Understanding Your Weight Loss Diet

Understanding diet and how the word applies to the human body is more difficult than you might imagine. A change in diet can affect every single part of the body from blood pressure to mood and even weight. Understanding your diet is an excellent way to get familiar with the changes that your body requires to obtain a healthy weight.

Physical inactivity and a poor diet along with weight gain, contribute to almost 500,000 premature deaths per year in the United States alone. These factors increase the incidences of diseases including heart disease, diabetes, gout, high blood pressure and stroke especially in people over the age of forty. Taking a close look at one’s particular diet and exercise on a daily basis can actually contribute to a longer and healthier life.

To get an idea of the number of calories that are required to maintain a body at rest, several factors need to be taken into account. The age, sex, physical condition and size of a person influences this number greatly. The average adult male requires approximately 2000 to 2200 calories per day and an adult female requires approximately 1800 calories per day. It is extremely important to get all of the nutrients required for the body within this total calorie count. An excellent way to do this is by counting the calories that are consumed by a person during each day. This gives the person an idea of where excess calories are being consumed. It’s important to make sure that a percentage of the caloric intake comes from each of the food groups which are required.

Most calorie restricted diets require a person to leave certain foods out of the diet entirely. This is not necessary in order to lose weight. Understanding what your body actually needs to create energy and keeping your calories at or below this amount is how a diet should function. Adding exercise to the equation will only increase the amount of weight lost during this process. The easiest way to increase a feeling of fullness while decreasing total caloric intake is by eating larger quantities of fruits and vegetables and lean protein. These foods allow the body to feel full on less actual calories ingested. As long as the body burns more calories than are consumed, weight loss will occur. This is actually the only way that any weight loss ever occurs.

Controlling the portions of food that are consumed is the most common way to reduce weight. Eating any type of food in small amounts is allowed with this sort of diet. In the long run, dieters who are allowed to eat the foods that they enjoy are more likely to keep the weight off. Taking a close look at the foods that a person consumes and adjusting the portions to restrict calories is the best way to lose weight while understanding the importance of a balanced diet.

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