How to Lose Weight
We’re all special people. We look for special ways to enhance the things about ourselves that make us so special. Even when it comes to something as common as the desire to lose a little weight, we look for special ways to do so. After all, when you’re special, the ordinary things just don’t work.
When we become interested in losing weight, we look for methods of how to lose weight that are as special as we are. Sure, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of diets available but diets don’t work. If they did, there wouldn’t be so many of them. We want a special way, one that works just for us.
As special as we are, how to lose weight is a simple matter of expending more energy than is consumed. Energy is measured in calories. We’re all familiar with calories as a bad thing. It’s the stuff that packs on the pounds in the first place. But calories are also a measure of energy expended. It’s a measure of how hard we work.
And since we all consume and work at different rates, one very important equation to remember when considering how to lose weight is that we each burn energy in a very unique and special way. But there is a simple mathematical formula that will show us exactly how many calories, how much energy, is needed every day just to perform the body functions that keep us living our very own special lives. This equation gives us our basal metabolic rate, or BMR.
How to lose weight becomes rather simple once BMR is determined. The term itself refers to the energy needed to fuel basic body functions such as breathing, blood flow, digestion, hair growth, and other functions over which we have no control.
Men and women burn calories at a different rate so how to lose weight using BMR as a starting point requires different equations for men and women.
For women, BMR = (4.3 x weight) + 655 = (4.7 x height) – (4.7 x age). For men, BMR = (6.3 x weight in pounds) + 66 + (12.9 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years). The answer will be the number of calories required each day just to sustain life.
And it seems a foreign concept to think that how to lose weight also means factoring into the equation the calories it takes to digest the foods and beverages consumed every day. This factor is the thermic effect of food and it’s usually about 10% of the total calories consumed.
So, from a very special, mathematically determined perspective, how to lose weight depends upon our own unique BMR times 10% for thermic effect. To lose weight means we must do one of two things.
How to lose weight depends upon burning more calories than are consumed as food and beverages. We must either burn off, as exercise, all extra calories consumed in excess of our BMR or we must consume fewer calories than is required for BMR.
This second choice can be very dangerous and can actually jeopardize health. It’s the exercise option that’s the better way. In fact, it’s the exercise mentioned in every single book written on how to lose weight that is the common and most effective denominator in the weight-loss equation.
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