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Controlling Your Bodyweight The Perfect Diet Plan _________________________________________________________________

Although weight control practice options are as abundant as nutritional supplements, there is really only one way to control body weight, namely, the regulation of caloric intake and caloric expenditure. If the food you eat has a caloric value that exceeds the number of calories you burn up during the day, you are in a positive caloric balance and you will gain weight. Conversely, if your caloric intake is lower than your caloric balance, you are in a negative caloric balance and you will lose weight. Maintaining a proper balance between your caloric intake and caloric expenditure will cause your body weight to remain relatively constant. Briefly, calories do count. If you eat more calories than you use up, you will gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than you use up, you will lose weight. It’s that simple. Actually, most diets on the market have the basis for being successful. Generally, they limit the caloric intake sufficiently, but they often contain too much sugar, fat, cholesterol and salt. In large quantities, these foods are potentially dangerous. For example, salt can lead to hypertension or high blood pressure and fat and cholesterol cause arteriosclerosis that leads to cardiovascular disease. Too much sugar can cause dangerously low blood pressure and dehydration. In short, it’s a good idea to cut down on these foods as much as possible. A good diet is one that would contain approximately 60% to 70% complex carbohydrates, 20% to 30 % protein and 10% to 15% fat.

How It All Adds Up - The Math ____________________________________________________________________________________

The mathematics of losing weight is a relatively simple matter. As we have already mentioned, if more calories are consumed than are used in a normal day’s activities, the excess is stored as fat. If more calories are burned than taken in, weight is lost. For example, if a person needs 2,000 calories a day to sustain his present body weight and consumes 2,500 calories, the extra 500 calories will be stored as fat. If our friend continues to eat 500 calories more than needed each day for a period of seven days, he will gain one pound of fat. Translated into simple terms, one pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories. In order to make use of the aforementioned information, you will first need to know your daily caloric requirement or DCR. Your DCR represents the number of calories you need to consume each day to maintain your present body weight. No sweat! According to indirect calorimetric studies, the DCR is approximately 21 calories per pound of body weight for a moderately active male and approximately 18 calories per pound of body weight for moderately active females. So, for a male and female who both weighed one hundred pounds, the male’s DCR would be 2,100 calories (21 x 100 = 2,100) and the female’s DCR would be 1,800 calories (18 x 100 = 1,800). If you are not a moderately active individual, the basic equation must be adjusted to your activity level. Specifically, if you are an active person, you should increase your DCR by one fourth (25%), but if you are an extremely inactive person, decrease your DCR by one fourth. Note that these are rough estimates and they are based on average energy expenditure occupations somewhere between sedentary and very active. Younger individuals usually require several hundred more calories per day, whereas older individuals usually require several hundred less calories. Once you determine your DCR, the rest is easy. If you want to lose one pound of fat in a week’s time, all you have to do is eat 500 calories less per day than your DCR for those seven days. At the end of the week, you will have eaten 3,500 calories less than your normal caloric requirement, which means that you will have lost one pound of fat. Similarly, if you want to lose two pounds in a week’s time, just subtract 1,000 calories per day from your DCR.


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