Understanding Calories in Your Body

Losing weight and having a toned belly that you have long desired is a battle. It’ll take a lot of effort in adjusting to a healthy lifestyle that incorporates regular exercises and proper diet. Remember that losing weight and keeping slim isn’t a one-week or one-month affair. If you really want to stay fit and healthy, it’ll be a lifelong dedication to a new and healthy lifestyle. It is in this battle wherein you will need all the weapons that you can get to aid you in achieving that healthy body weight and that dreamy figure. An exercise program that is tailored to your current lifestyle and a healthy diet that will satisfy your taste are your primary means of controlling your weight.

Another very important thing is knowledge. How so?

Let’s put it this way. If you want to fix your car’s engine, you’re going to need to know how a car engine works. You’ll need to know the reason why it’s not working as it should. 

On the subject of weight loss, you’ll need to understand what makes you fat and what you need to do to help stop you from gaining weight.

It’s all about the calories

Most people have this notion that calories equates to being fat. However, that it not true. A calorie is a unit of measurement for energy. In the context of weight loss, it is used as a unit to measure the amount of energy from the food we eat. It’s also used to measure the energy that is lost or “burned” when our body is performing any activity. In a sense, calorie isn’t the one that is making you fat.

Here’s how calories work, when we eat, we are taking in calories. When we undertake any activity, calories are burned. The problem now is that when we take in more calories than what our body uses, the excess energy will then be stored as fat.

Put bluntly, if a person is fat, it’s because he’s taking in more calories than what his body is using. So how do you deal with this?

The answer is quite simple. You can either decrease your calorie intake, or increase your calorie burning activities. Optimally, you can do both.

Also remember, decreasing your calorie intake doesn’t mean you’ll have to be hungry.

Kicking Off the Fat in Boot Camp

There are many reasons why the usual exercise programs just won’t work for someone who wants to lose weight or that belly fat. Aside from having not enough time to go to the gym regularly, another simple reason is that for others, regular workout in the gym just isn’t their cup of tea. Achieving and maintaining a flatter belly can take months, and even years of working out in the gym. Obviously, doing all those same routines for a long period time can get pretty boring. Boredom can make the whole conquest of having that sexy stomach a very excruciating experience.

If this is happening to you, you might need a change of pace in your fitness activities. Fitness experts can provide you with various options to spice up your workouts or even suggest different programs or activities. One of the options that you’ll hear about is a boot camp.

Boot camps can give you a different kind of motivation, and definitely a different of experience from that of your regular trips to the gym. Today’s fitness boot camps originated from the basic military training for soldiers. 

So, what makes a boot camp a great alternative to your usual exercise activities?

Efficiency

A boot camp workout can help you burn lots of calories in a very short span of time. This is achieved by chaining different kinds of high-intensity exercises with the very minimal rest in between. The exercises that are included are also designed to provide a full body workout.

Excitement

It’s impossible for a boot camp to get bored with so many different exercises involved. There are fitness experts that hold boot camps wherein you’ll be with people who are also aspiring to lose weight. You will need to cooperate and compete with each other which make it an experience with a whole lot of fun. Your peers can be your source of motivation as each one of you will be working out to your maximum capacity.

Schedule-Friendly

If you have a busy lifestyle, a boot camp becomes even better. There’s no strict schedule to follow and you can do it whenever you have a free weekend or a holiday.

So, if you want to spice up your workout and welcome a challenge, then a boot camp can be just right for you.

Step One To a Flatter Belly: Getting Off the Couch

Often times, I get to talk to people with weight problems. They tell me about their struggle to lose weight and that nothing seems to work for them. So for me to get a better picture of the problem, I asked them a series of questions that’ll help me see where the problem lies. The problem always boils down to two things, a dieting program that’s not tailored for their taste and a lifestyle that excludes the necessary exercise. It could be one of the two, or both.

A diet program can easily be adjusted to suit one’s taste, to make it easier to follow. Exercise on the other hand is much harder to incorporate to certain lifestyles.

“I don’t have the time.” This is the most overused excuse for the people I’ve talked to. It’s a convenient excuse. However, it’s because of this excuse that many are suffering from overweight issues such as a fat belly. While it is true that we don’t have all the time to do all the things we want, there’s absolutely something that can be done to insert the needed exercise to whatever lifestyle we have. Here are some steps to take to be able to add exercise to your life.

Evaluate and create a list of all your daily activities and the time you spend in each one. As much as possible, be accurate with the details. You might find an activity that is not so important yet takes so much of your time.

Let’s be honest here. How many hours do you spend each day sitting on the couch and watching TV? How about the time spent in front of the computer? As you are reading now, how many hours have you spent today browsing through the internet? 

These are just a few of the many things you regularly do that you need to cut some time from. All those hours watching TV shows, following friends on social networking sites or playing video games, cut some time off those things and allocate it to a physical activity.

You could take a jog for 30 minutes around your neighborhood. If you’re bored with jogging, there’s biking and other activities.

If you want to lose weight or lose the belly fat, start by getting off the couch.

Genetics and Your Belly Fat

Is there any chance that any effort you put into losing that belly fat could be futile? Could it be possible that the hope of getting a slimmer figure and looking sexy is just an illusion?

For decades, there have been uncountable numbers of scientific research focused on gaining a better understanding on the subject of obesity. One of the things that we’ve learned from these researches shows the role of genetics to the weight of any individual.

What does this mean?

Simply, our body weight can be genetically predisposed. There are already studies that have conclusively shown that an individual’s body size is genetically coded. This is the primary reason why there are people who succeed in shedding off weight, but regain what was lost after only a few months. However, this does not mean that your genes are guaranteed to lead you to the downward spiral of getting fatter and fatter.

The human body is programmed to resist any major weight changes. The same mechanism that stops you from getting so thin also tries to stop you from gaining too much weight. Going by that, it would seem that the battle against a fat belly would only lead to a stalemate.

Not quite. When I mentioned about the people who lose weight just to gain them again, it was directed to those who rely solely on dieting to shed off weight. If you’re looking for a permanent weight loss, you can’t rely only on dieting. Given the fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to be in a certain weight range, it doesn’t mean that you have to be fat.

Time and time again, exercise proved to be the most effective way in controlling weight. Exercise, especially weight training, will increase the body’s muscle mass. This plays a huge role in burning fat as the muscles require more energy, thus speeding up the body’s metabolism.

In doing muscle building exercises, some will notice a little-to-no difference in their weight. This is due to the fact that muscle tissues have more mass. That is why in light of the relation between genetics and weight, it’s becoming important to focus not only on the amount of weight lost, but to the over health of the body.

One doesn’t have to be paper-thin just to look good. With exercise, coupled with the right diet, you could lose the belly fat without having to lose so much weight.

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