weight loss is quicker because of the water that is released.

Why is this problematic? Think of your body as an automobile, with muscle as the engine and fat as the trunk that stores energy. If you cut down on the size of the engine, then the amount of energy that your body burns decreases.This is exactly what happens when you lose lean muscle mass. What a pity it would be to go through all the sacrifice and struggle to reach a lower weight and then end up with a smaller engine that burns fewer calories.

There are two strategies for maintaining lean muscle during weight loss. The first is to pace your weight loss.You can help maintain the size of your engine and lessen the likelihood of regaining pounds if you lose weight at the recommended pace of 1 to 2 pounds per week. Pacing your weight loss means that your diet is supplying enough calories to allow fat burning but prevent muscle loss. Second, regular exercise is important, particularly during weight loss, to preserve lean muscle tissue. Although exercise helps preserve lean tissue, it cannot undo the damage done by too-fast weight loss. An extreme diet that supplies too few calories causes the body to break down muscle even if the person is exercising. In a study that compared a very low-calorie diet with resistance exercise and the same 800-calorie diet without resistance training, the loss of fat-free mass was the same.

Other Problems with Extreme Methods

Any method that produces fast weight loss by definition needs to be extreme. Severely limiting calories creates nutritional imbalances. Single-food diets (for example, the cabbage soup diet), eliminating foods with particular macronutrients like carbohydrates or fats, and skipping meals are examples of the extreme methods often used to attain fast weight loss.

Rapid weight loss is associated with a host of health problems including hair loss, dry skin, irritability, and commonly gallstone formation. Extreme methods are a setup for weight-loss failure.They provide fast weight loss for only as long as they are followed. But very few people can stay with them for more than a few days or weeks. Once the method is abandoned, old habits return and so does the weight. Several studies that have evaluated weight regain after completion of a very low-calorie diet have found that unless the lifestyle changes that support long-term weight loss are made, the pounds are quickly regained.

Extreme Diets and Eating Behavior

Because extreme diets are so difficult to follow, they require maintaining a very high level of dietary restraint. In a study that looked specifically at dietary restraint, researchers found that high levels of dietary restraint and rigid control of eating were associated with higher scores of disinhibition and more frequent, severe episodes of overeating. Dietary restriction for fast weight loss can create a rebound effect and lead to a total loss of control over eating.

Here’s an example of how this works. Let’s say you decide to stop eating your usual breakfast as a way to lose weight quickly. Cutting out a meal a day does save a lot of calories. Numerous studies, though, have shown that skipping meals is neither healthy nor an effective weight-loss method. Breakfast supplies important nutrients, so skipping this meal robs the body of the nutrients it needs for the morning and the rest of the day. Not surprisingly, the body often rebels with extreme hunger later in the morning. By lunchtime, excess hunger leads to overeating. Or, worse yet, the morning’s hunger gets satisfied with a mid-morning pastry. The body is still trying to make up the lost calories at dinnertime, and overeating Extreme weight-loss methods are difficult if not impossible to sustain for a long enough period of time to lose a significant amount of weight because they do not mesh with the realities of most people’s lives. When people go back to their regular routines, all of their underlying issues related to weight management come back and create the same combustible mix that caused weight gain in the first place. It is far better to adopt a strategy of multiple steps that can be incorporated into the routines of daily life rather than choose a course of dramatic sacrifice and restriction that is likely to lead to rebound.

The opposite is also true. Flexible control—adjusting eating from meal to meal—is associated with a greater chance of losing weight successfully. Learning to regulate eating in a flexible way in sync with daily life probably helps explain why the establishment of a normal diet is a success factor for long-term weight loss.

Participants in the Weight Watchers LTM Database and the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) report that they pay ongoing attention to what they eat and are conscious of their eating patterns without turning their lives upside down. They have found the balance among sensible eating, structure, and flexibility, with just enough structure to create consistency and enough flexibility to allow for choices from a wide variety of foods and in all kinds of social situations. Making conscious choices and being aware of what you are eating is the foundation for making wise food choices long term.

