The most important factor in helping one lose tummy fat is regular cardiovascular exercise. This does not mean taking casual walks. Generally, depending upon one’s age, one should work out for at least 15-20 minutes, five days a week, at peak heart rate. Aerobic dancing, jogging, fast walking, jazzercise, swimming, and using stair steppers, bicycles or ski machines can all help one lose tummy fat.
Generally, one must work up to peak heart rate, and one should check with a doctor regarding what one’s peak should be. But usually, the 15-20 minutes should occur after about 15 minutes of warming up. One will get to peak heart rate more quickly if one is working more than one major muscle group simultaneously, like the arms and legs. Thus aerobic dancing or swimming may be more effective than riding a bike.
Second, exercises that work the stomach muscles are important. Building muscle mass in the body helps us to burn calories more efficiently and reduce fat storage. Lean stomach muscles can reduce the size of a larger stomach. Many people do abdominal crunches to lose tummy fat, but often do them incorrectly.
Using a weight machine, or participating in Pilates 2-3 times a week may be more effective. As well, Pilates helps one work other problem areas like hips and thighs. If one doesn’t have the times for a full Pilates' class, adapt 15 minutes of abdomen-oriented exercises for home use. One many not lose tummy fat if abdomen exercises are not combined with the fat-burning power of cardiovascular exercise. A combination of both is needed in order to lose tummy fat.
In addition to exercise, pay attention to diet. Do not eat in excess of what you need-most westerners consume far more food than what the body really requires. Sticking to the Food Pyramid diet is often one of the best ways to lose tummy fat.
Lastly, stress does often cause fat to accumulate around the stomach. Fortunately, someone who is regularly exercising is going a long way toward reducing stress already. One might further help their battle to lose tummy fat by trying to destress, using a variety of relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing and prayer.
Significant stress that seems to occur without outside stressors may suggest one is suffering from chemical imbalances. If you suffer from panic attacks or great anxiety, you may notice more tummy fat and it may be harder to lose. One should address this with a physician, as restoring an appropriate chemical balance can significantly reduce stress, and possibly help one lose tummy fat. As well, one should always see a physician prior to beginning an exercise program
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Belly Fat- 6 Reasons You Need Abs
Strip away fat, strip away trouble
Study after study shows that the people with the most belly fat have the most risk of life-threatening disease. The evidence couldn't be more convincing.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a waistline larger than 40 inches for men signals significant risk of heart disease and diabetes.
The Canadian Heart Health Surveys, published in 2001, looked at 9,913 people ages 18 to 74 and concluded that for maximum health, a guy needs to keep his waist size at no more than 35 inches (a little less for younger guys, a little more for older ones). When your waist grows larger than 35 inches, you're at higher risk of developing two or more risk factors for heart disease.
And when researchers examined data from the Physicians' Health Study that has tracked 22,701 male physicians since 1982, they found that men whose waists measured more than 36.8 inches had a significantly elevated risk for myocardial infarction, or heart attack, in which an area of the heart muscle dies or is permanently damaged by a lack of bloodflow. Men with the biggest bellies were at 60 percent higher risk.
Now the real scary part: The average American man's waist size is a ponderous 38.8 inches, up from 37.5 in 1988, according to the journal Obesity Research. The same sad truth holds for women, too: A woman with a flabby midsection is at increased risk for the same health problems. And American women have seen their weight rise just as men have.
Of course, abs don't guarantee you a get-out-of-the-hospital-free card, but studies show that by developing a strong abdominal section, you'll reduce body fat and significantly cut the risk factors associated with many diseases, not just heart disease.
For example, the incidence of cancer among obese patients is 33 percent higher than among lean ones, according to a Swedish study. The World Health Organization estimates that up to one-third of cancers of the colon, kidney, and digestive tract are caused by being overweight and inactive.
And having an excess of belly fat around your gut is especially dangerous. See, cancer is caused by mutations that occur in cells as they divide. Fat tissue in your abdomen spurs your body to produce hormones that prompt your cells to divide. More cell division means more opportunities for cell mutations, which means more cancer risk.
