What if I told you that weight loss is actually pretty straightforward. You might be thinking that I've lost my mind. If you are like most people who have been struggling with their weight, “simple” is not the first word to enter your mind when asked to describe dieting.
It's easy to be frustrated about weight loss. A lot of people have a tough time losing weight and keeping the pounds off. However, when you look at human metabolism with a big picture of you, it's actually pretty straightforward.
In fact, it can be reduced to a simple mathematical formula: calories in, calories out. When you try to lose weight, you really only have 2 options. It may seem like there are tons of weight loss options and systems out there, but it really all boils down to these 3 methods. Everything else is a variation of these 3 methods or categories.
Category #1: Eat less calories, but burn the same amount of energy.
In any given day, you are already burning calories. That's right! Just by simply reading this book, you are burning calories. In fact, when you wake up and you breathe and digest food throughout the day as well as pump blood, you are burning calories.
The bottom line is if your body does anything at all, it requires energy. In other words, it's burning calories. This is called your passive calorie burn rate. If you were to eat less calories than the amount of energy your body needs to function every single day, your body is forced to look at your stored energy.
In other words, it starts eating your fat and, eventually, your muscle tissues. That's how it works. Your body has to get enough energy somehow to be able to do what it needs to do on a day to day basis.
When there is a deficit between the amount of calories you eat and the amount of energy you burn, your body starts to burn up fat.
Before you know it, you start weighing less and you start looking better and better.
Category #2: Eat the same amount of calories, but burn energy at a higher rate.
You can also choose to flip the script. When people decide to go to the gym or start doing physical exercises daily, this is what they're doing. They eat the same amount of food, but they increase their physical activities.
Please understand that you don't have to overdo it. You don't have to do something dramatic in terms of your physical exertion levels. By simply just walking around the block or walking a longer distance from the parking lot to your office or school, you can burn more energy.
Again, the same process takes place. When you eat the same amount of calories but your body burns more energy, it's going to start looking for other sources of energy. It starts to burn fat and then, eventually, it starts to burn muscle.
The end result is the same. You start losing weight.
Category #3: Burn the weight loss candle from both ends.
This is a no brainer. Since you know that you can lose weight just by eating less calories while burning the same amount of energy or you can eat the same amount of calories while burning more energy, why not do both? That's the third option.
Again, self explanatory.
This is how weight loss normally works.
In terms of a big picture view, this is how weight loss normally works. It's all about calories in, calories out. As simple as this may sound, people have a tough time doing this because of the standard American diet.
Now, please understand that thanks to modern food technology and transport systems, the standard American diet did not remain in the confines of the United States. If you are middle class pretty much all over the world, chances are you have adopted the standard American diet and it's making you fatter and fatter.