Small Steps Toward Change

A central theme in this book is that of positive lifestyle and livability— that weight management has to fit your lifestyle and be something you can live with over time. The reason for focusing on this theme is simple. Study after study has shown that if people are asked to make extreme changes for fast weight loss, they simply cannot sustain the disruption. It is far better to take small steps toward new habits, fine tuning daily practices to slowly incorporate them into your lifestyle.
Using this strategy, weight management efforts can slowly and subtly continues. become a part of your day-to-day life without disruption. This is the only proven way of sustaining weight loss for the long term.

Don’t change everything at once. Our recommended approach is to start with a diet that provides all the essential nutrients and produces the desirable rate of weight loss. Incorporate and master diet changes first. Then, as your weight loss progresses and new eating habits become second nature to you, add physical activity and exercise to help minimize muscle loss and aid in maintaining the existing weight loss. The ultimate goal is steady, incremental weight loss of no more than 1 to 2 pounds per week maintained over time after the initial water weight loss of the first few weeks. This rate can be achieved without resorting to an extreme diet.

Progressive, stepwise changes in your food choices, eating patterns, and exercise habits produce this preferred rate of weight loss. Because they become part of your daily routine, you’re better able to keep doing them for the long term.

Keeping the Weight Off

The key to keeping the weight off is integrating into your daily life the skills and habits that you used while losing weight. This approach eases the transition between weight loss and keeping the weight off. If you have learned how to make consistently wise food choices, the foods and the social occasions that are part of daily life are not as big a challenge. You will have learned the skill of flexible control and will know what you need to do to enjoy the food that is part of special occasions while keeping the weight off.

Nipping small gains in the bud makes a difference. Research from the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) found that the more weight that is regained, the harder it is to get back to your goal. In a large study that looked at diet, weight loss, and heart disease, the researchers found that a weight gain of 5 pounds is predictive of long-term weight gain.

Making lifestyle changes and successfully losing weight do not guarantee that the process of coping with life’s challenges will not lead you to regain some of the weight back. Life is full of stressful times, like planning a wedding, raising children, having extra demands placed on you at work, or losing a job or a loved one. Just as the Institute of Medicine (IOM) outlined predictors of successful weight maintenance, its report also listed factors leading to weight regain, including negative life events and family dysfunction.

The key is to realize this and to take action as soon as you are able. The sooner you are able to get back on track, the greater success you will have.

The Physical Factor

Successful, sustainable weight loss is not only about how many calories you eat or establishing a style of flexible control. In a review of the research that compared moderate- and low-calorie diets, it was concluded that regardless of the calorie level of the diet used to lose weight, regular exercise, participation in a formal weight-loss maintenance program, or both are likely to achieve the best long-term results.

Let’s look at physical activity as an integral part of long-term weight loss. It is important to avoid the extreme of trying to do too much exercise too quickly if you have not been active on a regular basis. Going from no activity to a plan to jog daily is too ambitious!

For the vast majority of people who either have been inactive or have gained weight, the best strategy is to start with a program of walking, maybe just ten or so minutes per day (see chapter 4 for more detailed guidelines). An intermediate goal might be to follow the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control to try to accumulate thirty minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most if not all days. Once you’ve achieved this goal, you’ll know that you’re getting the health benefits that regular activity can provide.

The key words are accumulate and moderate. The activity you choose should not be so intense that it leaves you breathless or unable to speak while you exercise. The goal is to establish a consistent, pleasurable level of physical activity in your daily life. As physical activity becomes part of your routine, shoot for the exercise recommendation for people who are sustaining weight loss: sixty to ninety minutes of moderate-intensity activity per day.

