Your first step is, determining what the cause is. Many skip this step and jump to the subjective way of dealing with it – which leads to rash decisions and for relying on crash diets. What they don’t know is these may seem to be simple choices but they will never work. What you need are choices made from rational decisions based on long term lasting results for your overall health and well being.
It's important to get an idea of how our bodies work, and what our bodies need. Our bodies all require energy in order to perform our daily functions. This energy comes from food. All the building blocks of food (or macronutrients) give us energy. These macronutrients consist of fats, proteins and carbohydrates.
The energy that we get from these macronutrients are measured in calories. A calorie is a simple measurement of heat. So once we ingest our macronutrients, our bodies burn them as calories. Here are a few examples to see how all our macronutrients can provide calories.
1) 1 gram of fat gives our bodies 9 calories
2) 1 gram of protein gives our bodies 4 calories
3) 1 gram of carbohydrates gives our bodies 4 calories
Consistency and balance are key. Also macronutrients are not the same as calories, so 500 calories worth of carbohydrates will affect the body much differently than 500 calories worth of protein.
If you are storing fat, you are most likely, consuming more calories than your body can burn off as energy. At the end of the day, you MUST burn more calories than you take in if you are trying to achieve weight loss. Helping you burn those calories will be cardio exercise AND weight lifting. The more lean muscle you have, the less bodyfat. You can only develop lean muscle with strength training. Combining the two with a sensible meal plain, limiting your sugar intake will help you succeed. And remember your success is a marathon not a sprint. Be patient. Set realistic achievable goals.
