(Tenth in a Series)

The Body

The human body is a carbon based combustion engine, operating at roughly 37.0 degrees Celsius, or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

It needs fuel and oxygen to operate, and the way the body changes the food you eat into energy and building blocks for internal consumption is called metabolism (from the Greek metabole “change”).

Metabolism — Converting Food Into Energy

This conversion is achieved by a complex biochemical process, where calories—whether from carbohydrates, fats or proteins—are chemically combined with oxygen to form cellular building blocks while also releasing the energy your body needs to function.

The total number of calories you consume in a day is called your total energy intake. The total number of calories your body burns each day is called—you guessed it—your total energy expenditure.

The following three factors constitute your total energy expenditure:

Basic needs

Amazingly, the majority of calories consumed in any one day are used by the body for basic maintenance, for even when at rest your body requires energy as fuel for organs, breathing, blood circulation, adjusting hormone levels, as well as for cell production and repair.

The number of calories used to meet these basic needs are referred to as your basal metabolic rate (BMR)—basal refers to base, fundamental, what forms or belongs to the foundation (of your body).

A person’s BMR typically constitutes as much as two-thirds or three-quarters of all calories consumed. It is also noteworthy that basal energy needs stay fairly constant and do not easily change.

Food processing

The process by which the body digests, absorbs, transports and stores the food you consume also requires energy. This activity uses about ten percent of the calories you consume. As with basal energy needs, the energy needed to process food remains fairly constant and is not easily changed.

Physical activity

Physical activity, however, is a factor you can control: by playing tennis, by walking to the store, by hiking, cooking, channel surfing; in other words, by moving.

Physical activity accounts for the remainder of calories consumed, roughly 15 to 25%.

Frequency, duration, and intensity of your movements (activity) determine how many calories you burn.

Metabolism and your weight

While it may seem logical that low metabolism should result in obesity, this is rarely the case. It is, in fact, quite uncommon for low metabolism to cause excess weight.

First Law of Thermodynamics (1LTD)

Instead, it’s our old friend 1LTD (which you may want to tattoo somewhere easily viewed as a constant reminder) that again rears its conspicuous head, for weight gain is most often cause by an imbalance between total energy intake, and total energy expenditure; in other words: by consuming more calories than your body burns.

To lose weight—and yes, the broken record analogy springs to mind—you simply need to create an energy deficit by consuming fewer calories than you burn—by eating less while increasing your physical activity.

Your Calorie Needs

If everyone had identical bodies, we could easily determine basal energy needs. But—luckily—this is not the case. Therefore, to establish your calorie needs you need to take into account your body size and composition, your age, and sex.

Body Size and Composition

In a nutshell, larger body mass requires more energy (that’s to say more calories) than smaller body mass. Also, as you probably know, muscle burns more calories than does fat; so the higher your muscle to fat ratio, the higher your basal metabolic rate.

Age

Age brings with it a decrease of muscle in favor of fat, which lowers the basal metabolism; and metabolism itself tends to grow more inefficient with age. This means that your calorie needs naturally decrease as you grow older. Keep that in mind.

Sex

As a rule, men have more muscle and less body fat than women of the same age and weight do. This is why men generally have a higher basal metabolic rate and burn more calories—just sitting still (or changing the channel)—than women do.

Burning Calories

When it comes to burning calories, there isn’t very much you can do about your metabolism or digestive system, speeding them up or slowing them down; your only option—realistically speaking—is to increase daily exercise and activity to both burn calories through movement and build muscle tissue which in turn burns more calories.

And the key to exercise is regularity. As in daily. Take a 30-minute walk every day. It’s an excellent aerobic way to burn calories.

As you age, you may also want to add weight training to help counteract muscle loss.

That said, any movement burns calories. This means walking to the store rather than driving, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, playing with the dog rather than watching television, hiking, swimming, dancing. You name it.

Bottom Line

While it is true that the majority of your energy needs are determined by your metabolism, you ultimately determine your weight by what you eat and how much of that intake you burn through physical activity.

1LTD.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

A multiTRIM Journal

A friend recently set out to shed 143 pounds over 18 months with the help of the multiTRIM diet. The blog-record of her journey can be found here.

The ability to lose weight is the aim of a lot of people but majority of them are not to attain this aim which they put a lot of effort into. The problem is usually the ability of the weight to go off or it is not able to go off as quick as you expect. Luckily for you, you have a way out of this matter which a lot of persons wouldn’t reason as a way and it’s through the influence of acai berry.

