Saturday, February 26, 2011

Weight control basics

Weight control turns out to be a very simple formula:
Calories Consumed – Calories Spent = Net Calories
If Net Calories is larger than zero, then you gain weight.  If Net Calories is less than zero, you lose it.

So there are two things that you can control here:

  1. Calories Consumed – your daily caloric intake through eating
  2. Calories Spent – your natural metabolism + energy consumed through activity

The best way to control your weight is therefore to take control of both your diet  and your exercise.

For example, to lose 1000 calories per day, it would be more achievable to lose 500 of those from diet and a further 500 from exercise than if you tried to lose the entire 1000 through just one or the other.

All of these calorie savings can quickly add up.  You can roughly relate 7000 calories to 1kg of body weight (here on earth).  So at a rate of burning an additional 500 calories per day through exercise and consuming 500 fewer calories per day through your diet, you could quite realistically plan lose 1kg per week - provided you are disciplined enough!