Then you are finally ready to lose weight. Now the question is: how?
The standard advice - to eat less and move more - is not as useful when it comes to "how". You probably know you need to cut calories, but how many? Are you better getting these food calories with low fat or low carbohydrate content? And what is happening with your metabolism, your personal burning oven? Is it scheduled to keep you overweight? Is there any way to ventilate the flames so you can dream about one day by eating a piece of pie without winning a pound?
Here is what we know about some of the most persistent mysteries of weight loss.
Healthy Meal Planner For Weight Loss - Mysteries of Weight Loss
The idea that dieters need to cut these many calories - with diet, exercise or both - lose 1 pound of weight comes from an influential scientific paper published in 1958. Max Wishnofsky, MD, a doctor who lived in Brooklyn, NY, He tried to summarize all that we knew about how the calories are stored by the body. He concluded that when the body is in constant caloric state - which means that it is not fast or hunger - extra calories will be stored as fat, and will take 3,500 extra calories to create a pound of fat. In that same steady state, he also said it would lead a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of weight. For decades, the "wishnofsky rule" was mathematics that determined dieters live.
The problem is that it is wrong.
The 3,500 calorie rule does not work because the body adjusts to weight loss. It quickly decreases the number of calories you need to keep your new size lighter, says Corby Martin, PhD, director of the laboratory ingestive behavior at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. This means that weight loss decreases over time. People expecting to knock down a pound for every 3,500 calories that cut soon will be frustrated when the scale does not cooperate.
Let's say a Dieter knows they need to eat 2,500 calories per day to keep their current weight. But they want to give up. Then they decide to scrape 500 calories out of their daily intake. According to the Wishnofsky rule, after about a week of doing this, they should lose a pound.
"For the first week or two, the 3,500 calorie rule type by pounds, about, but after the first few weeks does not work," says Martin.
Here's why: in 3 or 4 weeks, you need less food to keep this shape new and svelter.
The good news is that researchers work hard to update the Wishnofsky formula. There are new calculators, such as body weight planner available at the NIH and Pennington's weight loss predictor. Give them a few key details such as sex, age, weight, height, level of activity, and the date you want to hit your goal, and they will give you a more realistic daily calorie goal to get there.

Once you know how many calories you need to eat every day, where should they come from? Is it better to cut carbohydrates or cut fat? How much protein do you need per day? Will you have a torpedo drink all your hard work?
Let's start with alcohol.
"There is a major debate on whether alcohol calories are even usable, if you can even turn them into fat. It's not easy," says Ken Fujioka, MD, a weight loss specialist at Scripps Health in San Diego, CA. "When you look at several studies, you really get mixed results. Some studies say it's not a problem, do not worry about it, others say it's associated with weight gain. Then it's a real open mess."
Fujioka advises your patients to pay attention to how alcohol affects your food.
"Some people, when they drink alcohol, feel they have license to eat what they want, and go into trouble," he says.
If a glass of wine weaken your will to resist this plate of cheese and biscuits, you are not doing your waist any favors.
But if the drink does not affect your power, then one or two drinks is probably ok, he says.
As for the calories of fat, carbohydrates and protein, that is where a size, or a power plan, it really does not fit at all.
There is a good science to show that people who have high blood sugar levels - associated with conditions such as type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, gestational diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome and greasy liver disease - benefit from lower diets Carbohydrates and larger in healthy fats and lean proteins. Examples of this type of diet are the South Beach, the zone diet, the Mediterranean diet and the low GI diet.
If insulin levels are not a concern, there is little difference in the amount of weight that people lose if they cut their calories of fat or carbohydrates, says Kevin Hall, PhD, senior investigator and metabolism specialists at the National Institute of Diabetes and digestive and kidney diseases in Bethesda, MD. But he says that protein calories are a different story.
In the laboratory, the researchers showed that higher protein diets tend to increase the number of calories that a burning person says Hall. "Then, in this sense, a calorie protein is not equivalent to a carbohydrate or a fat calorie," he says.
Protein helps you burn more calories during the day and helps preserve muscle. When people lose weight, they do not lose fat - they also lose muscles. The more muscle you lose on a diet, plus your metabolism decreases. This can make it difficult to keep weight on the road. Protein also helps you feel satisfied any longer after eating.
But people can eat only both protein without changing their renal function. The US dietary guidelines recommend that adults maintain their protein at a range of 10% to 35% of total calories every day. Most diets fall into this interval. Atkins, for example, one of the highest protein diets around, provides 35% of the daily protein calories.
To a large extent, yes, you were.
The genes are "at least 40% of the response," says Fujioka, and they can explain up to 80% of our weight.
It says it is especially likely to be true if a person is very overweight or obese and fought with being heavy all his life.
"The potential to gain weight and become obese is at all. But for some people, the potential is clearly genetically very, much greater," he says.
So far, more than 30 genes were marked as they are connected to the body mass index. The most strongly linked to obesity is called the FTO gene. Researchers have recently reported that people receiving a defective copy of this gene are more likely to store calories like fat instead of burning them by energy. The discovery, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, should make way for better weight loss treatments.
Although the FTO is the most powerful unique gene found to date, it does not explain all obesity. Fujioka says obesity is probably the sum of many genes working together.
"The most genetic failures you get that takes obesity, you are more like a loaded gun. The environment will pull the trigger and you will only stay heavy."
Considering that people who do not inherit these risk genes will be protected, to some extent, weight gain, no matter how bad they eat.
if you lose weight with your mate, you discouraged, ladies, take your heart.
Yes, it's true - Libra per pound, a man on a diet will fall 10 pounds faster than you can say "Please pass the celery". And researchers think it is probably more a problem of size than a sexual difference. Men are larger than women and practice naturally more muscles, the tissue that burns the largest number of calories. So they have an easier time losing weight.
But here is the thing about men: they begin to be strong, but often can not sustain the effort.
"At 3 months, men are ahead - definitely ahead in absolute weight loss," says Callister, who recently conducted a study study, or meta-analysis, to look at the great image of sexual differences in the weight loss. "But for 6 months, there is no difference," she says.
But the men really lose a higher percentage of their total weight when the diet than women do?
Surprisingly, few studies analyzed this issue. Callister says we still do not know the answer.An interesting study, though, compared to weight loss between men and women who had gastric bypass weight loss surgery. The study discovered that after 24 months there was no significant difference in the percentage of weight lost by men or women after bariatric surgery. On average, men lost about 66% of their excess weight, while women lost about 73% of their extra pounds.
And here are more animated news: While women can take a little longer to pour the same weight as men, Callister says they seem to do a better job by keeping it, perhaps because they lost it more gradually in the first place. / p>. When it comes to falling pounds, there is no substitute to push back from your plate. But what about exercise? Although it is important for general health and mental well-being, it probably will not help you drastically decrease your size. "has tens and dozens of benefits, but when it comes to producing clinically significant weight loss - weight loss of 5% to 10% or more - you really want to focus on the diet," says Martin. exercise when you are trying to lose weight is complicated. This helps burn calories, but not so many how many do not eat these calories first. And exercising increases appetite, so if you are working intensely, it is very easy to eat back every calorie you just burned. Martin recommends that people who are trying to lose weight focus on physical activities of moderate intensity such as ride or fast gardening.
where exercise becomes critically important is for weight maintenance. Martin says most people who loses successfully and keep it out of exercise too - almost an hour a day.