Weight Loss Programs

You realize you have to drop your weight but do you know by how much? Do you have a target to aim for? If you do not have a specific target in mind, how will you know when you have lost enough weight?  For targets to be effective, they need to be specific. Use the body mass index calculator to help you set the healthy weight target you need to meet.

How the Body Mass Index (BMI) works

To determine if we are underweight or overweight the BMI looks at our weight in relation to our height. This then falls within a certain range, which is regarded as healthy. Outside that range is regarded as under weight or overweight and not healthy. For example, people who are six feet tall (182cm) are regarded as healthy if their weight falls between 145 and 182 pounds (67-83 kgs). Someone 5 feet 8 inches (172cms) should weigh between 131 and 161 pounds (62-74 kgs).

How to calculate the Body Mass Index

You can calculate your own BMI or you can use one of the many web sites with a calculator. If you want to do it yourself, the BMI formula is your weight divided by you height squared, then multiplied by 703, if you are working in pounds. This means for someone weighing 140 pounds who is 5 feet 10 inches (70 ins) tall, the calculation would be 140 divided by 4900 (70×70), which would equal 0.028. You multiply this by 703, which gives you a BMI of 19.68. To do the calculation in kilograms you simply divide your weight by your height squared and forget the 703. For example, someone who weighs 65 kilos and is 1.78 metres tall would have a BMI of 20.51 (65/1.78×1.78).

If you are not much good at maths and you feel your eyes glazing over when you look at the figures, just go over them again and you will see they are not that hard to work out.

What is your ideal weight?

The World Health Organisation has defined categories of BMI based on evidence of increased risk of chronic disease and mortality. A BMI of 25-29.9 is regarded as overweight, 30-39.9 as obesity and over 40 as morbid obesity. It can be a bit of a shock to find you fit into one of these categories, but it is something we should all know so we can do something about it. What this means is we should all be trying to reach a body mass index of under 25 if we want to be in the healthy weight category.

There is some discussion as to how effective the various ways of measuring ideal weight are, but the BMI has become widely accepted. The World Health Organisation and other health authorities use it as a standard in their guide to healthy weight. Many life insurance companies use it as a guide to overweight and underweight in their underwriting decisions. It is a practical way to help us manage our weight so that we stay in that healthy weight range and avoid many of the modern lifestyle diseases. You can use the BMI formula to set your ideal weight target and to keep on track while you are achieving it.

If you are trying to work your way through the various diet plans before you decide which ones are best for you, you could be totally confused. There are so many. The TV, radio, Internet and newspapers seem filled with all these wonderful plans that will make you lose weight and turn you into a slim, attractive person. In the meantime you are not getting any slimmer. While you are deciding, why not start your own weight loss plan?

So, where do you start? Here is a suggestion, start working on breakfast – the first meal of the day. Start, firstly, by having breakfast. The reason for this is if you do not eat breakfast you body’s metabolic rate is still in slow motion. You metabolic rate is the rate your body uses calories. It has slowed down while you slept and it will stay that way until you speed it up with energy, which is food. The longer you put off eating, the fewer calories your body will burn. If it is not using calories, it is storing them. That’s why it is not only important to eat breakfast but it is important to eat the right food that will use energy more efficiently.

Breakfast is not called breakfast for nothing. It is breaking the long overnight fast and your body is looking for food. You should feed it, but with the right food. The best foods for breakfast, as for any other meal, are the ones that speed up your metabolism by making your body work harder, burning calories. If it is using calories, it is not storing them and making fat.

Here are some foods to eat at breakfast to help you start losing weight:

*unsweetened natural muesli, oats, high fibre bran cereal

*wholegrain bread or muffins, rye bread

*eggs, lean meat

*low fat milk, cheese, yoghurt

*fruit – apple, oranges, pears, berries, prunes

*unsweetened fruit juices

There is a much longer list, which you can research for yourself. As a guide, look for food that has a GI rating of 55 or under.

