If you have ever been on a diet, you know the drill. Watch your carbs, eat all carbs, don’t eat red meat, only eat meat, eat more fruits and veggies, only eat certain fruits – the list of dietary recommendations from weight loss “gurus” goes on and on, but most doctors have another idea in mind when it comes to weight loss. Essentially, according to the medical community, it all comes down to calories. You have to burn more calories than you eat every day if you want to lose weight, and you have to have a good balance between intake and outtake if you want to maintain your weight. Now, of course there are other reasons to choose healthy foods to heap on your plate, but the simple fact is, if you want to lose weight, stop worrying so much about what you eat and start counting the calories in the food you do choose to put in your mouth.

What exactly is a calorie? The word gets bandied around a lot, but many people don’t actually have a good handle on what it is. A calorie is simply a measure of energy. One calorie is equal to the energy needed to cause the temperature in one gram of water to increase by one single degree Celsius. The calories you see listed on the back of food packages are actually not strictly “calories” in the scientific sense. Instead, according to science, these calories are actually kilocalories, or kcals. Each kcal is made up of 1,000 calories. However, for practical purposes, the food industry uses the term “calorie” for the kcal count in their food.

The calories in your food essentially list the energy load they will bring to your body. To think of it another way, if the calories in your food were not powering your body, they could be powering something else. For instance, the calories in one piece of cheesecake with cherry topping have enough energy to burn a 60-watt light bulb for over an hour. When you put those calories into your body, they run your body’s “engine.” They are used up during the metabolic process and help you produce enzymes you need to spur on other body functions.

If you end up taking in more energy, or calories, than you need, you will end up gaining weight. The extra energy from the calories is stored in fat in your body; this is your body’s way of making sure it has an extra supply of energy on hand if you need it. Although the amount differs based on weight, height, and activity levels, among other factors, a general rule of thumb is that taking in 3,500 calories more than you need is equal to gaining one pound of fat. As you repeat that process, you accumulate more fat.

That number is the only one that really matters when you are trying to lose weight. Purely from a weight loss perspective, your body doesn’t care if you get all of your calories from chocolate cake, nachos, pizza, or carrots. As long as you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. However, there are good reasons to keep the source of your calories in mind. First is staying satiated while you diet – you can eat a whole lot more carrots than you can chocolate cake for the same amount of calories. Next is your overall health. Unhealthy eating takes a toll on all of your body systems, not just your waistline. Maintaining a healthy weight is not the only component is maintaining your overall health – getting your calories from good sources is the key to staying trim AND healthy.

If you have ever been on a diet, you know the drill. Watch your carbs, eat all carbs, don’t eat red meat, only eat meat, eat more fruits and veggies, only eat certain fruits – the list of dietary recommendations from weight loss “gurus” goes on and on, but most doctors have another idea in mind when it comes to weight loss. Essentially, according to the medical community, it all comes down to calories. You have to burn more calories than you eat every day if you want to lose weight, and you have to have a good balance between intake and outtake if you want to maintain your weight. Now, of course there are other reasons to choose healthy foods to heap on your plate, but the simple fact is, if you want to lose weight, stop worrying so much about what you eat and start counting the calories in the food you do choose to put in your mouth.

What exactly is a calorie? The word gets bandied around a lot, but many people don’t actually have a good handle on what it is. A calorie is simply a measure of energy. One calorie is equal to the energy needed to cause the temperature in one gram of water to increase by one single degree Celsius. The calories you see listed on the back of food packages are actually not strictly “calories” in the scientific sense. Instead, according to science, these calories are actually kilocalories, or kcals. Each kcal is made up of 1,000 calories. However, for practical purposes, the food industry uses the term “calorie” for the kcal count in their food.

The calories in your food essentially list the energy load they will bring to your body. To think of it another way, if the calories in your food were not powering your body, they could be powering something else. For instance, the calories in one piece of cheesecake with cherry topping have enough energy to burn a 60-watt light bulb for over an hour. When you put those calories into your body, they run your body’s “engine.” They are used up during the metabolic process and help you produce enzymes you need to spur on other body functions.

