The principle of weight management is relatively simple. Calories in must equal calories out or a weight gain or loss will occur. 3500 calories is equal to one pound of fat; therefore a reduction of approximately 3500 calories will be equivalent to a one pound weight reduction. Caloric needs are dependent upon age, sex, height, weight, and activity level. If an individual requires 2800 calories to maintain his or her current weight, then a reduction of 500 calories to a new intake of 2300 calories will cause a weight reduction of approximately one pound per week. (500 less per day times 7 days per week equals 3500 calories less.) If that same individual wants to reduce 2 pounds per week, then he or she needs to reduce calories to 1800 per day, or 1000 less per day. (1000 x 7=7,000 calories, or the equivalent energy of two pounds of fat.)

This sounds simple. Unfortunately it is harder than it sounds. There is really no easy, simple or quick way to lose weight. Weight loss, like any other endeavor worth doing takes work! But the rewards are worth it. For those who are overweight, getting rid of those surplus pounds leads to improved health, improved self-esteem, and an improved quality of life.

Concepts for permanent weight loss include:

Quick weight loss leads to quicker and excessive weight gain. A quick weight loss program causes a lowering of the basal metabolic rate (the basic rate at which an individual burns calories.) When this person returns to his/her regular eating pattern, not only is he/she primed to conserve energy and store fat from the semi-starvation period, but he/she also needs fewer calories because metabolism is lowered. This worked well for survival in the days when the food supply was scarce at times, but today this evolutionary mechanism works against the person trying to control their weight. Gradual weight loss does not cause abrupt slowing of metabolism because the calorie restriction is less dramatic.

As we age, we tend to gain body fat and lose muscle mass (See Healthy Aging). Since muscles burn 98% of the calories that we take in, exercise helps to maintain and regain muscle mass, thus assuring efficient metabolism.

Fat is considered a safety net for the body-always waiting for that next famine! Since the body strives to protect this reserve, it requires much more effort (i.e., exercise) to burn fat as a source of fuel.

"Diets" don't work in the long run. Going on a "diet" is like going on a vacation: eventually one returns home. Likewise, eventually one returns to old eating habits. Changing old eating habits while consuming enough calories to stay fit and healthy, not denying any favorite food but controlling the intake of that food, and increasing output through exercise and activity is the way to permanently change your weight.

a) Don't lose weight for an event. Once the event is over, the motivation disappears. This usually involves quick weight loss, and causes a greater weight gain after the event which is considered more unhealthy than staying at the former weight.

b) Don't consider doing anything you cannot do for the rest of your life. Weight loss should involve thinking about the future-is this healthy? Can I stick to it? Will it cause any negative side effects? Am I getting all the nutrients I need to stay healthy? Do I feel deprived?

c) Take a good look at yourself in the mirror-expect a smaller version of what you see. If most of your weight is in your hips and thighs, when you have lost the weight that you need to, your hips and thighs will still be proportionately heavier than the rest of your body. And, keep in mind that by exercising a certain area of your body to try to spot reduce is unlikely to work. The fat belongs to your whole body, not just that one area. Blame your genes, and focus on the areas that you like!

I) Change of amount and quality of calories ingested.

II) Behavior modification.

III) Increase in output or EXERCISE!

Many people ask, "What is more important to worry about when selecting foods-calories or grams of fat?"

Calories come in foods in the forms of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Carbohydrates are the primary source of fuel for the body. They provide 4 calories per gram and are the primary source of fuel for the brain and nerve tissue, and the ideal diet should have a majority of the calories from carbohydrates (at least 50%). Protein is necessary for cell maintenance and growth and should provide 15-20% of the total calories in the diet and can also be used for fuel at 4 calories per gram.

Fat in the diet is high-octane fuel, providing at least 9 calories per gram. Fat is also very appealing in taste, and easily ingested and stored as fat. Fat is not easily burned as a fuel-it tends to stay in the fat cells and used mostly in high energy needs such as exercise.

