Thursday, November 26, 2009

Calorie Counter Database Helps With Weight Loss Objectives


Calorie Counter Database software abounds on the internet.  You simply choose a food and you get the calories in one serving or 100 grams of the food, depending on the program.  Some software allows you to type in the food while others require that you choose from a set menu.  There are other variations to calorie counter database software as well.

Whether you are wondering how many calories come in a medium sized apple (65) or how many calories in three Oreo cookies (160) you can find it in a calorie counter database. 

You can also put together the calories for a whole meal, though you have to gather each input separately.  For instance, for a Spaghetti and Meatballs dinner, you will have to look up the pasta, tomato sauce, and ground beef separately.

Another thing to keep in mind when you are using a calorie counter database is that you have to accurately reflect your portions.  Many people underestimate how much food they actually eat.  The solution to this is to weigh the food before eating it.  That’s why many databases will reflect calories per 100 grams of food.

When you eat at restaurants and fast food establishments, the portion sizes are pre-determined (McDonald’s even has a sandwich called the Quarter Pounder based on the pre-cooking weight of the patty).  That makes using a calorie counter database for these meals easy.  Most of the software programs include calorie counts for meals at the most popular restaurants.

Some of the calorie counter databases have a separate journal option.  In this fashion, you can look up the calories of the food you are eating and record it.  This is useful for many reasons.

The first reason the journal is helpful is that you can track how many calories you’ve eaten in a day.  That way, if you have had more than you had “budgeted” for the day, you can have a light dinner or put an extra half hour in at the gym.

The second reason is because it allows you to track patterns over time.  After you have used the journal feature for at least seven days, look for trouble spots.  For instance, many people find that they pack on more calories at lunch than they would like because they eat out most frequently at that meal.  By packing a healthy lunch and taking it to work or school, they can eliminate that “problem area” in their diet.

Other people begin to notice that they are drinking their calories.  This doesn’t just apply to alcohol.  Many beverages are high in calories.  Orange Juice, for instance, has 120 calories in a single glass.  For someone on a low calorie diet, this “health food” can be a diet buster.  The journal may help a dieter make better choices about which foods – and drinks – to incorporate into his or her day.

If you are dieting, it is good advice to check out a calorie counter database to see exactly how many calories you’re putting into your body each day.





Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Stability Ball - How To Burn Fat Belly Exercise For Beginners


If you want how to burn fat belly, exercise with a stability ball.  This $30 piece of fitness equipment which is available at most sporting goods stores, may be the key ingredient in your search for a flat stomach or washboard abs

Researchers at Sacramento State University in California found that people who worked out with stability boards had twice the muscle fibers in their stomachs compared to people who did crunches alone.  Do a burn fat belly exercise routine with a stability ball.

For beginners, these three lose belly fat exercise described here can help to get you started.

1. First, sit on the ball and place your hands on the ball for balance.  Alternatively, place your hands behind your head which makes it more difficult but a better strength exercise.  Slowly begin to roll your hips in a circle towards the right, making small circles and then, as you get comfortable, larger circles.  Do 10 to 20 circles then repeat the exercise to the left.  While it sounds simple, this exercise will be working all of the muscles of the stomach making it a perfect how to burn fat belly exercise.

2. The next lose belly fat exercise is called the Seated March.  Sit on the ball with your spine straight and your abs in.  Begin a slow march, alternating lifting the right foot and then the left.  As you get comfortable with the movement, lift the knees higher and march faster.  You can also add a bounce on the ball if you feel comfortable.  Repeat this exercise for 1 to 2 minutes.

3. The final beginner’s exercise I’m going to outline here is the Seated Balance.  You will sit on the ball with your spine straight and your abs in.  Place the hands on the ball if you are a beginner or behind your head if you have more confidence and lift your right foot off the floor, holding it in the air for at least 5 seconds.  Lower and repeat on the left side.  Repeat 5 to 10 times.  Keep your abs in to help keep your balance.