If you end up taking in more energy, or calories, than you need, you will end up gaining weight. The extra energy from the calories is stored in fat in your body; this is your body’s way of making sure it has an extra supply of energy on hand if you need it. Although the amount differs based on weight, height, and activity levels, among other factors, a general rule of thumb is that taking in 3,500 calories more than you need is equal to gaining one pound of fat. As you repeat that process, you accumulate more fat.

That number is the only one that really matters when you are trying to lose weight. Purely from a weight loss perspective, your body doesn’t care if you get all of your calories from chocolate cake, nachos, pizza, or carrots. As long as you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. However, there are good reasons to keep the source of your calories in mind. First is staying satiated while you diet – you can eat a whole lot more carrots than you can chocolate cake for the same amount of calories. Next is your overall health. Unhealthy eating takes a toll on all of your body systems, not just your waistline. Maintaining a healthy weight is not the only component is maintaining your overall health – getting your calories from good sources is the key to staying trim AND healthy.

Dieting, losing weight and getting healthier are the top resolutions for the New Year. But it seems to also be one of the hardest to fulfill resolutions on the New Years list. Has it been on your list in the past few years? Did it work out for you? If not, let’s discuss three common hazards to avoid in dieting and their effects.

One of the first big hazards in dieting is that you might fall for one of the quick and easy off-the-shelf diets. These diets come as pills, liquids or recipes in magazines. Most of these diets promise that you will drop a pant size or more within a few weeks. “Fit in that bathing suit by summer”, is what they are catching you with in spring. The soup will get you to loose weight or so they say. These diets are nothing more than a good sales pitch and because many of us are trying to loose some pounds or to slim down drastically, these sales pitches actually work. Dieting needs consistency, hard work, exercise and most of all a strong willed person. Unfortunately, many of us lack in these categories and fall for the calling of candy and other high calorie comfort foods whenever we walk through the supermarket. So therefore, a pill that will help us loose weight and we do not have to cut down or change too much, that sounds good, doesn’t it? The truth is, this is a common dieting hazard, falling for the sales pitch. These diets do generally not work and even if you loose some weight, it will most likely come back.

Another very common hazard when dieting is trying to eat nothing, cutting drastically down on food or avoiding food altogether. First of all, holding through such a diet is hard. Going from enjoying food and indulging to no food does not work for the body. Starving yourself is not the solution. Also, when cutting out most foods altogether, you will miss out on healthy nutrients for your body. Vitamins and minerals are essential for the body as well as many other nutrients that are found in healthy foods. Instead of not eating, go for cutting down the amount. The best way to avoid this dieting hazard is to exchange unhealthy foods with healthy ones, changing your lifestyle. Go for a fruit, vegetable and grain rich diet and cut out all the high fat and high calorie foods.

Last but not least, there is the so-called yo-yo effect. Once you have lost a certain amount of weight due to using maybe one of the sales pitch diets mentioned above, you stop the diet or can no longer see soup and therefore go back to your old eating habits. At this point, what happens is, you put actually on more pounds than you had before. Certain insulin and glucose reactions in the body, that actually helped you loose weight, get hit hard by all the sugar and calories being put in and therefore your body thinks that after a period of starvation, where it seemed to your body that there were bad times, there is a period of indulging and rich in foods. Therefore your body will switch over to store more fat, just in case those bad times are going to come back. Our bodies are designed for hard work with limited amounts of food. Certain mechanisms are built into our system, just like the instinct for survival.

To overcome any of these hazards, do some research on the topic of dieting; find out what works and maybe even talk to your physician. Your physician might have some recommendations as to where to start and what might be the best way for you to loose some weight the healthy way.

Dieting, losing weight and getting healthier are the top resolutions for the New Year. But it seems to also be one of the hardest to fulfill resolutions on the New Years list. Has it been on your list in the past few years? Did it work out for you? If not, let’s discuss three common hazards to avoid in dieting and their effects.

