Happy Thanksgiving!

*Published in The UWM Post

How to lose weight effectively
By Becky Kolar

There are tons of diets out there today, but do any of them really work? I don’t believe in diets, I believe in a healthy lifestyle that involves healthy eating and exercise. That’s not to say you have to give up your favorite food, I’m just saying that you probably can’t eat your favorite food every day, unless you have an undying love for broccoli.

Weight loss starts with shedding one pound at a time. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to either decrease your food intake by 3,500 calories or burn an extra 3,500 calories through exercise. Decreasing your intake or increasing your output by 3,500 calories in one day is almost impossible. That being said, the 3,500 calorie deficit needs to be spread over 1 week, equaling 500 calories per day. Now that doesn’t seem so difficult!

Ways to burn an extra 500 calories:

• Run for 45 minutes
• Skip 2 slices of cheese pizza from Pizza Hut
• Walk for 1 hour and 40 minutes
• Skip ½ a Burrito from Qdoba (that’s right! A full burrito is 750 calories)
• Bike for 55 minutes
• Skip a Big Mac from McDonalds
• Skip ½ cup m&m’s
  

Since most of us have limited time to exercise and can’t spend over an hour at the gym each day, it seems much easier to cut your food intake by 500 calories. The key is actually a combination of exercising and decreased calorie intake. Exercising will not only help you burn calories, but once you reach your ideal weight, cardiovascular exercise will help your body from gaining extra pounds.

Let me leave you with a few weight loss warnings. Never eat less than 1200 calories a day. If you go below this number you may not be getting enough carbohydrates to feed your brain and heart; if this is kept up for too long you will have brain damage and develop a weak heart. An obtainable goal when it comes to weight loss is one pound per week. If more than this is lost, the body might go into shock and once the diet is over you’ll gain all the weight back; hence people who complain about yo-yo dieting. When weighing yourself, be sure to stick to a schedule. Do it at the same time daily or weekly and on the same scale, for your weight can fluctuate up to five pounds in one day. Lastly, don’t deprive yourself of your favorite foods; instead, limit yourself to having that foods only once per week, think moderation.