All of these beginner’s How To Burn Fat Belly exercise routines have you sitting on the ball.  As you gain confidence with the stability ball, you will begin to do exercises that have you starting from the floor, from your knees, and even from lying on top of the ball.  The manual that comes with the stability ball should describe many different exercises with illustrations to help you get the gist of what you are supposed to be doing.

If you are under 5’1, get an 18 inch ball.  From 5’1 to 5’8, get a 22 inch ball.  And, for those over 5’8, you’ll want to use a 26 inch ball.

The stability ball will give you many How To burn Fat Belly exercise ideas.


Sunday, November 22, 2009

How Do You Lose Belly Fat A Healthy Approach To Six Pack Abs


How do you lose belly fat?  That seems to be the million dollar question.  Many people say the key is to “obey.”  But, I’m going to give you a more thorough answer to the question how do you lose belly fat in this article. A firm, flat stomach is the ultimate symbol of sex appeal.  But researchers have also found that losing abdominal fat is one of the most important things you can take to stay healthy for life.

While you probably realize that excess fat is unhealthy, you should also know that where the fat is distributed is key to health.  People who are fattest in the abdomen (the so called “apple shaped body”) have a greater risk of heart disease and diabetes than those with pear shapes (fattest in the hips, buttocks, and thighs).

You won’t be surprised to learn that the best way to lose abdominal fat is to eat right and exercise regularly. And there's a growing body of evidence showing that the quickest way to burn off the fat from your belly is with a mix of weight-training and aerobic exercise.

One study tracked 30 obese women for six months.  The women were assigned to either a control group, an aerobic exercise group, or a combined exercise group.The aerobic exercise group did a full hour of cardio exercise for six days a week.  The combined exercise group did weight training on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and aerobic exercise on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

At the end of the six month period, the women in the aerobic group had lost 23.1 cm of abdimonal subcutaneous fat while the combined group lost 61.8 cm, nearly three times as much.  The combined group also did better on the abdominal visceral fat measure with 93 cm lost compared to 82 for the aerobic only group.  There was no change in the control group.

How do you lose belly fat starts with developing a combined exercise plan that is strenuous.  30 minutes a few times a week won’t cut it.  You need a full body training program combining cardiovascular and resistance exercises. You don’t need to do hundreds of crunches, sit ups or any of the complicated routines being touted by the “six pack abs” hype machine.  The key to losing belly fat is to burn more calories than you eat.  These fancy exercises don’t burn the kind of calories you need in order to be really successful. 

Getting killer abs has a lot less to do with training and everything to do with lowering your total body fat. The next step is to eat the right foods.  There is a lot of conflicting information on nutrition.  From the Adkins “eat no carbs” people to those who eschew all fats, there are radicals on every side. 

How do you lose belly fat starts with taking in enough protein to maintain muscle mass.  At least 20 to 30 percent of your diet should come from fats.  Then, you balance your carbs around the other two factors depending on whether you want to lose weight or not.  And if you are trying to lose belly fat, you do want to lose weight.  You must take in fewer calories than you burn.

How do you lose belly fat?  Basically, if you lose the excess fat in your system, your belly will go away too.


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Discover The Importance Of A Healthy Eating Plan


If you’re a healthy weight and you feel good most of the time, you might think you don’t need to worry about a healthy eating plan.   You might be one of the lucky ones who just instinctively chooses the right foods and never really has to give much conscious thought to what you put in your mouth.  Or you might be one of the lucky people who seems to able to eat anything and never have a problem. 

If you’re like the rest of us, though, you have to be very careful about what you eat.  A healthy eating plan might not be something we all consciously think about, but we should.  Most of us try to make healthy choices each time we eat something, and we might even quickly consider what else we’ve eaten that day or week before we eat again.  But we usually lack an overall picture of our diets.

Most of us really don’t realize how much fat we eat, for instance.  And most of us eat far too much sugar without even knowing it.  We don’t usually worry about following a healthy eating plan until we need to lose weight and then we start wondering about How To Lose Weight Calories. Or we start thinking about it when our doctor tells us our cholesterol, blood sugar or blood pressure is too high.  Or worse, our doctor tells us that all of those things need improvement. 