One of the first big hazards in dieting is that you might fall for one of the quick and easy off-the-shelf diets. These diets come as pills, liquids or recipes in magazines. Most of these diets promise that you will drop a pant size or more within a few weeks. “Fit in that bathing suit by summer”, is what they are catching you with in spring. The soup will get you to loose weight or so they say. These diets are nothing more than a good sales pitch and because many of us are trying to loose some pounds or to slim down drastically, these sales pitches actually work. Dieting needs consistency, hard work, exercise and most of all a strong willed person. Unfortunately, many of us lack in these categories and fall for the calling of candy and other high calorie comfort foods whenever we walk through the supermarket. So therefore, a pill that will help us loose weight and we do not have to cut down or change too much, that sounds good, doesn’t it? The truth is, this is a common dieting hazard, falling for the sales pitch. These diets do generally not work and even if you loose some weight, it will most likely come back.

Another very common hazard when dieting is trying to eat nothing, cutting drastically down on food or avoiding food altogether. First of all, holding through such a diet is hard. Going from enjoying food and indulging to no food does not work for the body. Starving yourself is not the solution. Also, when cutting out most foods altogether, you will miss out on healthy nutrients for your body. Vitamins and minerals are essential for the body as well as many other nutrients that are found in healthy foods. Instead of not eating, go for cutting down the amount. The best way to avoid this dieting hazard is to exchange unhealthy foods with healthy ones, changing your lifestyle. Go for a fruit, vegetable and grain rich diet and cut out all the high fat and high calorie foods.

Last but not least, there is the so-called yo-yo effect. Once you have lost a certain amount of weight due to using maybe one of the sales pitch diets mentioned above, you stop the diet or can no longer see soup and therefore go back to your old eating habits. At this point, what happens is, you put actually on more pounds than you had before. Certain insulin and glucose reactions in the body, that actually helped you loose weight, get hit hard by all the sugar and calories being put in and therefore your body thinks that after a period of starvation, where it seemed to your body that there were bad times, there is a period of indulging and rich in foods. Therefore your body will switch over to store more fat, just in case those bad times are going to come back. Our bodies are designed for hard work with limited amounts of food. Certain mechanisms are built into our system, just like the instinct for survival.

To overcome any of these hazards, do some research on the topic of dieting; find out what works and maybe even talk to your physician. Your physician might have some recommendations as to where to start and what might be the best way for you to loose some weight the healthy way.

Candy, baked goods, fattening side dishes and festive drinks – the list of food temptations during the holiday season is longer than most people’s holiday gift shopping list. The statistics say that most people gain weight during the holiday season (according to some surveys, people may gain an average of a whopping seven pounds during this time). The prospect of holiday belly is scary for anyone, but if you are on a diet, the holiday season can be like a war zone. If you are worried how you’re going to get through the holidays and still fit into your clothes at the end of it all, relax. These dos and don’ts will help you fight off the holiday weight gain, while still enjoying some of the treats the season has to offer.

Rule number one is: DO go into holiday eating with a plan. Don’t show up at holiday parties and family dinners thinking you’ll just wing it. A little bit of planning can make all of the difference for your diet success. If you know that there are going to be a lot of temptations on offer at a particular gathering, you can plan to indulge yourself a little bit by eating lightly for a few days before the event. If you’d rather not deprive yourself in the run up the big night, plan ahead by having a healthy meal before you attend the event, so you don’t go in hungry. Even better, bring your own healthy foods with you to the gathering. This tactic might not always be appropriate, but when you can get away with it, it can be a lifesaver.

Next, DON’T deprive yourself of all of your holiday favorites. If candy canes are your weakness and you tell yourself that you can’t even have one, you are setting yourself up for disaster in terms of a major binge at some point. Allow yourself a treat within the confines of your diet, to keep yourself on track.

Likewise, DO prioritize the foods you want to have a taste of. If you love sugar cookies but aren’t that excited about sweet potato casserole, skip the starchy side during dinner and splurge on a cookie for dessert. Empty calories are one of the biggest problems during the holidays. Don’t eat for the sake of eating – make sure you enjoy every morsel you chow down on.

You should let up on yourself with the food restrictions during the holidays, but DON’T let your exercise routine fall by the wayside. Staying active will help burn those extra calories. The holidays are busy, of course, and getting to the gym on your usual schedule can be a challenge. You can add extra bursts of exercise into your day by parking further away from the mall entrance or running your errands on foot instead of driving from place to place.