The Mind Matters

Your mind is a powerful ally in your quest for long-term weight loss. With the proper knowledge and attitude, the mind can work with the body to create positive new behaviors. Here’s how:

1. Set a realistic goal or a combination of short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals. For example, a short-term goal might be to lose 10% of your current weight. A longer-term goal might be to sustain the weight loss for at least six months.
2. Break your goals into smaller action steps.
3. Do a confidence check: Do you believe that you can achieve your goals? If yes, keep going. If no, set new goals that are more attainable.
4. Have frequent pep rallies to boost your spirit. Be your own cheerleader and enlist others to cheer with you. Tell yourself often and loudly that you can do it. Think about how good you felt when you achieved your goals in the past. Believe in yourself and see the results.
5. Visualize yourself doing positive new behaviors, like asking for food the way you want it at a restaurant. Continue to visualize what you can accomplish and the benefits that will come with sustained weight loss.
6. Come up with new strategies if your initial ones are not working or are not working as well as they were.
7. Recognize and give yourself credit for the gains you’ve already made. Compliment yourself. Think positively about your good qualities and successes, rather than drawing on or dwelling on negative thoughts.
8. Reward yourself with nonfood rewards, like an evening at the movies or an afternoon with a friend, for reaching a goal or successfully changing a behavior.

The Bottom Line

The method used to lose weight makes a big difference in achieving weight loss that lasts. Extreme methods may produce fast weight loss, but they don’t provide weight loss that lasts. Many participants in the Weight Watchers LTM Database and NWCR say that they lost and gained weight many times using extreme methods. It was only when they ultimately recognized the truth—long-term, sustainable weight loss requires a comprehensive weight-loss method that is realistic, livable, and sustainable—that they achieved their desired outcome of successful weight loss.

Since the beginning of time, people have expanded the powers of food beyond simply meeting nutritional and energy needs. The belief that specific foods can cure health problems is a longstanding cultural tradition: eating chicken soup to cure a cold and oysters to enhance fertility are just two examples.We really want to believe in the power of foods. It is not surprising that specific foods and eating regimens have made their way into the folklore of weight loss.With great optimism, people embrace the latest new food or way of eating with the hope that it will put them on the path to sustained weight loss.

The magic of a single solution for weight loss focuses on just one aspect of a food, supplement, or activity.This is similar to the tale about the three blind men and the elephant: Three blind men are asked to describe an elephant. One of them touches the trunk, another touches the tail, and the third touches the foot. Each of the blind men accurately describes what he touched, but none of them can describe the elephant because the animal is bigger than a single body part.

Weight-loss myths are similar in that they isolate a particular feature that may be true and offer it as a solution to the entire problem of weight loss. It is possible to find at least one study to prove that each of the weight-loss boosters below does lead to superior weight loss. Often the one study that is publicized on television or read about in a magazine is the only study that shows results, but it is easy to believe the story because the study results are true, even if only just once.

But rigorous science requires a study to be replicated by other scientists and for them to observe the same results. Few of us have the inclination to track down all the research studies on a topic in order to find out if there is general agreement about the pool of scientific evidence on a specific weight-loss booster.We have done so for you. When the scientific community makes its judgment on a particular issue, it is based on all of the evidence, not just on one or a few isolated studies.

Building more muscle mass does increase metabolism. Because muscle is the engine that drives the body, it burns more calories than fat, so activities that speed up metabolism can boost calorie burning and weight loss.

Is it possible to lose weight on diets that promise to speed up metabolism? Probably not. If you do lose weight, it is not due to a faster metabolism. Read on to discover that the secret to weight loss is calories and that the weight loss achieved through a metabolism boosting diet is also due to calories.

The Whole Truth

It’s All about Calories

Body weight reflects the balance between calories in and calories out. The food we eat supplies calories. Our body burns calories three ways: through resting metabolism, the calories burned as the body keeps itself running 24/7; during physical activity; and in digesting and absorbing food. A steady body weight means a balance between food and calorie burning. Gaining or losing weight is the sign of an imbalance.

