Don’t Skip Breakfast to Cut Calories

When you’re trying to lose weight, cutting out breakfast may be tempting. You figure you’re saving yourself some calories and you get a couple extra minutes to snooze. But research has consistently shown that the people who successfully lose weight are the ones that wake up and eat! Furthermore, people who eat breakfast regularly have better vitamin and mineral status and eat fewer calories from fat. So it seems that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.
Eat Early, Weigh Less Later

Why does eating breakfast help people lose weight? It defies common sense that eating all those calories in the morning instead of simply skipping them would help.

Many studies, in both adults and children, have shown that breakfast eaters tend to weigh less than breakfast skippers.

Trimming Off the Fat

Are you satisfied with your general physique, or would you like to get rid of a few extra pounds? If your answer is the latter, quit looking for that magic pill and just follow several general guidelines that will help you work toward a healthier body.

Calorie Deficit

Atkins™, South Beach™, The Zone Diet™ and countless other types of diets have each been hyped as the perfect diet strategy to shed those unwanted pounds. While they may have shown initial results, most have failed to demonstrate long-term success in keeping the weight off. Here’s an important tip to remember: Your body must burn more calories than it is taking in to lose weight. One pound of fat equals 3,500 calories, so if you want to lose 1 pound per week you need to average a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day.

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Successful Weight Control

Eating less, or cutting back on fat in your diet, won’t keep the weight off. What you really need to do is strike a good balance between the number of calories you consume and the number you burn. And the only way to do that is to exercise.

Don’t groan! By exercising, you can lose weight while you eat more calories than if you simply went on a diet. Regular physical activity is much more effective at keeping the weight off in the long run than any diet.
One Choice Is Aerobic Exercise

With aerobic exercise, you can lose weight without drastically reducing the calories you consume or sacrificing important nutritional needs. One reason for this is that aerobic exercise not only elevates your metabolism while you’re exercising, but it can also keep it elevated even after you’re done, depending on how long and how strong you exercise.

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Diet Myths Debunked

In a society that is becoming increasingly health conscious, more and more information is constantly coming out on how to lose weight, how to get fit, how to eat, sleep, breathe—everything under the sun that will help you get healthy! It’s a wonder that before this information was available people were able to survive—let alone live healthy lives!

The fact is, people did survive, and were—and are—still healthy without all the weird, scientifically suspect practices that people get tricked into. Nutrition is one of those fields that is inundated with quacks who will try to sell you the latest secret to weight loss. A basic myth-spotting motto: If it sounds too good to be true—it is.

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Strength Training 101

You do not need to be a bodybuilder to benefit from strength training. A well-designed strength-training program can provide the following benefits:
•Increased strength of bones, muscles and connective tissues (the tendons and ligaments)—This increased strength decreases the risk of injury.
•Increased muscle mass—Most adults lose about one-half pound of muscle per year after the age of 25, largely due to decreased activity. Muscle tissue is partly responsible for the number of calories burned at rest (the basal metabolic rate, or BMR). As muscle mass increases, BMR increases, making it easier to maintain a healthy body weight.
•Enhanced quality of life—As general strength increases, the performance of daily routines (carrying groceries, working in the garden) will be less taxing.