A lean waistline also heads off another of our most pressing health problems-diabetes. Currently, 13 million Americans have been diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes, and many more go undiagnosed. Fat, especially belly fat, bears the blame.
There's a misconception that diabetes comes only from eating too much refined sugar, like the kind in chocolate and ice cream. But people contract diabetes after years of eating high-carbohydrate foods that are easily converted into sugar-foods like white bread, pasta, and mashed potatoes.
Scarfing down a basket of bread and a bowl of pasta can do the same thing to your body that a carton of ice cream does: flood it with sugar calories. The calories you can't burn are what converts into fat cells that pad your gut and leaves you with a disease that, if untreated, can lead to impotence, blindness, heart attacks, strokes, amputation, and death. And that, my friend, can really ruin your day.
Study after study shows that the people with the most belly fat have the most risk of life-threatening disease. The evidence couldn't be more convincing.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a waistline larger than 40 inches for men signals significant risk of heart disease and diabetes.
The Canadian Heart Health Surveys, published in 2001, looked at 9,913 people ages 18 to 74 and concluded that for maximum health, a guy needs to keep his waist size at no more than 35 inches (a little less for younger guys, a little more for older ones). When your waist grows larger than 35 inches, you're at higher risk of developing two or more risk factors for heart disease.
And when researchers examined data from the Physicians' Health Study that has tracked 22,701 male physicians since 1982, they found that men whose waists measured more than 36.8 inches had a significantly elevated risk for myocardial infarction, or heart attack, in which an area of the heart muscle dies or is permanently damaged by a lack of bloodflow. Men with the biggest bellies were at 60 percent higher risk.
Now the real scary part: The average American man's waist size is a ponderous 38.8 inches, up from 37.5 in 1988, according to the journal Obesity Research. The same sad truth holds for women, too: A woman with a flabby midsection is at increased risk for the same health problems. And American women have seen their weight rise just as men have.
Of course, abs don't guarantee you a get-out-of-the-hospital-free card, but studies show that by developing a strong abdominal section, you'll reduce body fat and significantly cut the risk factors associated with many diseases, not just heart disease.
For example, the incidence of cancer among obese patients is 33 percent higher than among lean ones, according to a Swedish study. The World Health Organization estimates that up to one-third of cancers of the colon, kidney, and digestive tract are caused by being overweight and inactive.
And having an excess of belly fat around your gut is especially dangerous. See, cancer is caused by mutations that occur in cells as they divide. Fat tissue in your abdomen spurs your body to produce hormones that prompt your cells to divide. More cell division means more opportunities for cell mutations, which means more cancer risk.
A lean waistline also heads off another of our most pressing health problems-diabetes. Currently, 13 million Americans have been diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes, and many more go undiagnosed. Fat, especially belly fat, bears the blame.
There's a misconception that diabetes comes only from eating too much refined sugar, like the kind in chocolate and ice cream. But people contract diabetes after years of eating high-carbohydrate foods that are easily converted into sugar-foods like white bread, pasta, and mashed potatoes.
Scarfing down a basket of bread and a bowl of pasta can do the same thing to your body that a carton of ice cream does: flood it with sugar calories. The calories you can't burn are what converts into fat cells that pad your gut and leaves you with a disease that, if untreated, can lead to impotence, blindness, heart attacks, strokes, amputation, and death. And that, my friend, can really ruin your day.
Triggering Your Body to Burn Fat
Triggering Your Body to Burn Fat
by Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & FitnessQ. I just read an article of yours on MSN. You wrote that, to lose weight, a person needs to do 60-90 minutes of cardio on most days of the week. But I was told by a trainer NOT to do this much. He said to keep it short because the first 15 min of cardio burns fat, and exercising for longer than that burns muscle, not fat. He said that it’s not good to do cardio for too long because you need to preserve, and even build, muscle since having more muscle burns calories and keeps your metabolism revved up, so I have been doing minimal cardio and lifting weights. I’ve reshaped my body but I can’t seem to lose weight or inches. Why?