Calories and Weight
Calories in greater than calories out = Weight gain
Calories in equal to calories out  = Steady weight
Calories in less than calories out  = Weight loss

The only scientifically proven method for losing weight involves the creation of a caloric imbalance. At the end of the day, the only true way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories in food and/or burn more calories. This has been shown time and time again in decades of rigorous scientific studies. One example of the hundreds that exist was done in Switzerland. Fifty-four obese people had their calories restricted to 1,100 per day. Different combinations of foods and meal timing were tested.There was no difference in weight losses; only the calories made a difference.

A Faster Metabolism Burns More

It takes a shortfall of about 500 calories a day to lose 1 pound per week and 1,000 calories a day to lose 2 pounds weekly. The most effective method to create this shortfall is to cut calories from food and also to boost metabolism. But despite the promises of so many popular diets and products, metabolism can be boosted in only a couple of ways: exercising more and speeding up heart rate.

One of the chief benefits of exercise is that it revs up metabolism. The reason is simple. Individuals who exercise on a consistent basis maintain high levels of lean muscle tissue throughout their lifetime. They also build new muscle. Lean muscle tissue sustains high levels of metabolism. In fact, lean muscle tissue burns seventy times as many calories as fat does. Exercise burns calories, and longer periods of exercise mean greater calorie burning.

While it is true that an increase in lean muscle mass increases metabolism because muscles burn a lot of calories, weight loss almost always results in some loss of muscle mass. The muscles have less weight to carry around, so less muscle is needed. People who follow extreme diets to get a fast weight loss can significantly reduce their lean muscle tissue and thereby slow their metabolism.

A popular theory widely reported in the media is that exercise increases metabolism during activity and for a period of time after the activity is completed. Unfortunately, studies that have researched this concept do not have consistent results. In general, studies on humans suggest that metabolism increases when the amount of body muscle increases but that the number of extra calories burned after exercise is relatively small. And no studies have directly linked the aftereffects of exercise with significant weight loss. It’s the calories expended doing the exercise that boost weight loss, not the aftereffects of exercise on metabolism.

The second way to increase metabolism is to increase heart rate. The heart and other organs contribute to the resting metabolic rate—the calories the body burns just to keep itself going. In a controlled study that looked at the effects of amphetamines on weight loss, the stimulants caused greater weight loss. Heart rate and blood pressure went up and food intake went down, a side effect of feeling hyper and too nervous to eat. Many weight-loss supplements contain chemical or herbal stimulants, including caffeine, guarana, and the now-banned ephedra, which speed up metabolism by pumping up the heart rate. Most of the supplements and over-the-counter products that are marketed to promote weight loss contain stimulants, albeit at a lesser strength than that found in prescription amphetamines. Like their more potent cousin, these compounds are marketed as “fat-burning” and cause weight loss by increasing your heart rate and blood pressure and decreasing your appetite.

These stimulants can work, but they do so at a cost to the body. Negative side effects include insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, and in extreme cases, death. Increasingly, some of these products (including the ones that were most effective, like phenylpropanolamine and ephedra) have been banned because of the negative side effects.

A careful look at the ingredient list of many herbal remedies reveals the truth—herbal diuretics that cause the body to lose fluid through urination and herbal laxatives. Just because the package says the product is natural or herbal does not mean it is healthy. A combination of stimulants, diuretics, and laxatives does not add up to a safe and sensible way to lose weight.

Over the years, other foods and products have been falsely promoted as metabolism boosters for weight loss. Grapefruit, for example, was said to have compounds that speed up metabolism; an added promise was that eating and digesting grapefruit actually uses up more calories than are in the grapefruit. Celery is often promoted as a food that burns more calories than it supplies. But there is no scientific proof that calories spent digesting and absorbing can be pumped up by eating particular foods.