Last but not least, DO give yourself a break. If you slip up on your diet during the holidays, know that you are not alone. Don’t turn a little slip up into a major one by letting one bad diet day turn into an excuse to ditch the diet completely. Get back on the horse and get back on track with your diet as soon as you can. DON’T count on New Year’s Resolutions to bail you out when you slip. Eating right is a lifestyle, not a plan, and there is nothing special about a new year to get you on track. Look at holiday eating as just another part of your overall healthy lifestyle, and you’ll be able to cross weight gain off your list of holiday stressors.

Candy, baked goods, fattening side dishes and festive drinks – the list of food temptations during the holiday season is longer than most people’s holiday gift shopping list. The statistics say that most people gain weight during the holiday season (according to some surveys, people may gain an average of a whopping seven pounds during this time). The prospect of holiday belly is scary for anyone, but if you are on a diet, the holiday season can be like a war zone. If you are worried how you’re going to get through the holidays and still fit into your clothes at the end of it all, relax. These dos and don’ts will help you fight off the holiday weight gain, while still enjoying some of the treats the season has to offer.

Rule number one is: DO go into holiday eating with a plan. Don’t show up at holiday parties and family dinners thinking you’ll just wing it. A little bit of planning can make all of the difference for your diet success. If you know that there are going to be a lot of temptations on offer at a particular gathering, you can plan to indulge yourself a little bit by eating lightly for a few days before the event. If you’d rather not deprive yourself in the run up the big night, plan ahead by having a healthy meal before you attend the event, so you don’t go in hungry. Even better, bring your own healthy foods with you to the gathering. This tactic might not always be appropriate, but when you can get away with it, it can be a lifesaver.

Next, DON’T deprive yourself of all of your holiday favorites. If candy canes are your weakness and you tell yourself that you can’t even have one, you are setting yourself up for disaster in terms of a major binge at some point. Allow yourself a treat within the confines of your diet, to keep yourself on track.

Likewise, DO prioritize the foods you want to have a taste of. If you love sugar cookies but aren’t that excited about sweet potato casserole, skip the starchy side during dinner and splurge on a cookie for dessert. Empty calories are one of the biggest problems during the holidays. Don’t eat for the sake of eating – make sure you enjoy every morsel you chow down on.

You should let up on yourself with the food restrictions during the holidays, but DON’T let your exercise routine fall by the wayside. Staying active will help burn those extra calories. The holidays are busy, of course, and getting to the gym on your usual schedule can be a challenge. You can add extra bursts of exercise into your day by parking further away from the mall entrance or running your errands on foot instead of driving from place to place.

Last but not least, DO give yourself a break. If you slip up on your diet during the holidays, know that you are not alone. Don’t turn a little slip up into a major one by letting one bad diet day turn into an excuse to ditch the diet completely. Get back on the horse and get back on track with your diet as soon as you can. DON’T count on New Year’s Resolutions to bail you out when you slip. Eating right is a lifestyle, not a plan, and there is nothing special about a new year to get you on track. Look at holiday eating as just another part of your overall healthy lifestyle, and you’ll be able to cross weight gain off your list of holiday stressors.

Everyone has a favorite food or a favorite type of food. When dieting goes awry, it is usually because a person is so fond of a food, usually a food that is not incredibly healthy for the dieter, and they will falter while they are on the diet, potentially breaking down and eating some of their favorite food. This action can send an individual down a spiral and the dieter may feel like they are not strong enough to diet, that they cannot control their appetite and a number of other sad and depressing thoughts. No one is perfect and many people have temporary lapses of judgment, especially when it comes to dieting.

The key to dieting successfully is to be aware of what you, as an individual, like to eat and what you are interested in eating at various different points in time. Everyone makes mistakes, the most important thing that a dieter can remember is to not get too down on themselves, this will make dieting even more difficult and they may become less likely to succeed since many people who falter on a diet already believe that they have failed in their attempt to lose weight and eat more healthy foods and portions of meals. Luckily, there are a number of foods that can be used as substitutions in meals and snacks that dieters enjoy. This means that a person can eat what they want, and it will not be as bad for them. This helps to keep the moral of the dieter up since they can eat what they want and they will not feel as guilty about it since they have replaced some of the less healthy ingredients with food that is better for them. Dieting gets much easier when this is the case.