The idea is to keep away from the high GI foods, which are high sugar, highly refined carbohydrates. Food like popular cereals, white flour products like bread, pastries and muffins. These foods send up you blood sugar, which gives you a burst of energy but lets you down just as quickly. It will not be long before you are looking for that next sugar high or lift. Each time you do that, your body responds with insulin to control the blood sugar. Insulin stores fat, the very thing you are trying to avoid.

Planning your breakfasts can be the starting point to your own weight loss plan. Make this your project. It will be hard at first, as you may have to change some of your habits, but you will get better at it. As you put thought into your breakfasts you will find this will start to affect your eating habits over all. After all, what is the point of having a healthy, calories-burning breakfast if some of your other meals are letting you down? But do not worry about that in the beginning. Just make sure you plan the best weight-fighting breakfasts you can.

In many ways, health is habitual, and is even an entire lifestyle. Our daily choices and circumstances will, inevitably, have an impact on our health. This is common sense. In an ideal world, we would all be able to have the right and amount of food and exercise to maintain healthy, long-lived bodies.

Of course, health is not just about diet, exercise, and other physical factors. It is also emotional, psychological, and even spiritual. Furthermore, it is simplistic to draw a hard line between physical and non-physical components of well-being, as both affect each other. A normally cheerful, compassionate, bright person may become depressed and angry over time if he/she is constantly experiencing physical ailments. Conversely, a physically healthy person with good eating and exercise habits may become more ill if he/she is always stressed, depressed, and/or emotionally abused.

Unsurprisingly, lifestyle and habits are also important for the non-physical (or metaphysical) aspects of health. Do you often get stressed or worried over trivial things, or dream up nightmare scenarios that do not materialize, or even turn out to be extremely implausible in hindsight? Find methods of stress or anxiety management that work well for you. Some options include yoga, sports, reading, artistic expression, journal writing, and walking. Truly, stress relief need not be complicated, expensive, or time-consuming. For example, some researchers found that a few minutes of daily journal writing can have significant influence on a person’s well-being. A short break for a healthy habit like this one can do great things for your mental and emotional health, and even unlock your creative juices.

Healthy habits are not just about what you do, but also what you avoid. For example, modern life is full of shallow distractions that pile up to eat into our time or energy. Do you find yourself watching a lot of TV you don’t really like, or numbly surfing the Net, not finding anything that really adds to your joy or knowledge? It may be time to put a damper on such habits. You can find more time for more important things, or even for some valuable rest and sleep.

Are certain situations or relationships in your life constantly getting you down? Well, they may also be having a negative impact on your physical health. Try to re-examine these factors and see if you can change them—or eliminate them, if necessary. Also, try to avoid ineffective or counter-productive coping mechanisms. An extreme example of such a mechanism would be the taking of hard drugs. More common, but still potentially harmful habits include over-consumption/over-spending, picking fights, mistreating subordinates, etc. These habits may make you feel better or more relaxed for a while, but they usually lead to consequences that will give you more reasons to be stressed out, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle.

Instead of turning this negative energy or frustration inward towards destructive habits, turn it outwards in a positive way. Many psychologists believe that people wish to feel that they have improved the world, even in some small way. (Of course, there are those who will not be satisfied unless their contribution is quite big, which is not necessarily a bad thing.) Indeed, this insight is quite an old one, and does not need medial language for its articulation. The great German writer Wolfgang von Goethe, for example, wove it into his long poem Faust, about a genius who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for power and pleasure. After having tasted all sorts of temptations, Faust reaches old age wanting to make a contribution to society. His final project is to reclaim large swathes of land from the sea, not just for his own use but that of his countrymen and women, as well.

Faust’s story may seem very grand and unrelatable. However, what it means for us is that giving back to society is often an integral part obtaining real happiness and satisfaction in life. Also, even if we have done some regrettable things in the past in the pursuit of happiness, we can still turn our lives around. Learn a new skill, or join an organization. If something in your workplace, community, etc. upsets you, join or start peaceful, coordinated means of fixing the problem.