The answer to the above question is "both". Calories, whether they come in the form of carbohydrates, proteins or fats will be converted into body fat if there are too many of them to burn off in a day. If an individual needs 2800 calories per day, and ingests 2900 in a day in any form-protein, fat or carbohydrate, he or she will store those extra 100 as fat in fat cells. If a high fat diet is ingested, chances are those extra fat calories will be stored as fat and not utilized for energy, causing the individual to want to eat more because less carbohydrate is available as a fuel source.

Therefore, an ideal plan for weight loss will include:
1) Consuming the correct number of calories to meet energy needs minus enough to cause a slow and gradual weight loss of between one and two pounds per week.
2) Consuming the right "mix" of fuels:

50-55% Carbohydrate
15-20% Protein
20-30% Fat
(See Guidelines for Better Eating.)

3) Providing the body a steady amount of calories throughout the day. For example, if you need to restrict calories to 1900 per day to gradually lose 1-2 pounds per week, it is best to consume those calories in at least three meals and 1-3 snacks per day. This way, the body has a continuous supply of energy to keep metabolism at a good rate (and keep your energy levels up). Metabolism is truly the name of the game when it comes to weight control. You need to keep metabolic rate up as much as possible while decreasing the amount of calories coming in, so that the body will draw its extra needs from already stored fat.

A LifeSpring dietitian is available to help you design an appropriate diet based in part on LifeSpring meals and snacks. Please call 1-800-798-5767 to avail yourself of this service.

II) Behavior Modification

Eating habits can go back many generations, and often the reasons for them are no longer applicable to the current times. For most of mankind's history, food was scarce, and took a great deal of physical activity and expenditure of calories to obtain it. It was a good thing that the human body evolved to hold onto excess fat, especially in cases of crop failure or some other emergency. Today we have more calorie-dense, high-fat foods than ever in the history of mankind, and we expend very little energy getting it.

We are creatures of habit. Our eating patterns are also habit. We eat certain foods, and at certain times, because we were taught to do that. We may be totally unaware of the unhealthy eating patterns that we have been taught.

One of the best ways to change eating behavior (eating habits) is to really understand what is going on. We eat for many reasons other than hunger. We eat to socialize, to entertain ourselves, to cope with boredom, frustration or anger, to please others, or just because the food is right in front of us!

An excellent way to understand your eating patterns and behaviors is to study them. Create an eating analysis card for yourself. For several days or even a full week, write down everything that you eat. Create a column; at the top put "Food Eaten". Beside the column of food, note when you ate it (i.e., 6am, 4 pm, etc.), where you were when you ate it, who you were with, if anybody, what kind of mood were you in, and were you doing anything else (i.e. talking on the phone, cooking dinner, working on a project, etc.) Also, note how hungry you were: very hungry, somewhat hungry, and not hungry at all.

After a few days of recording your intake, take a look at your eating habits. When do you eat the most? Do you eat more alone or with friends? Are you in a good mood or a bad mood when you eat, are you always doing something else while you are eating? Are you always very hungry when you start to eat?

Try to acknowledge self-destructive eating habits:

• Are you eating most of your calories in the evening or least active time of the day when you need the least calories?
• Do you eat too much in the family room while watching TV?
• Do you eat more when you are alone or when you are with a large group?
• Do you eat when you are bored?
• Did you eat when you are angry?
• Do you eat reading the newspaper?
• Are you so hungry when you start to eat that you don't stop until you are uncomfortably stuffed?

Once you realize self-destructive eating patterns, you can start to work on modifying these. For example, if you noticed that most of your intake of high fat foods came in the evening while sitting in front of the TV, or, when the food commercials come on at 9:00 pm you start to feel hungry, try to:

• Switch from an unhealthy snack to a healthier one such as fruits or a LifeSpring smoothie, yogurt or cookie.
• Get rid of all the problem foods in your house-make it difficult to get to those foods that are a problem and a temptation. Tell yourself that you can still indulge occasionally, but that you will have to work to get to them.
• Avoid the commercials; change the channel when they start.
• Avoid the TV altogether-take up a new hobby that requires more energy.

