How can I lose weight? Furthermore, how can I avoid gaining it again? Guidelines based on scientific evidence of what works and what doesn't.

How often do you listen to or even ask yourself this question: How can I lose weight?

Then, is not just about how to lose it, but to avoid the frustration that comes from making all the effort just to gain it back after a while. If frustration has been going on like a "roller coaster" (coming-and-going), it is usual to simply stop trying. A high risk determination for any ones health.

With health, everything! and without it?? What are the outcomes? Even if you have time or money, without health, you might have shortened your time and so on with your money (trying to recover your health back). Just in the United States $100 billion dollars are spent to treat obesity.

Then, the point for start before questioning how can I lose weight? is to identify if weight loss is recommended for you.

There are different measures that help to determine if a you're on normal weight, with overweight or obese, though the most frequently used is the body mass index (BMI).

A BMI of 18-24.99 means normal weight.

25-29.99 means overweight.

30 and higher means obesity.

For any person from 25 BMI and higher, weight loss is recommended.

There is also concern with regard to how the fat is distributed in the body because health risks are related to it. If there is intra-abdominal fatness, risks like high insulin levels, high cholesterol levels, hypertension, etc. Are surely present, which increase the risk for degenerative diseases.

Weight loss is recommended when the girth of the abdomen is: Equal or higher than 102 cms (aprox. 40 inches) in men and equal or higher than 88 cms (aprox. 35 inches) in women.

How much weight should you lose?

Optimal body weight doesn't need to be achieved for health benefits to be realized, because the research suggests that even a modest reduction of 5-10% can make your health to improve, but in order to maintain the benefits for a long time, a weight loss equal or higher than 10% of initial body weight is more effective.

When the question how can I lose weight comes to your mind, certainly it doesn't come alone, the words: diet and exercise stick as answers to your question but... Other questions raise too:

+ What's the best diet that suits your needs, tastes, and that you can follow if possible not painfully?

+ What are the exercise recommendations that really work for you, your needs, desires, goals, and of course shortening the painful part?

Dietary recommendations

One of the aspects that can affect body weight is for certain, energy intake.

The literature shows that changes in energy intake play a significant role when you need to lose weight. It is obvious, if you reduce the energy intake below the energy needs of your body, that weight loss will happen.

For weight loss programs, it is common to reduce the energy intake to 1,000-1,500 kcal/ day for adults. This has been shown to be safe and effective for a person with average of 90-91 kgs (200 pounds) of initial weight.

So, besides the question: How can I lose weight?, which will be solved on this article, the obvious next question that might come to your mind regarding lowering your energy intake would be: How much weight will you lose per week or month?

With an energy intake between 1,000-1,500 kcal/ day, the minimum weight loss would be 0.5-0.9 Kgs (1-2 pounds)/ week, considering there aren't health factors like: hipothyroidism or other conditions that could affect those amounts.

If your weight loss program lasts 16-26 week, expect then around 9 kg less of weight.

A good recommendation: before you start any weight loss program, consider asking your physician how to detoxify and deworm, to prepare your body for the changes, just like an athlete trains before a competition. Your body would not only thank you, but will also be on better conditions, which might produce best results.

Some individuals are prescribed with very low calorie diets, defined with an energy intake equal or below 800 kcal/day. These diets can greatly increase the magnitude and rate of weight loss but, they must be prescribed and closely followed by an specialist and for a short period of time (e.g. 12-16 weeks).

It has been proven that weight loss with very low calorie diets may not be sustained in the long term. A very important part of this type of diets would be adequate supplementation as well. Which not only account for this type of diets, but for any person's nutrition.

Let's go back to the questions, you have asked yourselve:

+ How can I lose weight?

+ How much do you need to lose?

+ What would be the energy intake for a diet program?

+ How much weight would you lose per week or month with a recommended energy intake?

All these questions have been answered but then, you ask maybe: Which diet should I follow?

There are many commercial programs out there, suggesting various combinations of macronutrient compositions for weight loss like: high fat, high protein, and high and low carbohydrate diets. Although, an optimal macronutrient composition for weight loss has not been determined.

By reducing the fat, you may not only lose weight but also decrease risk factors like high blood lipìd concentrations, which may lead to healthy outcomes.

Some findings have studied the impact of reducing fat. A combined action of reducing the energy intake and the fat intake (equal or <30% of total energy intake), results in a higher weight loss.