The fact is, if we take in more calories than we use we will put on weight. Over time, we will put on more weight and our health will deteriorate. We can avoid this either by eating less food or including more food with low calories in our diet. For many of us, it is probably a good idea to do both. The trouble with eating less food is it can leave you feeling hungry, which is self-defeating. Low-calorie food is generally more satisfying, so you do not feel the need to be snacking.

Our body needs calories

Our body does need a certain number of calories just to keep working. For men this is somewhere between 2000 and 2400 a day and for women from 1600 to 2000, depending on their ages. Even though most of us have more than we need it is important not to cut calorie intake right down.. Some diets can be dangerous unless they are done under supervision. We are not talking about doing that. We are talking about making sure you include more food with low calories into your diet.

If you are doing a lot of physical activity you need more calories than the average person, as your body needs the energy. That’s why you will often see people who are physically active continually snacking or grazing. They are looking to replace that energy. Because they are so active they not only need the extra energy but they avoid becoming overweight because they burn off any excess calories

Be aware of foods high in calories

You do not need to become a calories counter but you do need to be aware of the foods that are high in calories. These foods are generally the unhealthy foods. They are the foods that most overweight people have been eating – and that is often why they have a weight problem. Foods that have a lot of sugar also have a lot of calories – popular breakfast cereals, sodas, and soft drinks. There are other obvious ones such as chocolate, candy bars, cakes and cookies. Sometimes they are hard to resist but they do have high calories..

Nutritionists and other health professionals say we should eat several smaller meals rather than large meals several hours apart.. The food they recommend is generally low-fat and low-sugar, which means low-calorie. This sustains our energy, keeps our blood sugar more even and helps control our weight.

We do need to think about what we are putting into our bodies. Doctors, and now Governments, are warning us of the dangers of becoming overweight. They tell us obesity is on the increase and has become one of the big health problems. These days there is a tendency to eat high calorie food because it has become part of our modern diet and we do need to be aware of this. If we want to be healthy, which means controlling our weight, we should know the difference between food with low calories and food with high calories.

Eating healthy foods and eating food with low calories are important ways to lose weight and to be healthy. You will find more ideas on how to lose weight and how to follow a healthy lifestyle when you visit http://www.squidoo.com/how-can-i-lose-weight-now William Burnell enjoys the benefits of following a healthy lifestyle and likes to help others to do the same

Low glycemic foods are the ones that appear on the Glycemic Index with a rating of 55 or under, but that is not the complete story. The real story story is the one that tells us if we eat these foods over the long-term they will help protect us from life threatening diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and some cancers.

This was never envisaged in 1981 when Dr. David Jenkins and his colleagues at the University of Toronto were studying which foods were best for people with diabetes. They studied the effect of different foods on people’s blood sugar levels. They then set up a table to rank various foods to gauge how quickly certain carbohydrates break down into glucose and increase the blood sugar level. The table ranges from 100 to zero, with 100 being the foods that increased the blood sugar level fastest. Foods rated 55 or under are low GI, those at the next level, 56-69, are regarded as medium and 70 and over are said to be high GI.

Low GI foods often form an important part of many modern diets to help with weight loss. This is because they do a number of things:

1. They make you feel more satisfied after eating them. In other words, you feel fuller. Which means you tend to eat less food and you are not looking for snacks.

2. They help control the amount of insulin you body produces

3. They help to make sure that insulin functions efficiently

On the other hand, high GI foods do not give you that same feeling of satisfaction and you find yourself looking for food a little while after eating. The reason for this is they cause your blood sugar level to spike, which triggers the release of insulin to control the level of blood sugar. Insulin does bring down the blood sugar but in the process it stimulates your appetite, which is part of its function. In addition to that, insulin is a storage hormone that stores fat around the abdomen.

It is important to control the amount of insulin your body produces because if is continually called on to deal with increased blood sugar it has to produce more and more to be effective. Eventually, the body can develop insulin resistance, which means the blood sugar is not controlled as it should be. This can lead to diabetes, cause inflammation in the body and, among other things, weaken the immune system, leaving your body open to infection and disease.