Other possible ways to change bad habits include:

• Make some rules for yourself and give yourself a non-food reward after following them for awhile. Make a rule for yourself that you can only eat in a certain area-like the kitchen table. Or, move the phone to an area where the food is unavailable, or make it a rule that you cannot eat while talking on the phone. Set up a reward for doing this-after two months of successful restraint, treat yourself to something you consider a true reward (not food!).
• Avoid those places where you tend to overeat. If you love those big candy bars at the movies, start renting movies for home viewing, and plan to have a substitute food such as air popped popcorn available.
• Get rid of the snack food in your desk at work! Bring in healthy food, and keep it in an area that takes an effort to get to.
• Avoid those people that tend to make you overeat! People around us affect our behavior. If you hang around with friends who love to eat together, chances are they are not going to be happy if you change your eating habits, or your appearance. They may try to sabotage anything you do to change your habits. You may have to exchange your old "eating buddies" for new "walking buddies." Be aware that your spouse may be your biggest problem or your biggest source of support. You need to identify your allies and saboteurs early, and come up with a plan for dealing with them.
• Know the difference between hunger and having a craving for something. If you are truly hungry, you will eat just about anything. If you are craving a specific food, chances are other stimuli are at work. Become aware of cravings so you can figure out what caused them. For example, if on a rainy Sunday afternoon you have a craving for ice cream, you may just be bored. You need to decide how to relieve boredom without involving food!
• Make a list of all the situations that tend to entice you to eat for recreation. Then, make a list of all the situations that you are in that tend to keep you very busy, too busy to eat, in fact! Make an effort to become more involved in those active, non-recreational eating situations.
• Watch others eat! This gives you great insight into eating behavior. Make a note of body stature and speed of ingestion. Usually the faster eaters are also the heavier bodies. It takes about 20 minutes for the brain to register fullness. A fast eater will ingest more calories before feeling full.
  If you are a fast eater, try these activities to slow yourself down.
  • After you have filled your plate with a meal, wait one minute before beginning to eat.
  • Don't overload your fork or spoon, have one small amount at a time.
  • Chew and swallow each bite thoroughly before taking another, and do not even put food on your utensil until you have swallowed the last bite.
  • Put your utensils down between bites. Do not talk with food in your mouth-but talk during your meal. Chew, swallow, then talk. Then pick up your utensil and load it with food, chew, swallow, and then take time to talk again.
  • Don't wash down your food with liquids. Sip liquids between bites.
  • Try using chopsticks.
  • Eat all foods with utensils-never have finger foods.
  • Half way through your meal, take some time out. Wait another minute, and then start eating again.
  • If you are really motivated put a mirror in front of you and watch yourself eat, or have a friend videotape you while eating.
  • Set a timer for 20 minutes so that you can pace yourself with a timer.

Remember the HUNGER RATING CHART:

