Do you seem to gain weight easily? Are you struggling with your weight loss goals? Are you surprised by how quickly the extra weight seems to appear? Do you feel discouraged and frustrated by how slowly the extra weight is coming off? If any of the above sounds true to you, I think you will really enjoy this article.

This article is the second in a series designed to help you achieve your weight loss goals. The first was Emotions and Weight Loss, which discussed the emotional issues behind why you gain weight and why it stays with you.

Think of your body as a very personal and beautiful construction site where you are the site manager and in control of all aspects of the project. Taking on your personal slimming project is essentially rebuilding your body. For any construction project, there are a few steps and calculations that need to be done to ensure the longevity of the resulting rebuild. First, you need to determine where you are; that is, you need to know how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight so you can determine the size and number of meals/snacks you eat. Next, you need to determine what your weight loss goals are, and lastly, do a blue print so you can see your project through to completion.

First of all, I like to take the guesswork out of determining how much energy your body needs, so I suggest using the Harris-Benedict principle. It’s a little mathematical formula that helps you figure out what your daily calorie needs are.

Using the Harris-Benedict principle, you first calculate your basal metabolic rate:

Basal metabolic rate calculation for women:
Basal metabolic rate = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)

Basal metabolic rate calculation for men:
Basal metabolic rate = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.76 x age in years)

Once you’ve completed this calculation, use the table below to determine how many calories you need to maintain your current weight.

Little or no exercise: basal metabolic rate x 1200
Light Exercise -1 – 3 x per week: Basal Metabolic Rate x 1.375
Moderate exercise 3 – 5 x per week: Basal Metabolic Rate x 1,550
Heavy exercise 6 – 7 x per week: Basal Metabolic Rate x 1.725
Very Heavy Exercise 2 times a day –6-7 days a week: Basal Metabolic Rate x 1,900

So, if your basal metabolic rate was 1,388 and you exercise lightly 1-3 times a week, then your recommended daily calorie intake would be 1,908 calories (1,388 * 1,375) if your goal is to maintain your current weight.

2º- How do I set my weight loss goals?
Your rebuilding project requires an estimated completion date. To correctly calculate this, you must first calculate that there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. So if you reduce your calorie intake by 500 per day or if you burn an extra 500 calories during exercise (or divide the difference between the two), then you would be losing 1 pound per week. By the same logic, if you cut your calories and increase your exercise to allow for a 1,000-calorie deficit, then your weight loss would be 2 pounds per week.

I do not suggest that you try to lose more than 2 pounds per week. Doing so increases the likelihood that you’ll regain what you’ve lost and creates the potential for a dysfunctional relationship with food. These things simply create a discouraging and unproductive atmosphere on the project site.

You don’t want to set yourself up for failure and there is no one who knows you better than you. Set a realistic weekly goal for yourself. You’ll feel much better accomplishing a smaller goal than failing at an unrealistic one. Start slowly and increase it once you are in the flow of the rebuilding process.

3rd – How many calories am I eating?
The food supply you receive is an important part of your rebuilding project. Many people have little awareness of how much energy they get from the food they put into their bodies (or what passes for food). To avoid oversupplying on your desired end date, you need to be aware of the food you are putting into your body on a daily basis.

I personally keep and recommend keeping a small spiral notebook about 6″x4″ to record what you take each day. This will get you in the habit of checking labels and serving sizes. By taking note of the foods you eat, you create an awareness within yourself of how much energy you are bringing to your site. You’re also determining how much you really need and what can be turned down when receiving it (ie, pass on the cheesecake).

I like to do a total at the end of each meal so I can see how much energy I’ve brought to the site throughout the day. At the end of the day, I circle the things I could have lived without. I learn from it, plan accordingly for the next day, and move on.

For example, the other day I had oatmeal for breakfast at 6 am. Then I was out until after 12:30 pm and forgot to bring something to eat. I was hungry, I put my common sense in the back room and took two items from a nearby vending machine. This small business added 315 calories to my energy inventory. I had brought my usual spinach and/or a couple of pieces of fruit that I could have consumed in less than 100 calories, I ate a lot and avoided the surplus. The next day, I simply packed up the food I wanted to eat while I was gone and went through the rebuilding process.

