The Harris-Benedict Principle Explained

Most people can handle weight maintenance. For example, what you eat right now probably maintains you at the weight you are now. So if you can figure out how many calories you are consuming in the moment to maintain the weight you are at. The way to do this is to use a simple formula called the Harris-Benedict principle. It assesses your basal metabolic rate.

The basal metabolic rate or BMR is what your body burns to function. For most of us, we use about 60 percent of the calories we consume each day to do things like breathe, eat and live. The are a lot of factors that influence our BMR including our sex, our weight, our height and our age. Here is how you figure out what your BMR is:

For Women: 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) = BMR

So if you are 35, weigh 180 pounds and stand 65 inches tall, your BMR would be:

655+ (4.35 x 180) + (4.7 x 65) - (4.7 x 35) = BMR

655 + 783 + 305.5 - 164.5 = BMR

1579 = BMR

Now, that's just step one. For men the formula is a bit different: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

So the second step to figuring out your calorie counting and BMR is:

Multiply your daily activity and caloric output versus your BMR.

• Sedentary = BMR x 1.2
• Lightly Active = BMR x 1.375
• Moderately Active = BMR x 1.55
• Very Active = BMR x 1.725
• Athletic = BMR x 1.9

So let's say our 35 year old woman is lightly active: 2172 is the answer to how many calories you are taking in at your level of activity in order to maintain your current weight. So to create your caloric deficit to lose weight, you need to burn an extra 500 calories a day, you can lose about a pound a week.

You can do this by burning 250 calories extra in exercise and cutting back 250 calories per day from the diet. You can push this up to burning 500 calories a day in exercise and cutting back 500 calories out of your diet per day. This puts you in a target goal of losing .5 to 2 pounds for week.

Go here to get more information on how to design the perfect diet for you and your body type.

This site will also give you animated exercises for dieting that are easy to do, don't need any fancy equipment, and will make your diet much more effective.

Diet Programs and How They Work - Weight Watchers

If you've decided to slim down a little bit, then you may be considering joining a weight loss program to help you drop those pounds. There are a number of different weight loss programs available, many of which offer excellent tips and support systems that can help you to lose the weight and keep it off. But how do you know which program to join? And do these diet programs really work? Here is the lowdown on some of the most popular weight loss programs starting with Weight Watchers.

Weight Watchers is currently one of the most popular diet programs out there. Developed in the 1960s by an American, Jean Nidetch, Weight Watchers has since expanded to more than 30 different countries worldwide. And with millions of participants, including Sarah, the Duchess of York, Weight Watchers has gained a lot of credibility for providing its participants with nutritious and healthy food while helping them to lose weight and keep it off.

How Does It Work?
Weight Watchers helps men and women to lose weight by getting them to become more aware of their calorie intake and expenditure. While they offer different types of weight loss programs, one of their most popular is the Points System.

The Points System assigns a specific number of points to every type of food, based on serving size, calories, fiber content, and fat grams. The Points System also assigns a negative number of points to various exercises that people perform during the Weight Watchers program. At the end of the week, you tally up these points and try to come in under your total weekly point allowance. This overall point allowance is based on your current weight and your weight loss goals. Weight Watchers also provides weekly meetings to help support you through your weight loss experience.

Does It Work?
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people who had followed the Weight Watchers Points program for two years lost an average of about six pounds. Those who also attended Weight Watchers meetings were found to be more successful, losing an average of 11 pounds after two years.

Pros and Cons
The Weight Watcher’s program offers a number of useful benefits for dieters. A particular pro about this diet is that no single type of food is restricted or banned. Instead dieters can choose to eat any type of food, as long as it’s in moderation. Additionally, Weight Watchers promotes healthy eating habits and portion control, both of which are essential to long term weight maintenance. However, many participants find that the Weight Watchers Points System involves too many calculations. Additionally, meetings can become very competitive and quite expensive.

The next program I'll be talking about is Jenny Craig. Stay tuned.

Go here to get more information on how to design the perfect diet for you and your body type.

This site will also give you animated exercises for dieting that are easy to do, don't need any fancy equipment, and will make your diet much more effective.

What is BMI and how does it help my diet?

A number of methods are used to determine if someone is overweight or obese. Some are based on the relationship between height and weight; others are based on measurements of body fat. The most commonly used method today is the body mass index (BMI). BMI is an index of weight adjusted for the height of an individual.

BMI can be used to screen for both overweight and obesity in adults. It is the measurement of choice for many obesity researchers and other health professionals, as well as the definition used in most published information on overweight and obesity. BMI is a calculation based on height and weight, and it is not gender-specific in adults. BMI does not directly measure percent of body fat, but it is a more accurate indicator of overweight and obesity than relying on weight alone.

BMI is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by height in meters squared. The mathematical formula is “weight (kg)/height (m²).”

To determine BMI using pounds and inches, multiply weight in pounds by 704.5,* divide the result by height in inches, and then divide that result by height in inches a second time.

Go here to get more information on how to design the perfect diet for you and your body type.

This site will also give you animated exercises for dieting that are easy to do, don't need any fancy equipment, and will make your diet much more effective.

Benefits of Exercise in a Weight Control Program

The benefits of exercise are many, from producing physically fit bodies to providing an outlet for fun and socialization. When added to a weight control program these benefits take on increased significance.

