How to lose and keep weight off

How do I lose weight and keep it off?

Healthy weight loss is a combined approach of a healthy diet and exercise. A realistic goal is to lose 1-2 lbs. a week since anything more is difficult for the body to maintain long term. One pound of fat is 3500 calories. Reducing your daily calories by 500 between diet and exercise burns a pound a week.

It is important to eat a diet with protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats but the ratio of these three becomes important for weight loss. There are many diets and apps out there that will have you counting calories or points. However,  you have to look at how many calories you are burning each day for your net caloric intake. Women should not have less than 1400 calories net per day and 1800 calories net per day for men. The body needs nutrition and below this level the body thinks it’s being starved leading to fat storage regardless of how healthy you eat or how much you exercise.

Once you have established a good routine of diet and exercise and notice that those pounds and inches are no longer changing, it is important to increase the level of activity you are doing so you do break a sweat. 

However, if you notice that no matter what you do, you're not able to lose any pounds or inches, then hormones need to be looked at since certain hormonal imbalances make it difficult to lose weight.

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