The previous point emphasizes the importance of planning ahead and what can happen when we don’t. Take a few minutes at night to put together something you can grab on the way out in the morning. When you total up your daily intake, you’ll be glad you planned ahead!

I also keep (and recommend having) a small digital scale on my kitchen counter. I got mine for less than 10 bucks at my local grocery store. I just set what I’m eating on the scale to get a better ideal of what a real serving size looks like. It also helps me record what I take each day with a little more precision. I won’t always have a scale with me and that’s not a big deal, now I have a visual image of what 3 oz of chicken or 6 oz of sweet potato looks like. When I’m out and in doubt, I use my hand as a reference. The size and thickness of the palm of the hand can “generally” be considered an appropriate serving size.

I also suggest referring to a calorie counter website to help you determine the amount of energy within the food you are eating. You can Google any of them, but here are a couple just to help you get started. I suggest bookmarking them for easy reference later.

Web MD Food Calorie Counter

Professional Healthy Food Calculator

4th – How do I lose weight?
I enjoy the food. I enjoy the aromas of something that has been cooking all day, I love the presentation of a beautiful dish, and I appreciate the work to build a beautiful layer cake. I am also developing the wine connoisseur within me and for these reasons I exercise every day.

If you want to eat and hope to lose weight, you have to move and keep moving. I enjoy being up and running without the guilt of knowing I took in more energy than I used. I suggest you find something you like to do… and then do it. A treadmill is just a place to hang wet clothes until you get them moving. I love the elliptical machine, palates and yoga. I burn a lot of calories on the elliptical and with the ability to vary the resistance I am always challenged. I love the control and flexibility I get from palates and yoga and my body is experiencing positive changes.

5th – Why am I gaining weight?
It’s equally important to know what you’re doing to create your weight loss roadblocks. For example, sometimes when I feel anxious about a deadline, self-imposed or not, I pay a lot of attention to my stomach. There are times when I head to the kitchen in what I think is procrastination and eagerly look for something to eat.

To prevent my self from creating a surplus of energy, I think to myself, “Have a drink of water.” A lot of times our bodies confuse the need for water with the need for food, and anyway, I’d rather fill up on water than say a bowlful of regretful, empty calories. Then I pull out my food log to see where I am and then add what I’m thinking of eating. I make myself a homemade tea or cocoa and many times the wait and the preparation of something for my body is enough to take away the craving, give me time to relax and go back to my desk. Granted this may not be the case every time.

There will be times when you will just eat whatever you want. But the times you don’t give in to your cravings will outweigh the times you do by simply creating an awareness of your actions and thinking of alternative ways to react when you feel that way.

Alternatively, you may notice that after you start exercising, instead of losing weight, you actually gain 2-3 pounds. Please don’t be discouraged… there are a couple of things that probably happened. One is that your body just put on a couple of pounds of muscle, which is great. Muscle is constantly working on the rebuilding project and is vital to its long-term success.

Also, I recently read an exercise from Martin Katahn’s The T-Factor diet books that states that “an increase in exercise time or intensity can lead to a brief gain of a few pounds. If at any time you suddenly increase the time or intensity of exercise a significant amount can gain a couple of pounds overnight This will disappear in a matter of 1-2 days Occurs because a sudden increase in exercise will cause the exercised muscles to absorb an additional load of glycogen from meals Since glycogen is stored with 3-4 parts of water, it means considerable weight gain.” I had personally experienced this and was a bit bummed out at first. I just continued with my routine and as said, a couple of days later I was back to normal.

I hope this article gives you a good starting point for your weight loss goals. If you have a similar story you’d like to share, constructive feedback to provide, or a compliment you’d like to share, please feel free to contact me http://www.kimchelltalk.com

To be honest,

Kim Chell Haskell.