A. If you’re not seeing weight or fat loss and you’re controlling what you eat, you do need to spend more than 15 minutes doing cardio. To fully explain, I’ll take you step-by-step through the several points you’ve addressed.
Burning Fat
When your body moves (or any cell in your body does any type of ”work”) it needs energy. The amount of energy needed is measured as a unit of heat—or a calorie. The fuel to produce this energy comes from several sources, mostly fat and carbs (glucose), and occasionally amino acids (protein). How and when fat is ‘”burned” (or metabolized to provide energy for the body) and how that affects body fat levels and weight is a very complex area of physiology research. There have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of studies exploring the utilization of fat for energy under a variety of different conditions. There is still much to be understood, but this is how we know it works so far:
Whether you are watching TV or running around a track, the fuel your body uses to give you the calories your cells need for energy comes from burning mostly fat and carbs. Your body nearly always burns a mix of both fat calories and carb calories. So normally, for every calorie burned, the fuels are around a 50/50 split of both fat and carbs.
How hard you are moving during exercise is one major determinant of which fuel your body will use. Carbs provide a faster energy source. So whenever you need to do something fast or produce force, carbs are the better fuel. Fats are favored during long, low-intensity activities. It’s not that you stop using one or the other fuel, it’s that the ratio of both shifts depending on your activity. In more scientific terms, you alternate between aerobic (more fat-burning) and anaerobic (more carb-burning) metabolism.
Losing Weight by Burning Calories
When it comes to weight loss, it really doesn’t matter whether you are more or less fat burning. It doesn’t matter what your calories are made of, but it does matter how many calories you burn—and the more the better. So when you are sitting—and burning more fat--you are burning only about one calorie per minute. Clearly, even though you’re in a greater fat-burning state, no one ever lost weight by sitting! (How many calories you burn depends on many factors, including how heavy you are—the more you weigh, the more you burn.)
You do burn less fat when you work anaerobically, but it doesn’t matter because you are burning more total calories. You will always burn more calories the longer or harder you exercise, no matter what your intensity is. So doing cardio for only 15 minutes makes no sense unless you are short on time. Burning BOTH fat calories and carb calories can result in fat loss or pounds off the scale.
The Ideal Amount of Cardio
How much exercise you need to do depends on your goal. Even small amounts of exercise are great for your health. Just moving a little every day can improve metabolic functions, such as how sensitive your body is to insulin and how it reacts to excess blood sugar. Exercise can also reduce your risk of heart disease and other chronic conditions. That’s why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine recommend that all healthy adults accumulate 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity on most, if not all, days of the week. Although all types of exercise count, generally the recommendations reflect more cardio activity than lower-calorie-burning moves like strength work or stretching.
The big question is whether you’ll drop weight from this amount of exercise. The answer is that some people can. If you work a little harder in that 30 minutes, you will burn more calories and that will have a bigger effect on weight loss. If you have not been active before, then doing 30 minutes of low-intensity activity would still probably help you lose weight.
The less cardio activity you do (or the fewer calories you burn per workout), the slower the weight loss, and that’s because it’s a numbers game. In 30 minutes of moving around, you might burn 150 to 300 calories. But, theoretically, it takes burning around 3,500 calories to lose one pound of fat. So, you’re going to have to do enough workouts, at say 150 calories burned per session, to add up to 3,500 calories, or 17,500 calories for five pounds of fat, and so on.
The problem is that most people give up if they don’t get concrete results fast. Also, different people have different physiological makeups. So this theoretical caloric equation may not work perfectly in every body. That’s why more realistic fitness guidelines for losing weight or maintaining weight loss have been established. The Institute of Medicine and the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines recommend that a person do 60 to 90 minutes a day of accumulated moderate-intensity physical activity at least five days per week.
Can Exercise ‘Burn Muscle’?
