Here it is...the coveted answer to permanent weight loss that millions of overweight Americans would kill for. Are you ready?
You must burn more calories than you consume.
Period.
No pills, no fasting, no special diets, no cabbage soup, no swearing off curbs or sugar or meat or anything else you like, no running ultra-marathons, no surgeries, no hypno therapy, no fat-free only diet ....
You must consume (or burn) the calories your body does not need (and consequently stores as fat).
I can't even begin to imagine how a person can do that without exercising. I'd be starving to death. If I remember correctly, I should only eat about 1,500 calories a day to maintain my weight (less to lose weight). But, I earn hundreds and hundreds of "bonus" calories every day through exercise. So, not only do I get to wear a size 8, but I get to eat about 2,000 calories -- way more than all my starving, dieting friends.
Do not, however, overestimate the amount of calories you are burning through exercise. For each mile you run or walk, you are burning about 100 calories (it differs based on your speed and body size...bigger people actually burn more calories). So, if you walk for one hour, you are likely burning about 400 calories -- not bad -- but not worth a stop at D.Q. on the way home or a 1,000-calorie McDonald's lunch.
That 100 calories per mile goes for running or walking. The advantage to running is that you can burn more calories in a shorter amount of time. If you run for one hour, you'll cover more miles (and therefore burn more calories) than if you walk.
The trick here, is learning the calorie counts of foods AND keeping track of what you're consuming each day. If you don't already keep a food diary or journal, you might want to consider it. Not only will it discourage you from mindless eating (since you know you'll have to write it down), but it will provide a means for you to examine what's been going on & why you're not losing weight. You must be honest -- don't bother lying to yourself or you're wasting your time.
You can surf the Web and find a thousand sites that can help you find out how to figure out what your daily caloric intake should be and...there are lots of sites that list the calorie contents of every kind of food you can think of.
A month or so ago, a girlfriend (Kim F.) tipped me off to a cool calorie counting Web site called www.myfooddiary.com. You have to pay for this -- it's $9 a month -- but what I like about it is that it tracks everything for me. At the end of the day, I stay a few minutes after work -- enter my food and see how many calories I have left for dinner and if I can "afford" dessert. The site also tracks your exercise calorie burn and water intake, too. So, if I only have 400 calories left at the end of the day, I can plug in an hour walk & see how many calories it earns me ...and if it's enough for a cocktail or stop at the ice cream stand.
The reason I joined this site is that I gained a few pounds over the winter and was having a heck of a time getting rid of them, despite increasing my exercise significantly. I was running and running and runnning and wasn't losing a stupid pound of that winter flab. Oh...was I mad.
One day it occured to me that maybe I was sabotaging my efforts to lose the weight by exercising too much and that maybe, just maybe, I actually needed to cut back exercising and eat more (yeah, I know..you all want to hurt me now).
That was about the time Kim F. told me about www.myfooddiary.com. I joined that week and I loved it. Now, I know where I stand from day to day. I don't eat below my calorie count every day, but that's OK -- it's good, in fact, to have the ocassional splurge! myfooddiary.com can provide you with all kinds of reports and each day tells you "If every day were like today, you'd weight XXX lbs. in one month."
Now, those pesky winter pounds are long gone -- and a few more to boot. The best part, I have more free time since I'm no longer overexercising.
The bottom line: If you are in this to lose weight, you need to know what your daily caloric intake should be and how much you're earning (burning) through exercise -- and stay within those limits.
And...stick with it...it can take time (weeks, months) for your body to respond.
If you have any other questions about www.myfooddiary.com -- you can email me and I'll do my best to answer them. I'm sure there are a 100 other sites that offer the same kind of services, so you may want to surf around to find one that suits your needs. Afterall, I'm not being paid to endorse fooddiary.com or anything!