Sometimes, just the way a meal is prepared can make it less healthy. If a person likes chicken, they may be very fond of fried chicken. But fried chicken is not inherently healthy. As an alternative, a person can bake or grill their chicken. It will still contain the chicken flavor that the person craves and enjoys, but it is healthier for the person. Cheese is a high fat food item that many people crave and enjoy. By choosing cheese that is low fat, a person can help to make the foods and cheeses that they eat slightly more healthy and nutritious. Sugar is an ingredient that many people enjoy, and modern companies have helped to create substitutes for sugars that taste almost like the real sugar that people are accustomed to. Especially in baked goods, artificial sweeteners can help make a sweet treat less of a guilty indulgence.

Keep in mind that many foods that are baked need to be a little more structured and adhere more closely to the original recipe when compared to cooked foods. This is because when items are cooked in the oven, this is usually because they need to rise. If an item does not rise, it will not come out to be a very good meal or snack if it needs to rise in order to complete its cooking procedure. It is easier to switch items in and out if the individual is just cooking rather than baking.

Losing weight is tough and many people do not stay on their diet plans long enough to see the good effects. Go ahead and share the burden and lose weight. If you are wondering what it means to share the burden, there are actually a few different things that can be meant by this.

One way that this can be interpreted, is to share the burden with another person that wants to loose the weight. Having somebody in the same boat as you, planning meals together, planning exercise routines together, going for walks and encouraging each other to stay on track with the weight loss program can be what actually gets you to succeed. Human nature has made us weak to enticing offers such as eating candy and being lazy, but if somebody is there to motivate us and make sure we stay motivated, it all goes much easier. All the big time athletes, the movie stars, they hire advisors who will help them plan their day and who help them stay on track with their fitness and exercise program as well as their eating habits. What do you think a personal trainer does other than picking the right equipment for you? He motivates, he makes you want to be better and fitter. This person that shares your burden is just like a personal trainer.

Share the burden and loose weight by going to a weekly support group. Losing weight in a group and seeing yourself progress compared to other people is just as effective as a close friend or relative to share the same program with you. You are not alone, if you hit the wall and you think you cannot stick to your diet and exercising plan, talk to your support person or group, let them give you a boost, some motivation so that you are able to share this burden and so that you are able to stick to your plan.

Another way of sharing your burden is to involve you family. Tell them how important it is, that you have their support. Maybe it is important to you, that everybody eats the healthy foods with you or that everybody reminds you of your work out schedule in case you feel like not working out for no particular reason. Maybe you want them to eat any foods that would tease you out of your sight, or maybe you need them to understand that you cannot cook different for them. Share your burden, tell them what is important, tell your loved ones what you expect from them to be able to loose that weight and get healthy.

Maybe the reason why you gained all this weight is stress and now that the weight is on, there seems to be no way that you can loose it. Therefore, share the burden. Have everybody in the family pitch in with work so that you get time to exercise and time to relax. Reduced stress often also reduces the need to eat. Especially women like to eat when they are in stress. Or if you do not have the time to eat proper, maybe you are eating a lot of high calorie snacks. Maybe if you had more time, you could think about the food you eat and change to a healthier eating habits. Cooking and eating healthy foods can make all the difference in loosing weight, especially weight you have gained due to a way to full schedule.

When you want to lose weight, you will carry that burden–share it with somebody and get going on loosing weight. Always remember a shared burden is half the burden to carry for you.

Some people need structure in order to succeed and this goes for individuals who are dieting as well. When it comes to losing weight, the end result is for the individual to lead a healthier life so that they can be fit and achieve the figure they are trying to create for themselves. However, though one person can benefit from one plan it does not mean that everyone can. In the world of dieting, there are structured plans and there are individuals who can take on the project by themselves. If you are trying to figure out which weight loss plan might be best for you, keep reading and you might get the answer!