This claim is slightly misleading. You certainly do not burn muscle after only 15 minutes of exercise. You start using protein (perhaps from muscle, as well as other amino-acid-containing components in the body) for energy under extreme conditions such as starvation and at the tail end of long, hard endurance events where carb stores are in short supply. The average person who works out does not need to worry about this.
Will More Muscle Rev Up Your Metabolism?
In short, probably not. The average person won’t lose muscle from doing cardio and won’t burn more fat by building more muscle, mostly because one has to eat more than usual (not diet) and lift seriously heavy weights to build more muscle. And even then that person probably won’t build enough muscle to make a difference. Dr. Joseph Donnelly and other leading exercise physiologists conducted a comprehensive review of all the research on exercise and weight loss for the American College of Sports Medicine. While resistance training was recommended for its beneficial role in potentially improving muscle strength and power, the physiologists found no evidence that increasing muscle mass enhanced weight loss, especially when combined with dieting.
Get More Fitness Advice From Martica:
"I Am the Classic Pear Shape"
Hard-Core Weight-Loss Approaches
Baby Pudge Won't Budge
Meet the Experts
Find all articles by Martica.
Do you have a fitness or weight-loss question for Martica? Send e-mail to experts@microsoft.com. Please include Ask Martica in the subject line. Each of our experts responds to one question each week and the responses are posted on Mondays on MSN Health. We regret that we cannot provide a personalized response to every submission.
Martica Heaner, Ph.D., M.A., M.Ed., is a Manhattan-based exercise physiologist and nutritionist, and an award-winning fitness instructor and health writer. She has a Ph.D. in behavioral nutrition and physical activity from Columbia University, and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. She has written hundreds of articles for publications such as Self , Health , Prevention , The New York Times and others. Martica is the author of eight books, including her latest, Cross-Training for Dummies
by Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & FitnessQ. I just read an article of yours on MSN. You wrote that, to lose weight, a person needs to do 60-90 minutes of cardio on most days of the week. But I was told by a trainer NOT to do this much. He said to keep it short because the first 15 min of cardio burns fat, and exercising for longer than that burns muscle, not fat. He said that it’s not good to do cardio for too long because you need to preserve, and even build, muscle since having more muscle burns calories and keeps your metabolism revved up, so I have been doing minimal cardio and lifting weights. I’ve reshaped my body but I can’t seem to lose weight or inches. Why?
A. If you’re not seeing weight or fat loss and you’re controlling what you eat, you do need to spend more than 15 minutes doing cardio. To fully explain, I’ll take you step-by-step through the several points you’ve addressed.
Burning Fat
When your body moves (or any cell in your body does any type of ”work”) it needs energy. The amount of energy needed is measured as a unit of heat—or a calorie. The fuel to produce this energy comes from several sources, mostly fat and carbs (glucose), and occasionally amino acids (protein). How and when fat is ‘”burned” (or metabolized to provide energy for the body) and how that affects body fat levels and weight is a very complex area of physiology research. There have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of studies exploring the utilization of fat for energy under a variety of different conditions. There is still much to be understood, but this is how we know it works so far:
Whether you are watching TV or running around a track, the fuel your body uses to give you the calories your cells need for energy comes from burning mostly fat and carbs. Your body nearly always burns a mix of both fat calories and carb calories. So normally, for every calorie burned, the fuels are around a 50/50 split of both fat and carbs.
How hard you are moving during exercise is one major determinant of which fuel your body will use. Carbs provide a faster energy source. So whenever you need to do something fast or produce force, carbs are the better fuel. Fats are favored during long, low-intensity activities. It’s not that you stop using one or the other fuel, it’s that the ratio of both shifts depending on your activity. In more scientific terms, you alternate between aerobic (more fat-burning) and anaerobic (more carb-burning) metabolism.
Losing Weight by Burning Calories
When it comes to weight loss, it really doesn’t matter whether you are more or less fat burning. It doesn’t matter what your calories are made of, but it does matter how many calories you burn—and the more the better. So when you are sitting—and burning more fat--you are burning only about one calorie per minute. Clearly, even though you’re in a greater fat-burning state, no one ever lost weight by sitting! (How many calories you burn depends on many factors, including how heavy you are—the more you weigh, the more you burn.)
