How To Optimize Your Weight Loss

How To Optimize Your Weight Loss


Weight loss optimization is making the most effective use of important factors that affect your total daily energy output. The two most important factors affecting weight loss are physical activity and eating selective foods. Are we what we eat?

For a long time I had no appreciation of what the answer to this simple question meant. For more than half of my adult life I have been on a roller-coaster when it comes to managing my weight. Given the right motivation, I could lose 25 pounds in six weeks. However, one year after losing the weight, I will end up putting on thirty or more pounds. One year later my old eating habits had return, and I was eating foods that were high in fats, high in carbohydrates, high in sodium and low in pure protein.

Exercise is the most effective way to increase your energy output. Large muscle exercise such as walking, jogging, running, biking, and swimming has been shown to increase the metabolic rate as much as ten times that of resting. Also, it should be noted that an individual's metabolic rate is a function of both their age and sex. As we age unfortunately our bodies burn calories at a slower rate.

Diet related calorie-burn range is between 15-25 percent of the energy output of the food we eat. The consumption of food stimulates the burning of calories resulting in increased energy output. Also, the amount of energy output depends both on the quantity and types of food eaten. By replacing highly sugar and fatty foods with foods that are high in fiber and proteins, we will naturally increase calorie-burn between fifteen and twenty percent. For example a meal of pure protein causes a calorie burning effect that is almost 25 percent of the total calories of that protein meal. The combination of eating specific food types along with a more active lifestyle will help to optimize your weight loss process. There are three activity lifestyles that pre-determine how much calories your body will burn daily. The sedentary or light activity person total daily energy output is about three thousand five hundred calories. An active or moderately active lifestyle total daily output is about four thousand calories. A vigorously active lifestyle generates about five thousand calories each day.

Preparing to lose weight is analogous to preparing a travel plan. As you plan to travel, you must have an itinerary. Likewise, you must have a plan to assist you in managing your weight loss. Even at a significant weight loss milestone, you can never become complacent into thinking that you have arrived. Each day you will start anew. Each day you will be stronger than the day before, and bursting with new found energy you will repeat the principles of reduction, replacement and maintenance.

It is not entirely our fault that we gain a significant amount of weight as we grow older. Unfortunately, there are physiological hurdles that act to counter our best efforts. Nevertheless, you can successfully manage weight loss by becoming more active and by choosing specific food types that will naturally increase you daily calorie output.

Weight loss optimization is a very dynamic process, and requires additional resources to ensure success. You are invited to click on the link below to gain ideas for a better diet and nutrition plan, and discover ways for you to develop a more active lifestyle.