The food that you eat will contain a certain number of calories. You will need a certain amount of calories to maintain your bodyweight as it stands at the present time. This is called your maintenance level.

If the amount of calories that you consume goes over your maintenance level, then you will put on more weight. If the amount of calories that you consume goes under your maintenance level, then you will lose weight.

In theory it sounds a simple and straightforward method towards losing weight. However things are never as simple as they appear. Weight loss can be a bit more complex, if it wasn't then nobody would be overweight.

The first thing that you have to know is that not all calories are created equal. A gram of protein and a gram of carbohydrates each contain 4 calories. A gram of fat on the other hand contains 9 calories. When you check on food labels as to the amount of fat that is contained, always remember the amount of calories which are coming from fat.

Another thing to keep in mind is that certain types of calories are more prone to be stored as fat than others. Especially calories that are consumed from foods that contain high levels of sugar. So it's not just a question of how many calories you eat, but what types of calories you eat.

While it's true that cutting back on calories will help you lose a certain amount of weight. What you need to consider is the quality of weight that you are losing and not just the quantity. Weight, just like calories comes in different forms. If you lost a limb in an accident, you will have lost some weight. However this would not be the type of weight you would be happy losing.

Much of the weight that people lose when they cut back drastically on calories comes from muscle. Muscle loss is something that you will want to avoid at all costs.

Let's face it; you haven't become overweight by carrying too much muscle on your body. It is the amount of fat that your body is carrying that has led to you becoming overweight. So it makes sense to focus on losing the fat and holding onto any muscle that you can.

Everyone has the same amount of muscles on their bodies. The only difference is the size of the muscles. The bigger the muscle the more calories your body will burn to keep that muscle. Don't think for one minute that you will begin to look like some bodybuilder, because you won't. Not unless you train your muscles for many years. However if you are trying to lose weight, you will reach your goal quicker if you do some form of resistance training (weight training).

Fat can be very stubborn to shift and nobody is more aware of that than you. The key to losing fat and holding onto muscle, apart from a healthy diet, is to have a good exercise programme. A good mix of cardiovascular and resistance training is the perfect cocktail. Cardiovascular training will help you burn fat and resistance training will help you to keep your muscle weight.

Page 1 of 3 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 3 | Next