You do burn less fat when you work anaerobically, but it doesn’t matter because you are burning more total calories. You will always burn more calories the longer or harder you exercise, no matter what your intensity is. So doing cardio for only 15 minutes makes no sense unless you are short on time. Burning BOTH fat calories and carb calories can result in fat loss or pounds off the scale.
The Ideal Amount of Cardio
How much exercise you need to do depends on your goal. Even small amounts of exercise are great for your health. Just moving a little every day can improve metabolic functions, such as how sensitive your body is to insulin and how it reacts to excess blood sugar. Exercise can also reduce your risk of heart disease and other chronic conditions. That’s why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine recommend that all healthy adults accumulate 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity on most, if not all, days of the week. Although all types of exercise count, generally the recommendations reflect more cardio activity than lower-calorie-burning moves like strength work or stretching.
The big question is whether you’ll drop weight from this amount of exercise. The answer is that some people can. If you work a little harder in that 30 minutes, you will burn more calories and that will have a bigger effect on weight loss. If you have not been active before, then doing 30 minutes of low-intensity activity would still probably help you lose weight.
The less cardio activity you do (or the fewer calories you burn per workout), the slower the weight loss, and that’s because it’s a numbers game. In 30 minutes of moving around, you might burn 150 to 300 calories. But, theoretically, it takes burning around 3,500 calories to lose one pound of fat. So, you’re going to have to do enough workouts, at say 150 calories burned per session, to add up to 3,500 calories, or 17,500 calories for five pounds of fat, and so on.
The problem is that most people give up if they don’t get concrete results fast. Also, different people have different physiological makeups. So this theoretical caloric equation may not work perfectly in every body. That’s why more realistic fitness guidelines for losing weight or maintaining weight loss have been established. The Institute of Medicine and the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines recommend that a person do 60 to 90 minutes a day of accumulated moderate-intensity physical activity at least five days per week.
Can Exercise ‘Burn Muscle’?
This claim is slightly misleading. You certainly do not burn muscle after only 15 minutes of exercise. You start using protein (perhaps from muscle, as well as other amino-acid-containing components in the body) for energy under extreme conditions such as starvation and at the tail end of long, hard endurance events where carb stores are in short supply. The average person who works out does not need to worry about this.
Will More Muscle Rev Up Your Metabolism?
In short, probably not. The average person won’t lose muscle from doing cardio and won’t burn more fat by building more muscle, mostly because one has to eat more than usual (not diet) and lift seriously heavy weights to build more muscle. And even then that person probably won’t build enough muscle to make a difference. Dr. Joseph Donnelly and other leading exercise physiologists conducted a comprehensive review of all the research on exercise and weight loss for the American College of Sports Medicine. While resistance training was recommended for its beneficial role in potentially improving muscle strength and power, the physiologists found no evidence that increasing muscle mass enhanced weight loss, especially when combined with dieting.
Get More Fitness Advice From Martica:
"I Am the Classic Pear Shape"
Hard-Core Weight-Loss Approaches
Baby Pudge Won't Budge
Meet the Experts
Find all articles by Martica.
Do you have a fitness or weight-loss question for Martica? Send e-mail to experts@microsoft.com. Please include Ask Martica in the subject line. Each of our experts responds to one question each week and the responses are posted on Mondays on MSN Health. We regret that we cannot provide a personalized response to every submission.
Martica Heaner, Ph.D., M.A., M.Ed., is a Manhattan-based exercise physiologist and nutritionist, and an award-winning fitness instructor and health writer. She has a Ph.D. in behavioral nutrition and physical activity from Columbia University, and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. She has written hundreds of articles for publications such as Self , Health , Prevention , The New York Times and others. Martica is the author of eight books, including her latest, Cross-Training for Dummies
9 to 5 Dieting: Surviving Food Temptations
The workday grind can be a dieter's worst nightmare. Yet it doesn't have to be that way.by Liz Enbysk for MSN Health & Fitness.