That’s when most of us suddenly decide we need a healthy eating plan. But if we had been following a healthy diet, we might have never had health or weight problems to begin with.  So it’s never too early to start formulating a plan for healthy eating, not only to stay at a healthy weight (or lose weight, if need be) but to stave off those problems that so many other people face like diabetes and high blood pressure.

If people in your family tend to develop diabetes later in life, or if there’s a history of heart disease, high cholesterol or high blood pressure, then the sooner you start following a healthy eating plan, the better.  You’ll be less likely to develop those same diseases if you start taking care of yourself now.  And the good news is it’s never too late. 

You might think you’ve spent 40 or more years eating what you want and you’re probably already headed toward those illnesses—and you might be right. But if you start following a healthy diet today, lose any excess weight, and make conscious choices about what you eat (and how much exercise you get) you automatically lower your risks for developing those diseases.

It’s especially important to follow a healthy diet, not just for yourself, but for your children and other family members.  Kids do as they see you do.  If you show that nutrition and health are important, your kids are more likely to grow up concerned about health, too.  And they’ll have a better chance at avoiding those same illnesses. A healthy eating plan can help you, and get them off on the right foot.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

How To Succeed With Your Healthy Eating Weight Loss Plan


If you need to lose weight, you’ve probably looked at some healthy eating weight loss diets and groaned in disappointment each time.  Most of them were probably fad diet plans. You’ve looked at diets that are supposed to be good for you while letting you lose weight. 

Some claim you can eat things like fatty cheeseburgers and even fatty milkshakes (made with sugar substitutes).  While other diets claim that you can eat whatever you want as long as you keep your fat intake low. But chances are that they all restrict or forbid something you really enjoy, and you’re not looking forward to going without that favorite food.

What some people overlook is that you don’t necessarily have to follow a healthy eating weight loss diet that someone else claims is the best.  You can figure out how to eat on your own. The first step is to look at how you’ve been eating.  Obviously, if you need to lose weight you’ve been following a diet that provides you with too many calories.  If your diet is healthy overall but you’ve been eating too many calories, then you might not even need to change the way you eat much at all.  Increasing your daily exercise could be enough to help you lose weight.

If your diet needs an adjustment to become a healthy eating weight loss plan, though, you should look at the parts of your diet that seem unhealthy and adjust them. If you make too big a change from the way you like to eat, you’re setting yourself up to be unhappy with your new diet plan.  Instead, try to incorporate the things you enjoy into your new plan.

Your healthy eating weight loss plan might not be able to include doughnuts 3 or 4 times a week like you’ve been eating.  But the occasional doughnut as a treat might be acceptable if it fits within your allotted calories for that day.  You might be able to have a substitution for a doughnut a couple of times a week, though.  A whole grain bagel with fruit-flavored low-fat cream cheese, for instance, is a sweet treat that you could enjoy instead of a doughnut.  It might give you the same satisfaction while remaining healthier and truer to your healthy eating weight loss plan.

If you eat a lot of sweets like chocolate, you can still enjoy them in moderation.  Dark chocolate can be part of a healthy eating weight loss plan.  Dark chocolate contains more antioxidants that many fruits and vegetables.  So try dipping some of your favorite fruits like bananas, pineapple or strawberries in some high-quality melted dark chocolate for a powerful anti-oxidant punch that should satisfy your sweet tooth and keep you on your diet.

Almost any unhealthy treats you’re use to having can be substituted with a healthier food that gives you at least some of the satisfaction of the unhealthy treat.  Mashed cauliflower instead of buttery mashed potatoes, thin-crust vegetable pizza instead of take-out and other tricks can make your healthy eating weight loss plan more enjoyable.

Go to: How To Lose Weight Calories for many more tips on healthy eating plans.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Don't Wait Discover Your Body Fat Weight


You can’t look in the mirror and figure out your body fat weight. And believe it or not, the percentage of your body fat is a good thing to know if you’re on a serious quest of how to lose weight - calories in and calories out. You can weigh yourself, take your height measurement and figure out your BMI—your body mass index. 