That is why there is so much emphasis placed on a healthy diet based on low glycemic foods. There is no doubt, if you want to be healthy, you need to be aware of where foods stand in the Glycemic Index. This does not mean you have to carry the GI around in head, but you should know which foods are high on the index and make sure you are not eating mainly from that group. Strive to eat mainly from the low GI group to help balance the effect of eating foods high on the index, which we all do from time to time. Eating healthy foods that are low GI helps control our weight and has a positive effect on our general health. This affects our well being and longevity, which is what being healthy is all about.

Our body does not need us to feed it sugar. It has no need of it and it gets no nutritional value from it. It does need sugar in the form of glucose, which it gets by converting some foods. Glucose is necessary to feed our cells and thus our total system. The glucose in our blood, which we call blood sugar, is dispersed throughout our body to keep it functioning and healthy.

How do we measure the amount of sugar we eat? The American Heart Association recommends added sugar should be no more than 5 percent of our daily calorie intake. The World Health Organisation advises a maximum of 10 per cent. But who is going to work that out? The best way I can put that in perspective is by putting it around the other way – 90 percent of our calorie intake should not be from added sugar. Which means we should not be eating a lot of it.

The trap here is, while we can control the amount of sugar per day we add to food, we cannot control the amount that food manufacturers are adding. This makes it hard to work out how much we are actually having. The only thing we can do is to use common sense and read the labels on food packaging, which are often not very clear. The main message is we should not eat a whole lot of sugar. The reason for this is, eating a lot of sugar has been linked to some of our major modern lifestyle diseases – heart disease, obesity and diabetes, to name three of the big ones.

When I found out, many years ago, eating too much sugar was harmful I changed my eating habits. Here are some of the things that helped me cut down sugar:

1. I stopped putting sugar in my tea and coffee. This took a little while to get used to but now I have trouble drinking these with added sugar. I do like cappuccino with chocolate on the top, but I do not add sugar. If I am served coffee which is very bitter I will sometimes add a little sugar

2. I cut out eating breakfast cereal with added sugar – which applies to most popular brands. I changed to oats and muesli with low or no added sugar

3. As a family, we changed to raw sugar. There was no white sugar in the house. Raw sugar still has some nutrients in it whereas white sugar has absolutely no nutritional value

4. My wife is a great cook and always had cake in the house and made delicious sweets – made on raw sugar. If I had sweets I would have a small serving but mainly I limited my dessert, cake and cookie eating to the weekends

5. I started reading the labels on food, which did not help much then because the information was pretty poor. However, some foods are obviously high in sugar, so I avoided those.

6. I did not have drinks with a high sugar content. We did not have soda or soft drink in the house except for special occasions

We add sugar because we like it. Unlike most food, which we eat because we are hungry, we eat sugar simply for the pleasure it gives us. And we know it gives us a lift because it quickly converts to glucose and raises our blood sugar. Most of us are not going to give it up completely, but if we want to be healthy we do need to limit the amount of sugar per day we consume.

Our present day way of life does not help us to become healthy or to lose weight. Many jobs do not require much physical effort, which means e do not move arund mcuh. We all seem to lack time, so we tend to choose the easy option when it cpmes to our diet. It is much easier to eat out or to pickup  takeaways than to cook dinners ourselves. Many jobs are demanding, especially in a tight labor market, where positions are easy to fill. We need to apply ourselves to our carreers by spending more time on the job. We tend to neglect ourselves, which can lead to poor health and overweight.

Studies have shown that overweight people have these things in common:

1.They eat too much. This might seem obvious but it is worth stating. They are the people who load up their plates and go back for seconds. They always have dessert

2. They tend to sit around more. They do not move around much, let alone do regular exercise

3. They tend to eat for the sake of eating. They eat even when they are not really hungry

4. They rarely cook for themselves and eat most of their meals out. This generally means they eat bigger meals and have little or no control over the way their food is prepared

5. They miss meals and catch up by eating larger meals

If you find you are doing any of these things, you can start to become healthy and lose weight by changing some of these habits. If you tend to eat too much by backing up for seconds or if you always eat dessert, you can change this. You do not have to give up everything you like but you can start by having smaller portions. You can have a smaller helping of dessert or, better still, only have it every other day.

