While most people think of the body as the most important of weight loss, the truth is that the mind is much more important. Therefore, you need to do anything you can to help your mind get you to lose weight. Using a calorie counter guide is one way to help you think more clearly. How so? By allowing you to see the cold, hard facts and make logical choices based on those facts.

To put it simply, the only way to lose weight is to store fewer calories than you burn. It only makes sense that you need to know the caloric value of the foods you’re eating. There are a lot of foods that have labels on them, but not all of them do; and guessing is not a viable option when you’re on a diet. Besides, food labels are only found on foods you buy at the store, but restaurants don’t have them. Some restaurants do publish nutrition information, but they aren’t required to do so.

It has been shown time and time again that people are not very good at estimating how many calories are in their food. That may not matter to most people, but if you’re on a diet, then you need to know how many calories you’re taking in. Too few calories can be even worse than too many. This doesn’t mean you absolutely have to count calories, but you should have a good idea of how many you’re eating.

What all of this adds up to is that a calorie counter guide is an indispensible tool in the battle to lose weight. You can use the guide when you don’t have access to food labels. That alone would make a worthwhile guide, but it can also be used to help you plan your meals.

If you consult your calorie guide before you go grocery shopping or before you go out to eat, then you will be better prepared. You can decide what foods you’ll get ahead of time. If you like, you can make up your entire grocery list by just using the guide. It’s always a good idea to make up a list ahead of time, and using the guide will make it easy to compare one food to another.

You can get calorie guides in the form of a book or in electronic form. A book is handy because you can take it anywhere, and you dont have to worry about it running out of batteries. An electronic calorie guide has the same information as a book, but some models can be updated with new items and some even allow you to chart your caloric intake throughout the day. If you are serious about losing weight, then getting one of each (a book and an electronic version) is the smart way to go.

Tags: Caloric Value, Calorie Counter, Calorie Guide, Calories, Cold Hard Facts, Diet, Eating Habits, Elect, Fewer Calories, Food Labels, Grocery List, Grocery Shopping, Healthy Diet, How Many Calories, Indispensible Tool, Logical Choices, Losing Weight, Nutrition Information, People, Restaurants, Truth, Viable Option, Weight Loss —

Have you been wondering for a long time ‘how can I lose my belly fat’? Do you have a bit of excess tummy flab that you just can’t seem to be able to get rid of? Well stop asking yourself ‘how can I lose my belly fat’ because we are about to tell you how.

There are a number of reasons why you may have gained some fat around your tummy. The trick to losing that belly fat is to control what you are eating or drinking that will cause fat gain and to introduce some exercise into your life, particularly exercises that target the tummy area.

Here are four tips that can help you to love that belly fat.

1. Sit ups and crunches are the two main exercises that people do to lose belly fat. Sit ups are probably the single most effective exercise for toning stomach muscles and getting rid of belly fat. Sit ups are even more effective when done on a stability ball. To lose fat you do need to burn off more calories than you consume so keep this in mind also.

2. Cut out all fried foods from your diet. Fried foods are the worst foods for putting on fat around the waist and they are poor in nutrient value also. Fried food has no nutritional value at all to your diet and all it does it provide you with calories that add to your weight.

3. Stop snacking between meals. Snacking is a big contributor to gaining belly fat. Late night snacking is the worst kind of all as you don’t burn the calories off if you got to bed after snacking. When you consume calories during the day you will burn some of them off with your daily movements, but at night you just relax or go to bed allowing those calories to become fat that doesn’t get burned off. When you snack a lot you will often find that you only intend to have one small snack but you keep on eating more and more and it all adds up around your tummy. If you are asking yourself ‘how can I lose my belly fat’ then you need to tell yourself to stop snacking between meals.

4. Burn those excess calories off. Belly fat is unused energy that accumulates in the form of fat around the stomach. To get rid of belly fat you need to burn off more calories than you consume. Cardio workouts are great for burning off fat and these can include aerobics, walking, jogging, running, cycling or working out on a cardio machine. There are many little changes that you can make that will also help you to burn off calories like parking at the back of the car park and walking that little bit further to the shop or office, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Remember that every little bit of exercise you do helps.

If you are asking yourself ‘how can I lose my belly fat’ then try these four suggestions and you will soon find your tummy getting thinner and you will be well on your way to having those flat abs.

Tags: Calories, Calories Fat, Contributor, Crunches, Diet, Eating Habits, Excess Calories, Exercise, Fried Food, Fried Foods, Healthy Diet, Late Night, Long Time, Losing Weight, Love, Nutrient Value, Nutritional Value, Sit Ups, Snack, Stability Ball, Stomach Muscles, Target, Ups, Worst Foods —

Being overweight is kind of funny in a way. It sort of creeps up on you. Sure, the scale may tell you that you have put on a few pounds over the years, but you don’t really notice it…until one day you see a picture of yourself or catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. “When did this happen”, you think to yourself. Surely you can’t be that fat, but there’s the proof. However you put those pounds on, right now you just want to know the secrets to losing weight quickly.