That will determine whether or not you’re in a normal weight range, you’re overweight, or if you’re obese and should lose weight immediately.  But figuring your BMI still doesn’t tell you your body fat weight and how much of your weight might be made up of muscle.

Even if you’re overweight, you can be quite muscular beneath the fat. Many people who are losing weight thanks to help from a great exercise program do build muscle as they’re losing weight. 

If you go solely by the scales, this can be a discouraging thing at times.  Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you’re building new muscles, they're adding weight to your body.  You’ll weight more on the scale, your BMI will be higher, but that’s not true body fat weight.

Often if a person is exercising regularly and eating healthy, they’ll be losing body fat weight but the scale doesn’t show much progress.  That’s because they’ve replaced the weight they lost with muscle weight.  This is to be expected when someone starts an exercise program, and it’s perfectly normal. 

If you just started exercising when you started dieting, don’t be discouraged on those weeks when the number on the scale doesn’t want to go down.  You might have lost some fat but gained an equal amount in muscle mass.

If you’re lifting weights, especially, you’re building some muscle and that will keep your weight the same or make it go up at first. But you shouldn’t be concerned with this because muscle weight is healthy, unlike body fat weight. Muscle is an active tissue, which means it’s always using energy, always burning calories. 

Fat doesn’t do anything but take up space.  So the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is and the more calories you burn.  If you’re discouraged by lack of weight loss or weight gain, though, try comparing measurements to earlier ones—they’re bound to be smaller.  Or pay attention to how your body feels or fits in your clothes. That’s a true measure of whether you’re still making progress, and is much more reliable than the scale.

There are ways to measure body fat weight.  One way is with calipers.  They look like big pinchers, or a stethoscope without the part you put on your chest. A person trained in the use of calipers will use them to painlessly pinch various parts of your body.  It’s not a rough pinch, merely a gripping of your skin and fat between the prongs to measure it. 

Remember the old “Can you pinch an inch” commercial?  That’s the principle behind it. How much flesh is pinched determines your body fat weight and percentage.

Remember, building muscle is always good in the long run, fat uses more energy than fat, so it you are looking at how to lose weight, calories in and calories out counts. The more muscle you have the more fat you will lose with the same amount of food.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Fastest Way To Burn Fat Belly For Women


The fastest way to burn fat belly for women is to modify your diet and do the combination of cardio and strength training exercises that make you lose weight all over.  That’s because fat gets stored in the tummy first and the stomach is the last place it comes off.  Women who are otherwise fit all over may feel a little self conscious in a bikini.  So, the fastest way to lose belly fat is to realize that you’ve got to get into perfect shape.

There is no one specific exercise that will make you lose your stomach if you are 20 pounds overweight.  Sit ups and crunches will help strengthen the muscles in the area, but do nothing to burn the fat.  And, belly fat is, at its core, fat. The only way to lose fat is to eat fewer calories than you burn.

So, one element in the fastest way to lose belly fat is to come up with a healthy eating plan.  This is an eating plan for life, not some fad diet.  When you yo yo in weight, you actually compound the stomach fat problem because you lose weight in other areas but you put it back on in the stomach area first.  So, making a change in your diet on a permanent basis is key.

You’re developing a lifestyle, not going on a temporary diet.

Your diet needs to be concerned not only with the total number of calories but the kinds of calories.  You need to take in at least 1 gram of protein per day for every pound you weigh.  You also need some fat in your diet.  A diet of 30:20:50 in the ratio protein: fat: carbohydrates makes a lot of sense for an overweight woman who wants the fastest way to burn fat belly.  Fish oils are the best kind of fat for this purpose.

Next up is your training program.  The fastest way to lose belly fat is by doing both weight training and cardio exercises.  A study of overweight women showed that women who alternated between cardio and strength training every other day lost significantly more fat in their stomachs than women who relied on aerobics alone. 

The best way to do aerobic exercise is high intensity interval training.  This is where you do a two minute burst of activity at the most intense level you are capable of doing followed by three minutes of moderate activity.  Repeat the cycle.

You will also want to track your progress.  Not only will you be encouraged to see your belly fat decreasing, but if you stall or go up, you will be able to correct the problem quickly.  It is a good idea to take your body fat measurements every two weeks.