One of the main reasons that individuals are interested in structured diet plans is because the structured plans take the guesswork out of trying to create a program to lose weight. Structured plans tell people how much they need to eat, how much they need to ingest when it comes to portions and other helpful tidbits about dieting. Some people do not have the self-restraint to create a plan for themselves and stick to it. Other people do not know the basics of calories, when to eat, what to eat and what qualifies as healthy foods, meals and snacks. With pre-packaged meals and designated snacks, dieters can feel safe and secure in the knowledge that the steps they are taking when it comes to dieting is planned to help them and the dieters will not need to wonder about whether or not the foods they are eating will help.

It can also help to join a structured and public dieting plan because when there are people who are all working towards the same goals and the dieters can help to keep each other on task and focused. Motivation is also a helpful benefit when it comes to dieting with other individuals when taking part in a public dieting plan.

Unfortunately, diet plans that are structured also have a few negative aspects and when it comes to many of these diet plans, the worst part is that the diet is very expensive. Pre-packaged foods take the guesswork out of dieting, but they can also sap the savings out of an individual if they do not have the monetary means to invest in such foods with the money they have available to them. While many people can feel that do-it-yourself plans are not as simple as the structured ones created and enforced by individuals in the fitness circuit, this does not mean that do it yourself diet plans are a lost cause. They can be perfectly fulfilling for individuals who want to be able to take care of themselves, save some money by not purchasing pre-packaged foods and allowing themselves the freedom to choose what they eat for their meals.

With do it yourself plans, the individual is in charge of making sure that every day, they make the correct and proper choices for their diet. They need to be more restrained, but they can also enjoy the financial freedom of do it yourself plans. The drawback, however, is that some people are not sure what to do in order to make sure that they ingest the vitamins and minerals that they need to, without packing on more weight.

When you are on a diet it can be hard to stick to your goals and shed your body of excess weight. The good news however, is that there are numerous thing you can do to help keep yourself on task. Make sure to reward yourself when you stay with your weight loss regimen. Rewards are a wonderful way to make yourself feel happy and good about the new lifestyle you are leading.

Some people find it useful to set short term goals such as promising themselves that they will lose a certain amount of weight in a set amount of time. The important thing is to make sure that you do not set goals that are out of reach.

You should view the fact that you even reach a goal as something worth rewarding yourself for. People of all ages respond well to rewards and being an adult on a diet is not an exception to this rule.

Rewards are a wonderful way to motivate you to keep going and working towards a healthy life. As you reward yourself you are far more apt to want to keep working so that you can receive the next reward that you have set for yourself.

Rewards work in so many different areas of a person’s life that it makes perfect sense to think that a reward system is a good way to keep you on the right diet track.

Rewards are designed to make you feel happy about something that you have reached. It makes you feel better about yourself and the effort that you have put in. A reward tells you that you have worked hard and deserve to be treated.

There are so many different ways that you can reward yourself for doing well on your diet, however, it is wise to choose a reward that is not food related. If you really do want to treat yourself with a dinner out or something along those lines, just make certain that you pick only healthy foods.

Rewarding yourself with sweets is not a good idea as it will just create a problem in allowing you to stick with your diet. You could opt to make your reward something such as new clothes or a day of pampering at a spa. Anything that allows you to feel good about yourself is a good idea as a reward.

If you choose clothes as your reward, it is a nice way to watch your wardrobe grow with clothes that are very flattering to your new body shape.

Rewarding yourself with other things that will improve your appearance such as a new hair cut or color will go so far in making you want to continue working out and getting in shape. Men who diet but are not interested in such things as cosmetics can always purchase something that they like for their rewards such as a new tool.

Couples who are working on a diet routine with one another could create a special weekend away as a reward for keeping consistent with their diet. Always keep in mind when choosing your reward that it should be something that you really like or want. An item that is special is seen as far more of a reward than something that is necessary or that you would have bought for yourself anyway.

A great idea is to browse around ahead of time and find things that strike your fancy that you can use as rewards for yourself in the future so that you have some wonderful treats to work towards.