• If you start to feel hungry at 4:00 p.m., and you know dinner will not be for another 2 hours, have a snack so that when dinner comes, you won't be starving. Have an apple, a bagel, some low-fat crackers, or something that will help to keep hunger level reasonable. Otherwise, you most likely will eat too fast and consequently too many calories.
• Do not read and eat if the activity makes you unaware of your speed and how much you are eating. On the other hand, if reading slows you down and consequently you eat only enough to fill you up, then continue.
• If you tend to binge, or overeat just certain foods such as chocolate or ice cream or some other food, try this:
  • Throw out the binge food. Go through your refrigerator or cabinets. Don't keep it in the house.
  • Plan for healthy snacks, buy them regularly.
  • Stay out of "temptation territory"--shopping malls, certain restaurants, the street with your favorite cookie shop on it.
  • Make yourself "pay" for the binge food, such as taking a walk before your allowed to have the food.
  • Eat something healthy before you indulge in a binge food.
• Think positively and allow yourself some slip-ups.
• Know that losing weight and changing eating and exercise habits is hard work. It will take time and lots of effort, but that you can and will be able to do it. It won't be painful, and you won't miss your favorite foods, but you will control your intake of them. Know that there is more to life than eating. And do not feel that slip-ups are failures. Learn from your experiences so that you can anticipate and plan for the situation again, and that next time you will have better control. When you have a slip-up, write about it, why it happened and how you can better prevent it next time.
• Anticipate situations that may cause you to binge or feel out of control, and create a plan for dealing with them. Planning ahead is half the battle. For instance, never go to a party hungry. Have a healthy snack prior to arriving at the party. It is much easier to control food choices when you are NOT hungry.
• Jumping on the scale daily is not going to help much because there are so many variations in body weight associated with fluid balance, muscle mass, and lean tissue. Keep in mind that exercise can cause an increase in muscle mass. Muscles weigh more than fat, so if you are losing fat and increasing muscle mass, the scale may show no change or a disappointing change. Better to create a chart for yourself and measure yourself periodically, once every one or two months. Measure your neck, upper chest or bust, waist, hips, and upper thighs. Watch your progress, and remember that fat loss and storage is different in different people. You may store most of your fat in your hips and thighs, or in your abdomen. People tend to lose weight from the "bottom up" or from the "top down". By taking these measurements, you will be able to keep track of your true progress.
  

It's very important, especially if you've been sedentary for some time, to start out SLOWLY. Decide on the physical activity you enjoy best (it could be walking, biking, running, swimming or even roller-skating), and do it for a very limited time, such as just five minutes. The next time try 7 minutes, and so on until you gradually build up to a level that is comfortable, yet vigorous enough to produce real results.

1) 25% of the weight lost without exercise is from muscle mass. Muscle mass consumes 98% of calories, so if you restrict your intake and do not exercise, you will be lowering your basal metabolic rate just by losing muscle mass. If you exercise, basal metabolic rate goes up, and muscle mass is (mostly) conserved.

2) Exercise enhances fat burning. Fat is stored in adipose tissue, and exercise stimulates the body to draw from this source to provide muscles energy. Even better is the fact that as soon as you start training your body to burn fat more effectively, it keeps on doing this, no matter what activity you do.

3) Aerobic exercise is the best for fat burning, especially if you are not a trained athlete with many hours of exercise in your past. Aerobic means air or more specifically, the oxygen in air. Muscles need oxygen to function, and the need for oxygen goes up as the muscular work goes up. Measurement of how hard a muscle is working is defined by how much oxygen it is burning. Harder exercise induces more demand for oxygen, and the heart rate goes up. An indirect measure of how hard your muscles are working is the rate at which your heart is pumping to deliver more oxygen to the muscles. If your muscles are working harder than your heart can deliver oxygen to them, you are working anaerobically, and your muscles cannot burn fat as a source of fuel, because fat is burned with oxygen. The primary fuel during anaerobic exercise is muscle glycogen, stored carbohydrate in the muscle. When you run out of glycogen, you "hit the wall", and have to quit-you are also extremely hungry and tend to want to eat anything loaded with carbohydrates, especially anything sweet and loaded with simple sugar. Aerobic exercise lets the muscles work at a rate that demands lots of oxygen, but not at a rate that exceeds your body's ability to deliver it. Aerobic exercise demands calories, at first, mostly as muscle glycogen, but after awhile, your body conserves muscle glycogen and starts to burn more and more fat as the primary fuel. That is the beauty of aerobic exercise-it gets your body used to burning fat as a fuel.

Your goal is to work your muscles hard enough to get the desired effect of burning fat and improving health, but not to overdo it. Over-exercising can be dangerous as well as ineffective in helping you to reach your goals. If you have ever been to an aerobics studio, you have probably seen the beautiful charts available for understanding a goal target heart rate. The target heart rate helps you to understand the maximum heart rate that you want to attain while doing your workout (heart rate is the number of heart beats in a minute). The chart defines maximum heart rate by a formula involving your age and a percentage of that number. Theoretically, by staying within your target heart rate, you are maintaining aerobic exercise. Keep in mind this is only a recommendation for the average person, you may need to work at a lower pace, at least to begin at a lower pace. If you find that you are huffing and puffing and out of breath while doing the workout, you are not aerobic, no matter how the charts define aerobic for you! You are working too hard and need to slow down. You should be able to speak in sentences to anyone around you while you are working out. Once you become more in shape, you can work at a higher heart rate and still maintain an aerobic workout. On the other hand, a workout that is not challenging enough won't help you meet your fitness goals either.