It may sound obvious, but you need to know what those secrets are before you can start taking advantage if them. See, a lot of people think that weight loss just happens somehow. Maybe if they think positive thoughts or try something the weight will come off. Sorry, that just doesn’t work in the real world.

But why try to lose weight quickly in the first place? After all, the so-called experts say you shouldn’t lose any more than one or two pounds per week. the truth is that they are right, for the most part. However, that’s mainly for long-term weight loss. If you’re fairly healthy, and your doctor says it’s okay (always check with your doctor before making drastic changes to your eating or exercise habits), then losing more is fine.

One of the biggest reasons for looking for the secrets to losing weight quickly, is that you can see results that much sooner. If you only lose one or two pounds at a time, then it’s going to take a while before it’s really noticeable. On the other hand, if you lose five to ten pounds in the first two weeks, you will notice, and that can motivate you to stay on whatever program you choose. Then, after the initial burst of losing a lot of weight, you can go back to the more sustainable rate of losing one to two pounds per week.

You may have heard it before: 3,500 calories is the equivalent of one pound of body weight. Every diet that works, works because of this simple principle. They may try to hide what they’re doing behind some sort of gimmick (cabbage soup, anyone?), but the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you take in.

3,500 is a nice round number because it translates into 500 calories per day for one week. If you can cut you caloric intake by just 500 calories, then you will lose one pound in a week. That’s not fast weight loss, but it adds up to just over 50 pounds in a year. Now, if you can do enough physical activity to burn off 500 calories per day then that’s another pound, and you can shed about 100 pounds in a year.

This is what it comes down to: the secrets to losing weight quickly are to start off strong so you stay motivated, and to combine both diet and exercise to get double the results in the same amount of time.

Tags: Being Overweight, Burst, Cabbage, Calories, Diet, Drastic Changes, Eating Habits, Exercise Habits, Glimpse, Healthy Diet, Long Term Weight Loss, Lose Weight, Losing Weight, Lot, Mirror, Positive Thoughts, Principle, Proof, Real World, Sustainable Rate, Truth, Two Pounds —

Perhaps you saw it coming for quite a while, and knew it would get to this point. Or, maybe you looked in the mirror one day and all of a sudden realized just how much weight you have put on over the years. Chances are good that the second scenario is more likely. Most of us don’t want to be overweight. And while we may have a few clues as to how we got here, it still comes as somewhat of a shock. Either way, you have finally made the decision to shed those extra pounds once and for all, and you want to lose weight fast.

Hold on! That is an admirable goal, but you need to step back for a moment and put things into perspective. To put it another way, you need to be realistic and specific. How much weight you want to lose and how quickly will play a bog role in which diet and exercise program you choose.

You still have to be realistic though. If you want to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks, then you’re not going to have much luck. Not only that, but any diet that makes such promises is most likely lying at best, or bad for your health at worst. It simply isn’t safe to lose that much weight, except for a few rare exceptions, and only if you are doing so under the guidance of a qualified medical professional.

Most experts agree that losing 1 or 2 pounds per week is safe and effective. However, you may be able to bump that up to 5 pounds in the first week in some cases. For most people, 1 to 2 pounds is ideal. It’s not only relatively easy, but you will be more likely to stay on such a diet. If you have a choice between losing 20 pounds over two months, only to regain it; or losing 1 pound per week over the course of 6 months, but keeping it off forever, which one would you choose.

The good news is that you don’t really have to choose. You can still lose the 20 pounds, but if you take the right approach, you will be able to keep it off. It’s all about a simple formula: 3,500 calories is equivalent to 1 pound of body weight. That means if you take in 500 calories less per day for a week, you will lose 1 pound. Or, if you burn off an extra 500 calories per day, you will lose a pound.

So, here’s the real “secret” to lose weight fast: do both! Take in 500 calories less and burn off an extra 500 calories. That’s 1,000 calories per day in your favor. That’s a loss of 2 pounds per week, or just over 100 pounds in a year’s time. And the best part it is that it won’t be nearly as hard as if you were depriving yourself, and that means you will be able to keep the weight off for good.

Tags: Admirable Goal, Calories, Diet, Exercise Program, Formula 3, Guidance, Health, Healthy Diet, Lose 20 Pounds, Lose Weight, Losing Weight, Mirror, Perspective, Promises, Rare Exceptions, Shock —