The Source of Calories Does Not Affect Your Weight Loss

Which is best for weight loss—a diet low in carbohydrates and high in protein, or a diet balanced in carbohydrates, protein, and fat? That’s been a question that has received a lot of scientific attention, and science is showing a firm conclusion—it does not matter. According to dozens of research studies, no particular type of diet speeds up metabolism more than another. In 2004, a complete review of all research studies on the topic concluded that following a low-carbohydrate and/or high-protein diet did not affect the rate of metabolism. Diets with differing proportions of macronutrients work because they reduce calories, albeit in disguise.They have no special effects on metabolism.

Eat More, Lose Weight?

Diets that promise more food for greater weight loss are usually variations on very low-fat diets. Because they focus on naturally low-fat, low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables, they supply a greater volume of food for fewer calories.The foods are also ones that are thought of as harder to digest, suggesting that they burn more calories during digestion. However, as with other types of diets, very low-fat diets work because they are lower in calories. They do not speed up metabolism and do not require digestion to go into overdrive.

No Food or Food Combination Burns Body Fat

The term thermogenesis, or calorie burning, became very popular in the mid-1990s when a popular weight-loss book suggested that certain foods caused the body to burn extra energy in order to digest and absorb them. The concept of thermogenesis is based on science, but the relative contribution of this extra energy burning is so minor that it
is irrelevant for weight loss.

“Fat-burning” foods do not burn fat. Highly acidic foods like grapefruit, lemon juice, and vinegar are said to melt away fat because they are so acidic. This explanation sounds logical but does not work in real life. Certain food combinations are said to create chemical reactions in the body that promote loss of body fat.This promise cannot be proven, and these foods do not boost metabolism.

Some foods like caffeine-containing beverages and capsaicin containing chile peppers have been linked with a boost in calorie burning. Caffeine is a mild stimulant, and high dosages of caffeine raise the heart rate. Chile peppers cause the body to sweat and to feel stimulated. In one study, capsaicin did cause increased fat burning in a group of people who had lost weight, but it did not help them maintain their weight loss. Results were similar for green tea, a beverage that contains caffeine and other components reported to boost metabolism. When put into rigorous studies, neither demonstrated a significant effect on weight loss.

Eating Patterns Do Not Make a Difference

Eating three times daily or six times daily? Having a small breakfast and big dinner or big breakfast and small dinner? Which is best for burning calories? Again, it does not matter. As long as calories remain the same, meal sizes relative to each other do not affect weight loss. A series of well-controlled experiments that looked at the effect of meal timing on metabolism was conducted in a clinical research center at a university. Regardless of the meal timing—eating once a day or several times a day, eating at night or in the morning—weight loss stayed the same when study subjects ate the same number of calories. The researchers concluded that the body’s regulatory systems are extremely fine-tuned.

So if meal timing does not change metabolism, how does meal timing work? It promotes weight loss by throwing off normal eating routines in a way that leads to eating fewer calories. Say that you are told to eat only fruit before noon. If you are a breakfast eater, then not being able to eat cereal, toast, a sausage biscuit, or your usual breakfast foods automatically cuts calories. There is nothing metabolically magical about eating only fruit in the morning. The same is true if you tend to snack in the evening and go on a “metabolism-boosting” diet that prohibits eating after 7:00 P.M.

That said, meal timing is important because eating plans have to be livable and adaptable to our different lifestyles.Work schedule, family structure, exercise routine, and numerous other factors help determine the best eating schedule. Say a person works the night shift and sleeps during the day. She may want to eat dinner with her family even though that meal is really breakfast for her, then eat lunch in the middle of her work shift and a small breakfast with her family before going to sleep. A person who works full-time and exercises daily after work may want to eat breakfast, lunch, then two mini-meals, one midafternoon before exercise and one at night after exercise. No one schedule is better than another.

You may have heard how important it is to eat breakfast. It is true that numerous studies have shown that people who eat breakfast are much less likely to gain weight than those who do not eat breakfast. Eating breakfast provides essential nutrients, sets the body up with energy for the day, and is linked with less eating later in the day. The effect is not on metabolism; it is on lifestyle and habits.

