Calories and Weight Loss

Here's what you need to know about calories and weight loss if you want to lose weight and keep it off.

A calorie is a unit of energy. Specifically, a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one degree centigrade.

The word calorie is used interchangeably to describe the amount of energy in food and the amount of energy stored in the body as adipose tissue (body fat). For example, a glazed doughnut contains about 210 calories and a 25 minute jog on the treadmill burns off about 210 calories.

When it comes to calories and weight loss, if you burn more calories than you consume, your body will tap into stored body fat for energy to make up for the calorie deficit and you'll lose weight. If you consume more calories than you burn, your body will store the surplus calories as body fat and you'll gain weight. Some foods may get stored as body fat more easily than others because of the way they affect your hormones or blood sugar, but too much of any food will get stored as body fat.

Since you must create a calorie deficit if you want to lose body fat, what's the best way to create this deficit? Should you decrease calories, increase physical activity, or do both?

The best way to create a calorie deficit is to combine a fat loss nutrition plan with a fat loss exercise routine.

A fat loss nutrition plan is based on cutting back on calories, not on drastically reducing them. It's also based on you as an individual - your body type, your metabolism, and what mix of protein, carbohydrate and fat works best for you. A fat loss nutrition plan is not a temporary way of eating like a diet is, it's a healthy way of eating that can be followed for a lifetime.

A fat loss exercise routine that includes aerobic exercise and strength training enables you to lose body fat without losing lean muscle mass and without slowing down your metabolism. There are also plenty of health and fitness benefits associated with aerobic exercise and strength training.

Even though combining a fat loss nutrition plan with a fat loss exercise routine is the best way to create a calorie deficit and lose body fat, many people make the mistake of doing just the opposite - they go on a very low calorie diet and do little or no exercise.

A very low calorie diet can produce quick weight loss, but what happens once the diet ends? Most people go back to the same old way of eating that caused them to be overweight in the first place and end up gaining back any lost weight. The reality is that very low calorie diets almost never result in permanent weight loss.

Another major problem that very low calories diets have is that they cause you to lose lean muscle mass. When you drastically reduce calories in order to starve away body fat, you also starve away lean muscle mass. Lean muscle mass is metabolically active tissue, so when you lose lean muscle mass your metabolism slows down. The slower your metabolism, the easier it is to gain weight and the harder it is to lose it.

The bottom line when it comes to calories and weight loss is that there's no better way to create a calorie deficit and lose body fat than by combining a fat loss nutrition plan with a fat loss exercise routine. When you combine a fat loss nutrition plan with a fat loss exercise routine, the result will be not just a leaner body, but a fitter, healthier body.