If you find you are sitting around a lot, you can change this by moving more. Look for opportunities to get up from your desk or to go outside for a walk. Movement uses calories and gets the blood circulating. Studies are emerging that point to health problems caused by long periods of inactivity. It seems being inactive for long periods could be a health risk in itself.

Eating for the sake of eating is an easy trap to get caught in. We all have favourite foods and they are usually freely available. We may be eating more and more of them without even noticing. You can change this by paying attention to your eating habits and eating only when you are hungry.

If you are eating out most of the time, try cooking more meals at home. This can be a nuisance, particularly if you are working long or irregular hours. But it is worth the effort because you are in control of the type and quantity of food you have. You can choose healthy food that will help you lose weight.

Try not to miss meals and then catch up later. Research has found that eating fewer, larger meals helps cause overweight. The sudden surge in blood sugar causes the body to release insulin, which helps store fat.

It makes sense not to fall into habits that cause you to be overweight. If you find you have developed some of these habits you can start by changing some of them. You may not be able to change all of them at once but you may be able to start by working on some of them, maybe one at a time. It will pay off because you will be healthy and you will lose weight.

There must be hundreds of weight loss plans on the market. In addition to that, every second person you talk to has a pet theory on how to lose weight. Yet, the best way to lose weight could be the no weight loss plan. This means you do not set out to lose weight but you simply let it happen by changing to a healthy lifestyle. You decide you are going to be a healthy person by doing the things that have to be done to become healthy. This is not hard – you stop eating the bad food and start eating the good food. You spend less time sitting around and more time standing, walking, running and moving around.

If you become a healthy person, you will lose weight. And you will do it without the stress and pressure of trying to keep up the latest fad diet, which is fraught with danger. The danger is you will not be able to keep it up and you will be disappointed in yourself. You will then feel guilty and feel like a failure, which could make you think you will never lose weight. You then give up and try to resign yourself to the fact you will always be overweight and there is nothing you can do about it.

You cannot allow this to happen, as you will miss out on a lot of enjoyment in life by not being able to do the things you want to do – the things most people can do. You will miss out because you will be too handicapped by poor health and overweight. Long term overweight brings chronic illness, which has to be treated by drugs with all their side effects.

If you do not change to a healthy lifestyle and lose weight, here are some of the prospects you can look forward to:

*Low self-esteem – you feel a failure because you cannot live up to the modern body image

*Disability – You are limited because of your bad back, arthritis or swollen legs

*Lethargy – it is hard to get around because of your weight and the side effects from the drugs you are forced to take

*Depression – in extreme cases, where life seems too difficult and it is not worth trying any more.

When you decide to become a healthy person you will change. By making the decision to live a healthy life for the rest of your life you have changed your attitude. You have become a positive person and replaced frustration with hope. When you take action by changing your bad habits to good habits you will feel even better. You will feel better because of the energy you have from the good food you are eating and the exercise you are doing. This will make you stronger and encourage you to keep going. You will be more encouraged when you start losing weight.

Your weight loss will be a by-product of your healthy lifestyle. It will be something that will happen naturally over time. You will not be committed to an unrealistic weight loss goal or timetable. You may not get down to the size of a super model, but this will not matter because your body will be healthier and stronger to deal with that.

If you want to lose weight, try the no weight loss plan. It is a cheap plan – you do not have to buy it and it does not require any special equipment. In fact, there is nothing stopping you from starting it right now.

The glycemic index details the rate carbohydrates break down in the body and convert to sugar in the form of glucose. Those foods high on the list convert to glucose rapidly, raising the blood sugar level. The body responds by way of releasing insulin to control that surge of glucose. Insulin accomplishes a number of things: it controls the level of glucose in the blood; it stimulates appetite; it stores energy as fat for future use. This fat is stored, among other places, around the abdomen.