What way does acai berry use to carry out this function? Actually, acai is produced as a final product in such forms as purees, powders, juices, capsules, and some are preserved in a freeze dry form. It is freeze dried due to the fact its fruit is very spoilable and it need to be kept in a better from. However, a lot of people chose to take its capsules due to the fact that the fruit is processed fast and kept inside the capsule to retain its nutritional content.

Acai berry as Detox Diet

It has a high content of antioxidants which makes it act fast to eliminate the toxins which are found inside your system. As toxins are eliminated from your system, your body will be more capable to metabolize the meals you consume. If the metabolism in your body is enhanced, your body will shed fat and it will be easier to generate muscle if you integrate exercise and a healthy diet into the acai berry detox diet.

When you include this diet supplement into the foods you take, you should hope to burn about 5 to 20 pounds of the junks which are stocked in your system. Meanwhile, you will also be receiving more benefits of taking acai berry like fast fat loss, enhancement of your energy levels together with reduced chances of heart attack, high blood, and cholesterol. It will give you more energy more than the ones you usually use to get.

The Simplest Way to Lose Weight using Acai Berry

If you do not possess the chance to create some things using acai berry, consume or drink it, you can as well consume it in a capsule form. Pure acai berry is a company that produces this diet supplement in capsule form so you can consume it fast and handle some other of your business. Its still contains the 100% pure acai and certified organic nutritional value of this diet which still contains all of the benefits which you require. The only difference is that it is distilled in a capsule form. Remember that the next time you worry why you are not able to lose fat, just know you are missing one thing which is detoxification in a natural way. You can see more about it at Pure Acai Berry Review

Trying to achieve weight loss post pregnancy may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it can be done. It takes time, motivation and the willingness to stick with a program long enough to see results. Lots of moms want to lose weight after pregnancy, but may feel like they don’t have the time, especially now that they are caring for a baby. The following tips and strategies are for busy moms who think they don’t have the time for weight loss post pregnancy:

• Use free-weight exercises to burn more calories and boost your metabolism. Free-weight exercises take better balance and coordination to do and therefore require more skill to perform. They work more muscles and provide a greater range of motion.
• Do not just stick to target exercises that work a specific muscle group. Weight loss post pregnancy is best achieved by working multiple muscle groups with exercises such as Squats, Lunges and Dumbbell Presses. You want to make your workouts count, so work as many muscles as you can and you will see results a lot quicker.
• Try to alternate your workouts between upper and lower-body exercises during your daily routine. Instead of concentrating on one exercise for the day, pair your exercises together. You will get greater benefits and burn more calories.
• The optimal number of reps should stay between 8 and 12.  This will allow you to build lean muscle mass and get your metabolism going in a good direction.
• Do not wait more than 60 seconds between sets. By sticking to that rule, your heart rate should stay up and it will keep you from quitting your routine too early.
• Do total body workouts for maximum efficiency and to see the best results for weight loss post pregnancy

So often you are wondering about how to lose weight, calories and what the role is they play in getting rid of fat. It is important to know this as it is a vital part of weight loss. We all know to get rid of those extra pounds you have to eat fewer calories, but it is not always that easy to do that. Counting them is a big job and you do not always know how many there are in the food you are eating. So, counting them is not the best way to lose some fat.

OK, so now you need to know of a better or at least an easier way to the new slimmer you. If counting them is not the solution, then what is? How do you get rid of the unwanted pounds and those bulges of fat without counting them?

The answer to the question “how to lose weight - calories and their role in weight loss?” lies in a healthy balanced diet and moderate exercise. You may not get rid of it all so fast with a healthy balanced diet, but it will be permanent and it will be fat that you lose and not water and muscle.

This is without any doubt the most important part of really slimming down. You have to get rid of the fat not just the weight. If you lose muscle and water, it is not good at all. The water weight will come back as soon as you re-hydrate and the muscle you lost will slow down your metabolism.

Getting a healthy balanced diet is not that difficult. Make sure you decide on one that allows you to eat a variety of food. It is never a good sign if you have to mostly one kind of food. Another important thing to look out for is that you must not eat too little. The easiest way to see that if the diet says you are not allowed to do any exercise while you are on it.

If a diet says you are not allowed to do exercise, it means you are eating too little to exercise with safety and that is a sure sign of a fad diet. A diet does not have to say that exercise is compulsory; many won’t, as it may scare off some prospective clients, but is must not forbid you to do exercise while you are on it.

So if you keep to these guidelines and you do not have to worry about “how to lose weight - calories and their role in weight loss.