You're wise to avoid donuts, steer clear of vending machines and go easy on the pasta in the company cafeteria. But there's no need to chain yourself to your desk with a mountain of carrot sticks and rice cakes.
Food boredom and there's nothing like carrots and rice cakes to bring that on – is one sure-fire way to kill a diet. Another is isolating yourself to avoid temptation.
Hope Warshaw, dietitian and author of "Eat Out, Eat Right" (Surrey Books, 2004), makes a good case for making your weight-loss efforts mesh with your work and social life.
"Reality of the matter is 'dieting' is not an on/off proposition," Warshaw says. "It's a long-term lifestyle change proposition. The longer that people think of this as temporary, the longer they will be frustrated by weight loss and regain."
Bottom line, she says, is people have to make small and simple changes in their behaviors about food, food choices and the portions they eat.
"If a person goes out to eat as part of their lifestyle, then to have long-term weight loss and control success, they need to figure out how to cope with restaurant meals," Warshaw says. "Perhaps they need to eat out less and bring lunch more, but all in all they shouldn't avoid restaurants. It only leads to pent-up desire and anxiety."
So look at it this way: If joining office mates for a coffee break or meeting friends for lunch at a favorite eatery is something you enjoy doing during the work week when you're not dieting – find ways to do it successfully when you are dieting. You're more apt to stay on track that way.
Make obsession work for you
You're also more likely to succeed with weight control when you stay totally focused on it, according to Daniel S. Kirschenbaum, a behavioral sciences professor at Northwestern University Medical School and author of "The 9 Truths About Weight Loss" (Henry Holt & Co., 2000).
Kirschenbaum says beginning a weight-loss program requires the same healthy obsession an athlete in training exhibits. It's all about focus, momentum and having everything fall into place at the right time.
The difficulty people have, Kirschenbaum says, is their lives interfere with this training model. First there's the donut during your morning coffee break. It's a little slip, sure, but not the end of the world.
"The problem is, one donut leads to a bag of chips at lunch and then a cheeseburger later in the day," he says. He advocates self-monitoring – basically writing down everything you eat – so you're focused on the food you consume and can avoid slippage that stymies weight loss. The idea is, if you write down that donut, later in the day you'll remember you had it and be less likely to make another slip.
Dieters just wanna have fun
So it's Friday noon. You've done a good job all week maintaining that healthy obsession with weight loss—choosing fresh fruit instead of donuts during coffee breaks and eating sensible sack lunches. But now you're itching to get out of the office and join your friends for lunch.
The good news is you've got plenty of options. But you've also got challenges. In the typical sit-down, American-style restaurant, Warshaw says portion size is your biggest challenge, followed by fat – in, on and around food.
"If you can deal with portion control and fats, there are plenty of choices," she says. You can:
Order from appetizers, salads or soups
Split and share items
Take food home
Do a soup and salad or soup and half sandwich combo
Order a vegetable plate ala carte
Make special requests
In her book, Warshaw offers more tips, plus nutrition info on more than 3,500 menu items at 55 restaurant chains.
Still, whether you head to the company cafeteria or the corner deli, Northwestern's Kirschenbaum points out this simple truth: "There's no way to lose weight and keep it off unless you restrict what you eat consistently."
You're wise to avoid donuts, steer clear of vending machines and go easy on the pasta in the company cafeteria. But there's no need to chain yourself to your desk with a mountain of carrot sticks and rice cakes.
Food boredom and there's nothing like carrots and rice cakes to bring that on – is one sure-fire way to kill a diet. Another is isolating yourself to avoid temptation.
Hope Warshaw, dietitian and author of "Eat Out, Eat Right" (Surrey Books, 2004), makes a good case for making your weight-loss efforts mesh with your work and social life.
"Reality of the matter is 'dieting' is not an on/off proposition," Warshaw says. "It's a long-term lifestyle change proposition. The longer that people think of this as temporary, the longer they will be frustrated by weight loss and regain."
