Thursday, October 6, 2011

5 Reasons your diet is not working

The CDC has put out a staggering number for the obesity epidemic in America.  64%, 64%, of Americans are either overweight or obese.  Sadly, due to diet failure, lack of results, or other setbacks, most of these people will abandon their efforts to lose or control their weight.
Here are a few tips and reminders about how to stay on the path and diet correctly.

#1.  Too many calories
Calorie consumption is a key factor in weight loss.  One must burn more calories than you consume regularly to have any effect.  This can be difficult due to liquid calories, snacking, and changes in portion size.  It's nearly impossible to track and gauge without looking and checking food labels.  The failure can come from people guessing or gauging just how many calories they eat.
Look at food labels for everything you eat or cook with and write it down in a log for a week.  It can be very surprising at the resulting number.

#2. Working out: Either not enough or too much
In order to create an adequate calorie burn/deficit to make weight loss successful, one needs to work out the correct amount.
This link will take you to the Mayo Clinic calorie calculator which will give you a rough estimate of how many calories you will need in a day to maintain your current weight.  Utilizing this caloric base line number, create an accurate daily calorie goal.  It takes a calorie burn of roughly 3,500 calories to lost 1 lb of weight.  Thus, if you reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories a day, you can lost about 1 lb a week.
So using my own personal numbers for example:  my daily calorie load is  2500 calories.  If I eat 2300 calories in the day, then burn of 300 more via exercise, my net daily intake is 2000 creating a deficit of 500 calories.

#3. Toxins in the system
Toxins in our everyday lives, be it in the air, water, or food we eat.  Even our daily stress releases free radicals into our systems.  All these toxins break down healthy cells, slows down our metabolism, and disrupt our body's natural fat-burning process by blocking our hormone which aid in losing weight (such as testosterone).  
Flushing these toxins from our system will not only benefit us in a weight loss manner, but in a better health manner. Our Isagenix system, Cleanse for Life, is designed to safely and effectively rid your body of these toxins.

#4. Not working out correctly
Any activity is good activity.  However, when it comes to weight loss, one needs to use more effective types of exercise.  Combining cardiovascular and strength training is a fantastic way to shed weight.
Cardio exercises is the most effective type of exercise to burn calories.  These calories come from fat NOT from lean muscle tissue.  To hit this cardio zone correctly you need to focus on your target heart rate, which is usually between 50 and 85% of your maximum heart rate.  How do you find this?  Easy, subtract your age from 220.  (So using myself as an example, I'm 35.  So my max heart rate is 220 - 35 = 185.  Thus my cardio zone is 92-154.)  Now keeping this number in mind, work out for at least 30 minutes within your target heart rate zone.  This will maximize your results!
Strength training is equally as vital to weight loss.  Do not assume that this means you have to pump iron, but do some simple strength training  will help restore lean muscle tissue.  Additionally, muscles burn more calories than fat, which means: the more lean muscle one has in their body, the more efficient one's body will be in burning calories.

#5. Not snacking right
In our battle of the bulge, snacking produces two major goals: first, it helps keep your metabolism up, and second, it keeps you from being hungry throughout the day.
Snacking right involves getting a balance of nutritional groups like carbs AND protein as well as limiting your calories.
Our Isagenix system also has SlimCakes available which are not only delicious but also fit this snacking need perfectly.  With 20 grams of carbs, 2 crams of protein, 5 grams of fiber, and 90 calories - they curb your hunger all while keeping it a heart and waist healthy snack.

So at the end of the day here, what I'm trying to say here is that, do not give up on your goal of weight loss.  No matter how much you want to lose, for what ever reason you want to lose it.  Keep your nose heading straight, these 5 tips in mind, and your goals will be met.
Never hesitate to ask questions or concerns with either me or who ever your health care provider is.

Go check out my IsaGenix website for more products and videos!

Stay healthy my friends!

~ Doc K

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