When you ask again: How can I lose weight and stay slim? Decrease fat intake in your daily diet and turn it into a lifestyle action.

Exercise recommendations

I talked about energy intake, now I need to address about energy balance. This balance is affected by energy expenditure resulting from exercise and lifestyle daily activities.

The scientific evidence suggests that the combination of dietary modification and exercise is the most effective behavioral approach for weight loss. And it has been seen that if you hold on to the exercise, it is of higher probabilty that you sustain the new weight in the long term. But I need to tell you that research points out that:

Exercise alone doesn't seem to be as effective for answering the question: How can I lose weight and avoid gaining it back, than a combination of diet and exercise. Many individuals that want to lose weight and only exercise, usually feel starved after and need more calories because of the energy expended, and usually compensate with extra food.

There are many factors that make weight to vary: genetic ones, and gender are two very important, and its a fact that men's composition helps them lose more weight and faster than women. But don't feel turned down, making the adequate changes, you'll lose weight, no matter what.

Now, there are things to be taken in account regarding exercise for weight loss:

+ How much do I need to exercise in order to lose weight?

+ What type of exercise would be most recommended for this matter?

+ What intensity of exercise would give you the highest results?

+ Does resistance training helps you to burn more fat, producing weight loss and is it recommended?

The current public health recommendation for physical activity is to participate in at least 30 minutes/ day of moderate intensity physical activity (55-69% of maximal heart rate) and most preferably all days of the week. This will be interpreted as a minimum of exercise of 150 minutes/week.

For the question: How can I lose weight and avoid gaining it back again?, 200-300 minutes of exercise/ week are recommended, but it certainly puts a challenge.

If you want to achieve fitness and keep your weight, start with 30 minutes/ day and when you feel better, stronger and motivated, you might gradually increase the level of exercise to an amount that suits you.

There are few studies that have examined the effectiveness of intermittent exercise, meaning that you can accumulate 30 minutes or more, in multiple sessions of exercise during the day. And it seems that this strategy is effective to help you to adopt exercise as a daily activity, but it doesn't add any weight loss benefit for the long term.

What that means for the question: How can I lose weight and don't recover what I lost is: If you have been sedentary and need a strategy for getting started on physical activity, you can try gathering 30-40 minutes/ day on intervals of at least 15 minutes, but for the long term it is better to perform in just one period at least 30-40 minutes/ day.

Now, which activity or exercise would be the most recommended for weight loss?

To answer that question, start on what you like, what satisfies you?, etc. Almost any activity can give you great results: swimming, walking, running, tennis, basketball, dancing, etc.

Some people don't like to exercise, so the question is: Are there any other ways to achieve fitness and modify your body weight when the answer to the question was a "yes"?

Here are some tips of what you can do when you think you don't like to exercise

Also, when you don't like to exercise, lifestyle activity seems to be effective as well.

It would be a good advice as well, to introduce resistance training because it is a potent stimulus to increase the fat free mass and to gain muscular strength and power.

However, if you perform resistance training and are eating under calorie restriction, there is little benefit in terms of how much weight can you lose, but as it may introduce other benefits, give it your consideration, it might help to tone and acommodate your body when you're loosing kilograms (or pounds).

The benefits of resistance training

Behavioral recommendations for weight loss

Every time you ask yourself about anything you've thought that needs to change in your life, you analyze the pros and contras of things. Regarding making any changes to your body, achieving results just as in anything in life, is very important for your self-esteem.

To produce the results you want, settle objectives and produce a plan. Keep track of your achievements and motivate yourself. Get the help you need and study as much as you can about:

+ Problem solving.

+ How to obtain social support.

+ Goal setting.

+ Stimulus control.

+ How to reach behavioral skills.

Self monitor your eating and exercise behaviors. Research has proven that individuals who self monitor themselves, produce better results.

Identify strategies that may facilitate the adoption and maintenance of exercise and diet behaviors. For example: you might choose to follow structured meal plans, or you might choose a portion control diet of prepacked meals, etc. And make some home-based exercise or follow a supervised exercise session.

Whatever puts you on track to solve the question: How can I lose weight and avoid gaining it, with the tools you have and those you can get.

Then, I hope for you all the good changes and results ever so that you never have to ask: How can I lose weight?

I encourage you to suscribe to Lifetime Fitness Nutrition e-zine newsletter, there's a service specially available for suscribers for structuring meal and exercise plans.

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