Some weight-loss proponents recommend eating a bigger breakfast, followed by a smaller lunch and an even smaller dinner. The theory is that the majority of calories are eaten toward the beginning of the day when the body needs them most. This approach works in theory but has not undergone the rigorous studies needed to prove or disprove its impact on sustained weight loss. It is also not practical for most people.

Restrictive Diets Reduce Calories

As with diets that throw off eating routines by changing meal timing, a diet that imposes almost any type of restriction will reduce calories by forcing a change in habits. Whether it’s avoiding gluten and dairy, not eating a protein food and a starch within four hours of each other, consuming bowls of cabbage soup, or only eating fruit before noon, following rules that restrict the type of food eaten, the time of day food is eaten, or how frequently a food or food type is eaten will reduce caloric intake.

Let’s look more closely at the concept of separating different types of foods. Say that a diet is based on avoiding eating starches and protein foods together in a meal, a basic premise of a popular diet in the 1990s. That means no cereal (starch) and milk (protein) or toast (starch) and egg (protein) at breakfast, no sandwich at lunch because starchy bread typically is combined with a protein food, and no potato, rice, pasta, or bread (all starches) with meat, chicken, or fish (all proteins) at dinner. Imagine how much less you would eat if you were told to avoid traditional food combinations!

What about eating three standard-size meals and no snacks versus eating six or even eight mini-meals? The end result depends on the routine that is being changed and the total amount of food eaten. A frequent snacker might eat less food on a three-meal no-snack diet and lose weight. The mini-meal eater could lose weight as long as the calories in the mini-meals added up to less than he or she was eating before. The science in this area is inconsistent. Some research says that eating fewer, bigger meals allows the body to burn a few more calories digesting and absorbing foods. But there is no strong research showing that meal frequency and size affects weight loss as long as calories are the same.

The Placebo Effect Works

For every one of the myths and gimmicks about foods, supplements, and food timing and combining discussed in this article, there are a dozen more being promoted. These myths are so prevalent because each has a kernel of truth—a small part of the myth based on science. It is the fantastic story that gets wrapped up with the truth that creates a myth rather than a valid, long-lasting way to lose weight.

The placebo effect happens when a person believes that there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between two things even if it does not exist. Because the person believes in the relationship, however, his or her behavior changes in a way that produces the anticipated effect.

Rigorous scientific studies include a placebo group and a group that is actually getting the treatment. This is the only valid way to ensure that it is the treatment and not the placebo that is producing the effect. Many promising treatments in the area of weight loss lose their luster when they are evaluated in a rigorous scientific study that includes a placebo group. For example, acupuncture is often touted as a weightloss treatment. When tested against a placebo, however, it has been shown to be ineffective.The same has been shown for subliminal tapes to induce weight loss.

It’s about Behavior Change, Not Metabolism

Ultimately, behavior changes that support eating fewer calories and being more active lead to weight loss. Despite this reality, only one-third of Americans trying to lose weight use the strategy that is the fundamental foundation of weight loss. Sustainable weight loss does not result from a revved-up metabolism or the unique properties of specific foods. However, particular eating behaviors and patterns, such as meal frequency, meal timing, or following a specific dietary pattern, and nutritional factors, like the energy density of food and the amount of fiber, may affect caloric intake and thus weight loss.

Here is an example of a suggested behavior change that works, even though the premise for the change has nothing to do with a metabolism. Many programs will tell you that you should not eat after 7:00 P.M. because “food eaten in the evening turns to fat.” The truth is that any food turns to fat if calories in are greater than calories out. The time of day that it is eaten does not matter. However, many people consume a large portion of their daily calories in the evening. Television viewing, an evening activity for many, is also associated with increased caloric intake and “mindless” snacking. A dietary regimen that restricts evening eating works because it limits calories. That, in turn, helps burn fat.