This means if you eat mainly the high GI foods your body is constantly going through this process. It is on a merry-go-round of taking in food, wanting more to eat and storing fat. That is why you need to balance the foods you eat. While your diet does not have to be made up entirely of low GI foods, it should be mainly low GI. For example, you can have a meal with some high GI as long as most of the food is low GI.

Working on a low GI regime is not as hard as you might think. Many common foods fall into that category, some of which you may be eating already. Bear in mind, meat and fish are not on the list because they contain little or no carbohydrates.

Here are some foods that are at 55 or under on the list:

*Most vegetables – potatoes are over 55 but can be enjoyed occasionally

*Most fruit – exceptions are paw-paw (papaya), pineapple, kiwi fruit and fresh apricots, which are medium GI foods, but they can be eaten with low GI foods to provide a balance

*Most fruit juices – unsweetened is better and fresh is best

*Most pasta and noodles

*Multi-grain and whole grain breads

*Most dairy foods

*Cereals such as All Bran and Oat Bran, but popular cereals like Rice Bubbles and Corn Flakes are high in sugar and high GI

The foods on the list should come as no surprise as they are the foods we are told we should be eating to stay healthy. Dietitians and health professionals tell us we should be eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, along with fish, poultry and lean meat. There is such a wide selection when it comes to eating healthy, low GI food, you may have to make only minimal changes in your eating habits. You are probably eating many of these foods now.

Whatever changes you do have to make will be worth the effort to stop that process of building up stomach fat. Choosing most of your food from the low GI list not only helps maintain your health but also helps lose your stomach fat.

Including high protein food in your diet is one of the ways to lose weight. Your body has to work harder to digest and break down the protein. In fact, your body can burn calories just processing the protein. One of the reasons so many people put on weight is because they have been caught up in the modern tendency to eat mainly carbohydrates. If you think about the number of meals that are mostly carbohydrates, you will know what I mean.

Getting the right amount of protein is not an exact science, but there seems to be a consensus among nutritionists that .8 grams of protein per bodyweight of kilos is about right. In other words, multiply your body weight in kilos by .8 and your weight in pounds by .37. The Harvard School of Public Health says you can get 20-25 percent of daily calories from protein without any adverse health risks. It does warn those with kidney disease not to take in more than the recommended amount.

Here are some foods that are good sources of protein and are readily available:

*Meat

*Fish

*Eggs

*Dairy products

*Vegetables

*Seeds and nuts

Meat is high in protein but lean meat is best so as to avoid excess amounts of saturated fats. The meats to look for are lean beef, lamb, buffalo, chicken. Be careful not to eat any meat simply because it has protein. For example, a little bacon from time to time is alright but you would not want to make it a regular part of your diet. Processed meats in sausages and cold meats like salami and ham and chicken rolls should be avoided.

Fish has about the same amount of protein as meat without the saturated fats. In addition to that it contains omega-3, which helps protect your heart. Eggs are also a good source of protein and they are easy to get and easy to cook. They were considered to raise cholesterol levels but recent research has shown this to be false. Dairy products such as milk, yogurt and cheese provide protein but they also contain saturated fats. Skim milk is fine as is other dairy food in moderation.

Beans are one of the best sources of vegetable protein. While there is some discussion about the merits of individual varieties because some contain a high percentage of carbohydrates, there is no dispute as to their protein content. Most have around 20 percent protein or better. Beans such as kidney, red kidney, pinto, lima, navy, great northern are all good, inexpensive sources of protein. What about the bad jokes on the effect of beans on your stomach and on the people around you? It is true they do make wind, so make sure you soak them in water before you cook them.

Seeds and nuts are another source of protein. In addition to that they contain nutrients and vitamins. Some of them, like flax seed, are small and difficult to eat but walnuts and almonds are easier to handle and can easily be included in snacks.

Nature has provided us with many sources of protein as it makes up about half our body weight and is essential for our body to maintain good health. Part of maintaining good health is keeping weight under control. Eating more protein will help you do this.