An excellent aerobic exercise is walking! Walking at a good rate for a certain period of time at a continuous and steady pace is an excellent way to start an aerobic exercise. Other good aerobic exercises are swimming, tennis, racquetball, jogging, aerobic dance, step aerobics, bicycling, roller skating, and any exercise that you can do continuously for a period of time.

Once you get in better shape, you can work on a program that involves anaerobic activity-usually something high in intensity for short period of time. This has been found to be useful in getting the body to burn more fat after the exercise, but not during. You may need the help of a personal trainer to define a program that will help you with your goals.

A good exercise program also includes some form of weight training. Weight training increases muscle mass. Upper body weight training is important for developing and maintaining upper body muscle mass. Usually aerobic exercise involves muscles of the lower body, so a workout involving the upper body helps to round out an exercise program. Remember, increased muscle mass increases metabolism because muscles consume 98% of all calories. Abdominal muscles need a workout also! Strong abdominal muscles help to keep the back strong and injury free. Have a professional help you work out an exercise routine that involves aerobic exercise, weight training and a good abdominal workout. If you need to lose more than 25 lbs., it has been suggested that you delay the weight training component of exercise, or do a very minimal amount. Overweight individuals tend to increase muscle mass at the expense of weight loss.

If you are just beginning an exercise program, you must be very careful to exercise very gently in the beginning, working up to a longer period of time gradually as your body becomes more fit. Again, get help in getting your exercise program going; too much, too intense, too soon can set you up for disaster.

Keep in mind that the components of exercise include:

1) A warm up. Start slowly and build up to the correct intensity, or do a specific warm-up that involves slow movements that increases blood flow to those muscles that will be working during the exercise session. It is dangerous to start exercising without a warm-up period. Give yourself at least 5 minutes to warm up, longer if you feel you need it. Work up gradually to your aerobic level.

2) Exercise at the correct intensity for your level of fitness. 12-15 minutes of walking may be all that you can do at first-it may be less, but know that if you exercise at the right pace, you are becoming more fit, and will be able to eventually do more and more.

3) A cool down where you slow the pace down gradually. Never just stop-you need to gradually slow down and let blood flow accommodate the change of pace.

4) Stretching. Whenever you work a muscle, you contract it. To keep it flexible and injury-free, you need to stretch it back to its original uncontracted state, and increase its flexibility. Remember that inflexible muscles tend to get injured. Again, help from a professional will teach you how to stretch correctly!

And, don't over exercise! You need rest after exercise, especially in the beginning. Start by exercising every other day, and if you find that that is too much, cut it down farther. As you get more fit and stronger, you will be able to do more. Keep in mind these signs of overexercising:

1) An increased resting heart rate. Resting heart rate is the number of heartbeats per minute that you count before getting up in the morning. Take your resting heart rate before you do anything else including getting out of bed. If you are increasing your fitness level, your resting heart rate will go down. But, if you are overdoing exercise, your resting heart rate will increase.

2) If you are experiencing depression, lethargy or irritability. These are signs of overdoing exercise.

3) Gastro-intestinal disturbances such as diarrhea may be a sign of overexertion.

4) If you have sleeping problems take some time off and reevaluate your exercise program.

Exercise should make you feel wonderful! It helps you deal with stress and trains your body to burn fat as the fuel of choice. If you exercise, you can take in more calories and maintain an ideal body weight, which, if you are eating foods that are not "empty calories," means that you are also getting more nutrients such as vitamins and minerals. And best of all, exercise improves your cardiovascular system-your heart is stronger, the pipes are cleaner!

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