The Bottom Line

The famous baby doctor Benjamin Spock was known for telling young mothers,“Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.” The same holds true for weight loss. There is no reason to feel bad if you have tried the diets and products that promise a metabolism-inspired weight loss. Everybody wants to believe in the promise, and the pseudoscience that goes along with many of the claims seems to make a lot of sense. But when it comes to achieving weight loss that lasts, a combination of instinct and a complete disclosure of the pool of scientific studies is the way to figure out what is real and what is a myth.

It is much more important to find an eating style and exercise routine that suits your life and that you can stay with over time than trying to follow an uncomfortable or overly restricted regimen in the hopes of boosting your metabolism. Ultimately, it is livable changes to your lifestyle that will make the big difference and help you lose the weight and keep it off.

Menopause marks a major life transition for women. A woman’s body stops producing estrogen and the body’s entire hormone balance changes. During the years immediately before and after menopause, many women experience mood changes, fatigue, and a general lack of energy or motivation.Women also tend to gain weight and, regardless of weight gain, notice a change in their body shape toward a thicker waist and a more apple-shaped body resulting from the lack of estrogen.

The hormone changes that go along with menopause are linked to a type of overweight called android obesity—the accumulation of fat at the waistline. This explains why many menopausal women complain that they are losing their waist seemingly without eating or exercising any differently. One group of researchers, however, found that reduced physical activity but not increased food intake appears to be a predictor of weight gain during the menopause years. It could be that because menopausal women may feel less energetic, they don’t put as much effort into their physical activity.

Quitting Smoking

People who stop smoking gain weight. The average weight gain is between 4.5 and 7 pounds, but a small percentage of former smokers gain 28 pounds or more! The good news is that for the average woman the weight gain is temporary. In a study that followed a group of women who quit smoking, the increase in caloric intake and weight gain was temporary, and they returned to their former weight after one year.

Going from being a smoker to being a nonsmoker does have an effect on metabolism, slowing it down by about 100 calories per day with smoking cessation, but that is not enough to account for all the weight gain. The rest comes from eating more, moving around less, or a combination of the two.

Fear of weight gain should not prevent a person from stopping smoking. The health risks of smoking—the increased risk of heart disease and cancer, impaired glucose tolerance, the increased risk of high blood pressure, and numerous other health problems—are far greater than the health risks of a small short-term weight gain when smoking is stopped.

One way to help prevent weight gain is to increase physical activity. Another is to use a nicotine replacement, in particular nicotine gum, to help delay weight gain. In a group of women who had not tried to quit smoking because they were afraid of gaining weight, a diet plus a nicotine gum regimen increased the success rate for smoking cessation and prevented weight gain.

Slow Metabolism

It seems as if every discussion about weight somehow turns into a discussion about metabolism. Because the two are closely related, the assumption is often made that if a person is overweight, it follows that the excess weight is due to a slow metabolism. It is true that metabolism tends to slow down as the years go by. But the slowdown is not automatic. Here’s why.

The body’s organs and, even more so, muscles, drive metabolism. Metabolism has three major components: resting metabolic rate, metabolism of activity, and energy spent digesting and absorbing food. Resting metabolism is the amount of energy the body uses to keep all systems going day in and day out; it is the energy that is burned by the brain, heart, kidneys, and all the organs and cells in the body. About two-thirds to three-quarters of the energy we burn every day goes into the simple process of keeping the body alive. The second major component of metabolism is the energy that we burn in activities such as walking, stair climbing, picking up children, and participating in planned physical activity. Finally, a relatively small percentage of calories are burned in the process of digesting and absorbing food. These components add up to our total metabolism. Metabolism is measured in calories.

Each year, metabolism tends to slow a bit because most people inadvertently reduce their physical activity. This decrease in activity delivers a double whammy to metabolism.The body burns fewer calories because it spends less time doing physical activity. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it also loses lean muscle tissue because the muscles are less active, a true case of use it or lose it.

