Four Big Weight Loss No-Nos

I've worked with hundreds of people who were interested in losing weight. Overthe years I've noticed four areas that I believe are particular hindrancesto weight loss. If your goal is to be successful at losing weight and keeping it off, avoid the "big 4" no-nos.

#1 Big No-No: Not exercising on a daily basis. Daily exercise sends your metabolism through the roof! I have seen VERY FEW peoplewho are not very regular exercisers, loseweight AND keep it off.

Losing weight and maintaining that losscan be very difficult. However, both canbe made considerably easier with regularexercise, preferably in the morning.

If you're interested in losing fat, you'reobjective is to create a daily caloricdeficit. For example, If you're consuming1700 calories per day, and expending 2000calories per day, your caloric deficit is300 calories. Losing a pound of fat requiresa deficit of 3500 calories. So, to lose two pounds per week would require a dailydeficit of 1000 calories.

So, if you'd like to increase your daily caloric deficit, you have two options; 1. To decrease your caloric intake by eatingfewer calories, or..2. To increase your caloric expenditure via more activity / exercise.However, you cannot decrease your dailycaloric intake much lower than 1200 to 1500 or so without potentially creating health and metabolism problems.

In fact, many people's metabolism (basal metabolic rate) is so slow from years of inactivity and dieting, that they are only burning fewer than 1500 calories per day.Without exercise, they would have todecrease their daily caloric intake tounhealthy levels to lose weight. And, acaloric intake that's too low only createsmore metabolism problems and a vicious cycle of more weight gain.

So, the only remaining factor in the deficit equation is caloric expenditure through increased activity / exercise.

The good news is that you can substantiallyincrease your caloric expenditure. Forexample, if you're currently walking for 30 minutes two days per week, over a period of several weeks you can increase your walkingto 60 minutes per day, six to seven daysper week and begin weight training for 30minutes three days per week.

So, in this example, you would increase your monthly exercise minutes from about 240 to 1530. Plus, in addition to the calories thatyou're expending during exercise, you wouldalso substantially increase the number ofcalories you're burning 24 hours-a-day, yes,you'll even burn more calories while you'resleeping because you've fired-up your basalmetabolic rate. You can't beat that, can you?

Here's another VERY important reasonto exercise while you're restrictingcalories and trying to lose weight. you tendto lose muscle tissue from any muscle thatyou're not using while you're restrictingcalories. You've heard it - use it or lose it.And, there are three main consequences to losing muscle;1. Your metabolism (basal metabolic rate)decreases causing you to burn *fewer* calories24 hours-a-day and causing the maintenanceof your weight loss to be very difficult.2. Your muscles get flabby and mushy.3. Your are weaker and become fatiguedmore easily.

#2 Big No-No: Not deciding to make a drasticchange. I've seen this over and over againwith hundreds of people. Unless someonedecides that they are ready to get reallyserious about losing weight and ready tomake drastic changes, their chances of losingweight and keeping it off are not good.

Research continues to indicate thatAmericans are becoming more sedentary..and fatter every year. This move towardinactivity and an increase in body fatis even more pronounced in children, whodon't get out and play anymore. Instead,they sit in front of a TV or computer(perhaps like their parents) for many of their waking hours.

We know that there is a very direct,inverse relationship between a person'slevel of activity and the percentage oftheir weight that is fat. less activityequals more fat, and more activity equalslees fat.