The fastest way to lose belly fat is to develop good lifestyle habits.  Once you lose the weight, your belly fat will come off. This is the way to burn fat belly for women!

What Is BMI The - Truth Revealed


With all the talk about it these days, you might be wondering, “What is BMI?”  There's no magic to it, no secret formula, even though sometimes the way it's talked about it sounds like some sort of mantra for weight loss and health.

BMI isn't a meditation or an exercise or diet plan, it's simply the measure of your body mass.  It compares your weight and height, and boils that ratio down to a number.  Depending where your number is on the scale, it tells you if you're underweight for your height, overweight, or obese.  With this tool you can decide if you are fat or not. If you are, you can go to a site such as How To Lose Weight Calories and get a good diet to help you lose weight.



So what is BMI, in general?  BMI, or body mass index, is a tool of body mass measurement that was created in the early 1800s by Adolphe Quetelet. This is why sometimes you might see BMI referred to as the Quetelet index. 

Adolphe Quetelet was a mathematician, statistician, and an astronomer, among other things.  He developed the BMI while working on social physics.  The BMI is still used today with very few variations on his original invention.

What is BMI, specifically?  BMI doesn't measure body fat, but instead compares a person's weight and height to estimate a healthy body weight for that person's height.  It's widely used to determine if someone is technically overweight or obese.  Though it's the not the final tool in diagnosing obesity or overweight, because it's not without its flaws for certain body types, it's still in use in the medical community.

The formula for BMI is simple:  Take your height in meters squared (your height times itself) and then divide your weight in kilograms by that number.  For example, if I'm 5 feet tall, that's about 1.5 meters. 1.5 squared (1.5 times 1.5) equals 2.5. If I weigh 120 pounds, that's about 54.5 kilograms.  So I need to divide 54.5 by 2.5 which gives me a result of 21.8 as my BMI. So what does that number mean?

A BMI of 18.5 or below indicates that an individual is underweight. The normal weight range is from 18.5 to 24.9.  Overweight people will calculate a BMI of 25 to 29.9.  A BMI of 30 or greater indicates obesity.  Someone five feet tall weighing 120 pounds falls into the normal weight range.

Where BMI fails is with extremely muscular people.  It doesn't distinguish between muscle and fat, instead using total weight as the measure.  So according to the BMI, bodybuilders are likely to measure as obese which is inaccurate.  Most athletes like wrestlers, footballs players and any athletes with a large amount of lean muscle are going to measure as overweight or obese.  But for most people, BMI is a fairly accurate measure of their level of underweight or overweight.

Now that you know the formula, you know that BMI is as simple as a single math problem, and a single number.  Next time you're faced with the question, “What is BMI?” you'll know there's no magic to it, it's simply a measure of a person's body weight compared to his or her height.

If you are really overweight or even obese, do not stress, go to How To Lose Weight Calories and get all the tips you need to get rid of that extra fat sitting there!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

How To Lose Weight Tips That Will Show Results


There are many gurus promising that the latest How To Lose Weight Tips will work wonders, but there really are no new secrets.  The key to losing weight has always been to burn off more calories than you eat every day.  When you don't, your body will store the excess calories as fat. That is why in How To Lose Weight, Calories are always important.

There is no great secret pill or diet that will change the body's basic fat burning and storing processes, so you are better off trying to make the right adjustments for a healthy lifestyle than to chase the hottest diet fads.  Here are two of the best How To Lose Weight Tips that can be counted on to make a difference in your results.

1.  Don't let your body get too hungry. 

This may seem like one of the more bizarre how to lose weight tips, but that hungry feeling makes it easy to slip and binge on unhealthy food.  Try for a steady intake of nutritious, filling food throughout the day instead.  This also keeps your body fueled and full of energy all day long, helping you follow-through with any new exercise program you may have started along with your diet. 