Bottom line, she says, is people have to make small and simple changes in their behaviors about food, food choices and the portions they eat.
"If a person goes out to eat as part of their lifestyle, then to have long-term weight loss and control success, they need to figure out how to cope with restaurant meals," Warshaw says. "Perhaps they need to eat out less and bring lunch more, but all in all they shouldn't avoid restaurants. It only leads to pent-up desire and anxiety."
So look at it this way: If joining office mates for a coffee break or meeting friends for lunch at a favorite eatery is something you enjoy doing during the work week when you're not dieting – find ways to do it successfully when you are dieting. You're more apt to stay on track that way.
Make obsession work for you
You're also more likely to succeed with weight control when you stay totally focused on it, according to Daniel S. Kirschenbaum, a behavioral sciences professor at Northwestern University Medical School and author of "The 9 Truths About Weight Loss" (Henry Holt & Co., 2000).
Kirschenbaum says beginning a weight-loss program requires the same healthy obsession an athlete in training exhibits. It's all about focus, momentum and having everything fall into place at the right time.
The difficulty people have, Kirschenbaum says, is their lives interfere with this training model. First there's the donut during your morning coffee break. It's a little slip, sure, but not the end of the world.
"The problem is, one donut leads to a bag of chips at lunch and then a cheeseburger later in the day," he says. He advocates self-monitoring – basically writing down everything you eat – so you're focused on the food you consume and can avoid slippage that stymies weight loss. The idea is, if you write down that donut, later in the day you'll remember you had it and be less likely to make another slip.
Dieters just wanna have fun
So it's Friday noon. You've done a good job all week maintaining that healthy obsession with weight loss—choosing fresh fruit instead of donuts during coffee breaks and eating sensible sack lunches. But now you're itching to get out of the office and join your friends for lunch.
The good news is you've got plenty of options. But you've also got challenges. In the typical sit-down, American-style restaurant, Warshaw says portion size is your biggest challenge, followed by fat – in, on and around food.
"If you can deal with portion control and fats, there are plenty of choices," she says. You can:
Order from appetizers, salads or soups
Split and share items
Take food home
Do a soup and salad or soup and half sandwich combo
Order a vegetable plate ala carte
Make special requests
In her book, Warshaw offers more tips, plus nutrition info on more than 3,500 menu items at 55 restaurant chains.
Still, whether you head to the company cafeteria or the corner deli, Northwestern's Kirschenbaum points out this simple truth: "There's no way to lose weight and keep it off unless you restrict what you eat consistently."
Monday, June 7, 2010
Would knowing metabolism rate help with weight loss?
Would knowing metabolism rate help with weight loss?
Asked by Louise, Sacramento, California
I'm a 58-year-old diabetic whose A1C is less than 6. I would like to lose about 25 more pounds. I watch what I eat and walk about 2.5 miles a day but my weight stays around 158. Would having a resting metabolism rate test help with the weight loss?
Diet and Fitness Expert
Dr. Melina Jampolis
Physician Nutrition Specialist
Expert answer
Hi Louise -- While I do perform resting metabolic rate tests in my office, I do not feel that they are essential in most of my patients, although they do provide interesting information and can be very helpful in some cases. The tests, which historically have been done only in a hospital, measure the amount of oxygen that your body consumes as a measure of your resting metabolic rate. There are office-based systems available that can do the same thing in a shorter time with far less expensive equipment. They are not quite as accurate as the hospital-based tests but again, they can be useful in some people, particularly if the causes of a slower metabolism can be addressed, such as medication, low thyroid function or low levels of muscle mass.
Resting metabolic rate that is measured accounts for approximately 60-70 percent of your total metabolic rate (total daily calories burned). Most of your resting metabolic rate is beyond your control and is dictated by age, height, sex, weight, genetics, organ function and hormones. The only aspect of your resting metabolic rate that you really have control over, unless you have a hormonal or medication problem, is your muscle mass. The remainder of your total metabolic rate is composed of exercise, which accounts for about 20-25 percent depending on how active you are, and eating (also called the thermic effect of feeding), which accounts for about 10 percent of your total daily calories burned.
