Every year millions of people decide to get fit and lose weight as part of the annual tradition of making New Year Resolutions that are forgotten by time Valentines Day comes along. Generally people throw money at the problem by signing contracts with expensive health clubs that they never attend. So, what should you really do to get fit and lose weight?
Firstly, we need to remind you that they key phrase here is get fit and lose weight. Many people start their weight loss journal with the idea that the best way to lose weight is to go on a restrictive diet. Many other people start out with the belief that the best way to lose weight is by exercising.
Every January we see overweight men jogging around the city with their summer shorts and T-short on, developing frost bite and chaffing their thighs before heading to the office canteen for a full English breakfast. This is not a recipe for weight loss, its a recipe for disaster!
Get Fit and Lose Weight
Just over a year ago 2 pieces of research were published that proved this point. Sports scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University examined the effects of dieting without exercise. They concluded that when people diet and do not exercise, they generally fail to lose any significant amount of weight, and maintaining weight loss is very difficult.
So you may want to jump to conclusion that to lose weight you just need to exercise. However, research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that people who just exercise also find it much harder to lose weight. In both of these studies the resulting advice was to do both, to exercise and to diet to lose weight.
Calories, Glycemic Index and Metabolism
The key elements to weight loss are controlling calories eaten, eating a healthy diet and increasing your metabolism.
Although we are all different, we can all follow calorie guidelines that provide an indication of how many calories we need to maintain a healthy weight. Any more than this daily limit and the result is usually weight gain. Here is a table of calories requirements. As you can see in this table, a women between the age of 31 and 50 that does not exercise should only need 1800 calories a day. Few people maintain that limit.
It is important to also know how many calories you burn when exercising. Most people fail to lose weight for two simple reasons:
- Over estimating the amount of energy used when exercising
- Under estimating the amount of energy in the food that they eat
For every single person that says that they have tried to lose weight and failed, they have failed because of one or both of these reasons. This table shows the number of calories used for different activities. The top row shows that 1 hour of aerobics will burn around 450 calories. This sounds a lot. However, if you are unfit you will struggle to burn that many calories before having to stop. But even if you did burn 450 calories, one healthy sandwich and a glass of fruit juice will result in replacing all of those lost calories (yes, healthy food has calories too!).
One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they think that just because they have done some exercise they can eat what they like. Professional athletes like Michael Phelps can eat lots, but only because they train for 5 hours a day, and those 5 hours are intensive.
Counting calories is not the only answer to weight problems though. Knowing why we are fat is useful. Most people still blame high levels of dietary fat for weight gain, but the truth is that most people eat relatively low levels of fat now. The real problem is all the energy in sugar. Sugar is the new fat.
Sugar does not only refer to sugar you use in cooking and coffee though, it is all forms of sugar in the food we eat. To keep sugar levels low you need to understand the glycemic value of foods. For best weight loss results only eat foods that are low of medium GI. This means not eating many favorite treats, but you have to make some sacrifices.
Finally, you have to boost your metabolism. This is where exercise comes in to play. Although we burn more energy when exercising, the greatest benefit is that when we become fitter and stronger our bodies burn energy quicker – we raise our metabolism. This is why strength training is so important. By building some lean and healthy muscle we actually burn more fat while sleeping. Muscles are hungry, so consume the energy. Muscles require both protein and carbohydrate for growth and healthy functioning, so a balanced diet is essential for improved fitness, and those low GI foods really help too.
So, how to put it all together? The options are:
- Join a gym
- Buy some books or fitness videos
- Search Google for local fitness classes
- Buy a weight loss eBook that will give you new diet plans and fitness routines to follow
- Immerse yourself in the articles on fitness, strength and weight loss here, use the search box and index to find new health and fitness articles.
Either one of these methods should provide you with good results. If you have any questions or need any advice, please use the form below. Good luck, and enjoy getting fit and losing weight!
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