There are a number of tasty and healthy foods that will give you a satisfied, full feeling.  Look for food with a high fiber content, such as whole grains, legumes, beans, apples, potatoes, and certain breakfast cereals.  Most of these foods are low in calories, so you can eat a large quantity, helping you feel full and satisfied throughout the day.  If you find yourself becoming hungry in the middle of the day, choose a healthy, fiber-rich snack instead of reaching for a candy bar or bag of chips.  Your body will actually feel better longer if you pick the healthy option over the junk food snacks.

2.  Drink lots of water. 

You have probably seen this before on lists of how to lose weight tips, but there is good reason for that...it works.  The body stores water when it thinks the supply may become scarce.  This causes you to retain water weight and feel bloated and heavy.  It is estimated that most people are carrying an extra 5-10 pounds of water weight.  Keeping a steady flow of water going into your body lets it know that the supply is plentiful and it can release some of these unnecessary pounds. 


The most common recommendation is to drink eight glasses of water each day.  This is sufficient for most people, but those in extremely warm climates or who are physically active may need to drink more to offset any loss due to sweating. 

Water also flushes out the toxins in your system, giving you more energy, along with healthier skin and hair.  Drinking a lot of water will increase your metabolism so you burn more calories even when your body is at rest. 

So, follow these How To Lose Weight Tips and you will never have to ask the question: "How To Lose Weight Calories" again!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Proven Truth about Cant Lose Weight Myth


 If you feel you cant lose weight, If you have wondered over and over, how to lose weight calories? Here is and inspiring story by an anonymous friend to give yo new hope. It will shoe you that you can lose weight and that you do not have to be wondering about How To Lose Weight Calories, that you CAN take action.

Read this inspiring story:

Hey if you’re reading this it means you and I both have run up against that "cant lose weight myth", but we both chose to believe it. It wasn't our fault though, because our parents, friends, loved ones, co-workers and even people who didn't like us, were quick to tell us to give it up, you will never lose weight. Chances are if you were like me you started believing them at an early age, perhaps as early as 4 or 5.

On top of that if it was your child hood friends, they taunted you with sayings like "Fatty, Fatty, 2 By 4 you can't fit through the bathroom door. All of this because you were overweight and it didn't matter what you did, it seemed you couldn't get it off.

Stop believing right now that you cant lose weight. I'm here to tell you that it’s a myth and you can lose weight I did.

A short while ago I weighed well over 220 pounds (I was small boned and only 5'6", had high blood pressure, borderline diabetic and my personal life was in a total melt down. I couldn't hold a job because of my health problems and the people I tried to work with were worse than children about me being overweight. I was the joke of the work place, so as soon as I couldn't take it anymore, I did my best to get laid off so I could collect unemployment or I just quit.

I did that one too many times and my family left me. Obviously I hit rock bottom then. I made up my mind I had to win them back and that's when I found out "you cant lose weight" was a myth.

Shortly thereafter I was watching the Dr. Phil show and he was talking to people just like you and me. You know the "fat ones". He told those folks they had to stop believing they couldn't lose weight. Right then is when I realized that was precisely what was stopping me. I believed I can't lose weight.

As I continued to listen to Dr Phil what he said made more and more sense. To make a long story short what he said was I had to believe I could lose weight and that I would have to change my lifestyle to accomplish my weight loss goals. The fact is I started that very day.

My first step was to go to my doctor and have him check me out to make sure I could start an exercise program without killing myself. Then I contacted a friend from my church and we became accountable to each other for each reprogramming our mind and reaching our weight loss goals.

Now here's the fun part, we began to challenge each other in our goals, changing our lifestyle (eating habits) and progressing from a slow walk to a faster walk. Today we are up to 3 miles in just under 36 minutes.

Was this easy? Heck No! But I have lost 53 pounds and my friend has lost 47 pounds. The important thing is we have gotten it off and kept it off for more than a year. I'm now working and my family has allowed me back into their life. Is everything rosy, no but it's a whole lot better than it was.

I'm living proof you cant lose weight is a myth. You need to search your mind, dig deep into your gut, get a plan together and stick to it.

Isn't it good to know other battles as well? Well start with a good diet such as Fat Loss 4 Idiots, Get yourself some Working Out Tips  and you will be well on your way very soon!