When you test your resting metabolic rate, you must then multiply that number by an activity factor that usually ranges from 1.3 to 1.9, depending on how physically active you are every day in your job and also during exercise. Resting metabolic rate can also be estimated using a mathematical equation and can be calculated by some of the more sophisticated body fat scales that measure age, height, sex, weight, fat mass and lean body mass to come up with a fairly accurate estimate.
If you think you would find it helpful to know more precisely how many calories you should be consuming daily, you might want to consider testing your resting metabolic rate or getting a body composition analysis. Once you know this number, it is critical to pay close attention to the number of calories you consume to lose weight, since most people who are overweight underestimate caloric intake by up to 30 percent.
In addition, I would highly recommend adding strength training to your exercise regimen to give yourself a metabolic boost. Also, if possible, you should increase the intensity or duration of your cardiovascular activity. Finally, because you are diabetic, you might want to try cutting back somewhat on your carbohydrate intake, particularly refined, processed carbohydrates, and increasing your intake of lean protein slightly to lose weight. Slightly higher amounts of lean protein have been shown to help middle-aged women with belly fat and high triglycerides, which often accompany diabetes, lose more weight and keep the weight off more effectively.
Asked by Louise, Sacramento, California
I'm a 58-year-old diabetic whose A1C is less than 6. I would like to lose about 25 more pounds. I watch what I eat and walk about 2.5 miles a day but my weight stays around 158. Would having a resting metabolism rate test help with the weight loss?
Diet and Fitness Expert
Dr. Melina Jampolis
Physician Nutrition Specialist
Expert answer
Hi Louise -- While I do perform resting metabolic rate tests in my office, I do not feel that they are essential in most of my patients, although they do provide interesting information and can be very helpful in some cases. The tests, which historically have been done only in a hospital, measure the amount of oxygen that your body consumes as a measure of your resting metabolic rate. There are office-based systems available that can do the same thing in a shorter time with far less expensive equipment. They are not quite as accurate as the hospital-based tests but again, they can be useful in some people, particularly if the causes of a slower metabolism can be addressed, such as medication, low thyroid function or low levels of muscle mass.
Resting metabolic rate that is measured accounts for approximately 60-70 percent of your total metabolic rate (total daily calories burned). Most of your resting metabolic rate is beyond your control and is dictated by age, height, sex, weight, genetics, organ function and hormones. The only aspect of your resting metabolic rate that you really have control over, unless you have a hormonal or medication problem, is your muscle mass. The remainder of your total metabolic rate is composed of exercise, which accounts for about 20-25 percent depending on how active you are, and eating (also called the thermic effect of feeding), which accounts for about 10 percent of your total daily calories burned.
When you test your resting metabolic rate, you must then multiply that number by an activity factor that usually ranges from 1.3 to 1.9, depending on how physically active you are every day in your job and also during exercise. Resting metabolic rate can also be estimated using a mathematical equation and can be calculated by some of the more sophisticated body fat scales that measure age, height, sex, weight, fat mass and lean body mass to come up with a fairly accurate estimate.
If you think you would find it helpful to know more precisely how many calories you should be consuming daily, you might want to consider testing your resting metabolic rate or getting a body composition analysis. Once you know this number, it is critical to pay close attention to the number of calories you consume to lose weight, since most people who are overweight underestimate caloric intake by up to 30 percent.
In addition, I would highly recommend adding strength training to your exercise regimen to give yourself a metabolic boost. Also, if possible, you should increase the intensity or duration of your cardiovascular activity. Finally, because you are diabetic, you might want to try cutting back somewhat on your carbohydrate intake, particularly refined, processed carbohydrates, and increasing your intake of lean protein slightly to lose weight. Slightly higher amounts of lean protein have been shown to help middle-aged women with belly fat and high triglycerides, which often accompany diabetes, lose more weight and keep the weight off more effectively.
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