Not only does proper exercise help control weight by burning excess body fat but it also has two other body-trimming advantages

1) exercise builds muscle tissue and muscle uses calories up at a faster rate than body fat

2) exercise helps reduce inches and a firm, lean body looks slimmer even if your weight remains the same.

Remember, fat does not "turn into" muscle, as is often believed. Fat and muscle are two entirely different substances and one cannot become the other. However, muscle does use calories at a faster rate than fat which directly affects your body's metabolic rate or energy requirement.
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy required to sustain the body's functions at rest and it depends on your age, sex, body size, genes and body composition. People with high levels of muscle tend to have higher BMRs and use more calories in the resting stage.
That's why it is very important to know what your BMR is in order to know how many calories you may consume per day to lose weight. It then becomes quite simple.
1 pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. If your BMR is lets say 2,400 per day with medium activity and you want to lose 2 pounds per week (7,000 calories) then you would have to deduct 1,000 calories from 2,400 leaving you with a diet and exercise combination that gets you down to 1,400 calories per day. Make sense? Click here to calculate your BMR.
But be careful. Never go lower than 1,200 calories per day.

The beauty is that your metabolic rate stays elevated for some time after vigorous exercise, causing you to use even more calories throughout your day. Additional benefits may be seen in how exercise affects appetite. A lean person in good shape may eat more following increased activity, but the regular exercise will burn up the extra calories consumed. On the other hand, vigorous exercise has been reported to suppress appetite. And, physical activity can be used as a positive substitute for between meal snacking.
Hear are some great exercises you can do right at home including some great tips on how to determine what diet is best for your body type.
Stay tuned for a more detailed explanation of how BMR, BMI and the Harris Benedict Principle all work together to get you into shape.

Easy Exercises You Can do Right at Home

Want a bicycle butt or great abs? Well here are some great and easy exercises you can do right at home. You don't need any of that expensive equipment and they're fun. The problem with most dieting is that if you don't exercise you will probably lose more muscle mass than fat. That sucks! But if you exercise while dieting, you will force your body to burn more fat while maintaining muscle mass. What's great about that, is that you'll raise your metabolism causing your body to burn even more fat. You'll also feel a lot more energized and create great muscle tone to firm up that butt, abs and bustline.
Find out more about effective dieting, great exercises you can do right at home, and healthy living by clicking here!

Are You a Yo-Yo Diet Victim?

Yo-yo dieting, also known as weight cycling, is a repeated loss and gain of body weight due to excessive dieting.
The term "yo-yo dieting" was coined by Kelly D. Brownell, Ph.D., at Yale University, in reference to the cyclical up-down motion of a yo-yo. In this process, the dieter is initially successful in the pursuit of weight loss but is unsuccessful in maintaining the loss long-term and begins to gain the weight back. The dieter then seeks to lose the regained weight, and the cycle begins again.

The reasons for yo-yo dieting are varied but often include embarking upon a diet that was initially too extreme. At first the dieter may experience elation at the thought of loss and pride of their rejection of food. Over time, however, the limits imposed by such extreme diets cause effects such as depression or fatigue that make the diet impossible to sustain. The dieter reverts to their old eating habits, and with the added emotional effects begins to rapidly regain the weight.

This kind of diet is associated with extreme food deprivation as a substitute for good diet and exercise techniques. As a result, the dieter may experience loss of both muscle and body fat during the initial weight-loss phase (weight-bearing exercise is required to maintain muscle). After completing the diet, the dieter is likely to experience the body's famine response, leading to rapid weight gain of only fat. This is a dangerous fat-cycle that changes the body's fat to muscle ratio, one of the more important factors in health.

Click here for easy exercises you can do right in your own home including some great tips on nutrition, calculating your bmi, calorie calculators, recipes, reviews on different diet plans and weight loss programs, nutritional supplements and more.

Easy Exercises You Can Do at Home

I know dieting sucks!
It sucks even more when you finally lose the pounds just to put them back on again later. If this describes you, then read further.
The problem with dieting is that most of us think that just by eating less we'll lose weight. Well to some degree that's true, however this weight loss is usually short lived. To lose weight you have to deprive your body of calories it needs to perform on a daily basis. This calorie deficiency however causes your body to look for easy calories to burn and these are mainly found in muscle. It takes a lot more energy for your body to burn fat than muscle. Did you know that! So what happens is that you'll lose weight but at the expense of lean muscle. What's even worse, once you finish dieting, you'll put even more weight on because it's easier for your body to replace that lean muscle with - you guessed it - fat.
The answer to this dilemma is - exercise!
By exercising during your diet you accomplish a number of things.

1. You won't lose lean muscle mass because now your forcing your body to burn fat rather than muscle.
   
2. You'll be adding a lot of tone to your body shape. No sagging upper arms, bellies or butts.
3. You'll feel a whole lot more energized and bouncy to get through your day.
   
4. And finally, your mental attitude and outlook on life in general will soar!

Now I know that exercising is boring to some, but you really don't need to do a lot of it. Fifteen to thirty minutes a day will do it. Best part is, you can do it right at home without any expensive equipment or gadgets.
Here are some great exercises with animated illustrations and instructions to follow.
Good luck, and keep that chin up!
Keep posted for other future tips and advice.