The average adult over age 20 loses half a pound of lean muscle tissue every year.Why is this important? If you are 30 years old and have lost 5 pounds of lean muscle tissue over the past decade, your resting metabolism is burning fewer calories simply to fuel basic needs.Your metabolism has in fact slowed down.

Keep in mind that weight loss affects metabolism because a smaller body has less lean muscle tissue.The metabolism of a person who was overweight and has lost weight is the same as the metabolism of a person who was never overweight in the first place. With less mass to move around, the body spends fewer calories.

We learned earlier in this chapter that non-Hispanic black women tend to have higher BMIs than white non-Hispanic women. One reason may be metabolism. African-American women tend to have lower resting metabolic rates. This does not mean that sustained weight loss is not possible for African-American women. Rather, it means that their rate of weight loss is likely to be a bit slower and that the daily caloric intake needed to sustain the loss will be a bit lower.

Thinking Does Not Equal Doing

By some accounts, the typical American underestimates caloric intake by 400 to 500 calories per day. Women tend to underestimate their caloric intake by 20%. A woman who is working on weight loss and thinks that she is following a 1,200-calorie diet is actually more likely to be eating about 1,450 calories per day. Part of the error is in portion size—thinking that a portion size is smaller than it really is. The other problem is that people remember eating healthier foods and forget about the less healthy ones.This is particularly true of snack foods, like a small candy bar or a handful of chips, perhaps because these foods are often eaten as a quick snack and not part of a regular meal. For example, a person is likely to remember eating a bowl of cereal, banana, and skim milk at breakfast but to underestimate the size of the cheeseburger that was eaten for lunch or forget the few french fries taken from a coworker’s plate at the same lunch.

A classic study looked at “weight-loss-resistant” women who consistently indicated that they ate less than 1,200 calories per day but were not able to lose weight. The researchers found that the women were not losing weight because they were eating more calories than they thought. Their metabolism was fine.

This study has been replicated many times over, each time with the same results. The women were not lying; they truly believed that they were eating less. For this reason, recalling or tracking food intake is an unreliable method for determining whether a person has a slow metabolism.

Any suspected metabolic cause for weight gain or the inability to lose weight should be checked through medically reliable testing. This testing should extend beyond the usual thyroid function studies or keeping food records to include resting metabolic rate.

Just as people tend to underestimate how much they eat, they tend to overestimate their physical activity. Keep in mind, that it takes a lot of physical activity to make a difference in calorie burning. People also are somewhat misled by the calorie counts provided by exercise machines. Exercise machines tend to overestimate the actual number of calories burned in a session by as much as 30%; machines that request information on the user’s weight tend to be more accurate.

The Bottom Line

Biology is not destiny. Many different factors affect weight loss to a mild degree, but no one factor prevents weight loss. It is true that some people have a genetic or a personal profile that makes them more vulnerable to weight gain. Nonetheless, it is possible to prevent the weight gain from happening and to lose weight if it has already been gained. Sustained weight loss is possible for virtually anyone.

Action Steps

Knowledge is power. Understanding your personal circumstances and how they may affect both your metabolism and your weight loss helps to develop approaches and strategies that will work for you.

• Take a look at your individual circumstances and set realistic
  weight-loss goals based on what you see. For example, if you have
  recently quit smoking or come from a family with weight issues, a
  weekly weight loss of 1⁄2 to 1 pound may be a better target than 11⁄2
  to 2 pounds.
• If you are genetically vulnerable to gaining weight, be particularly
  diligent about creating a daily eating plan and schedule for physical
  activity. If you have children and are concerned about their having
  inherited your genetic tendencies, be sure to be a good role model
  for them and show them that successful weight management is
  possible because you are doing it.
• Stay physically active as a way to minimize your body’s loss of lean
  muscle tissue. Once you are at your weight goal, you may even
  reverse the process and start to increase the amount of lean muscle
  tissue in your body.
• Keep a positive mindset. Despite your individual circumstances,
  you can lose weight and keep it off!