Linda has put together an outstanding post for everyone looking for weight loss advice. Linda offers some “no nonsense” suggestions to help people achieve their weight loss goals. Linda I need to ask you…do you really mean running for 1 hour 5 days per week is needed to lose a pound?! Say it ain’t so!!
Linda advises those wanting to lose weight:
Keep track of everything you take into your system. Weight gain/loss is calories in / calories out. If you aren’t putting calories into your system, you are not going to gain weight. Even non-smokers struggle with weight gain/loss and I usually just give them a sheet of paper and say, here, for the next 3 days, eat like you normally do and write every morsel and how much down, then bring it back to me. Then we sit down and assess their caloric intake versus what they are doing for activity to burn calories. I’ve yet to see anyone who is still eating healthy (not starving yourself, because your body will go into survival mode and hang onto every calorie it can), is engaging in physical activity and not able to lose weight. Running for one hour, 5 times per week, for 4 weeks is what is takes to lose one pound of true fat, so you need to know what your exercise regime is really doing. Each pound is 3500 calories, so it takes time and patience to lose unwanted pounds but very little to pack it on. I’m so tired of people complaining and saying oh I haven’t changed my diet and then I see them pounding back a 300g bag of chips. I’ve done it myself and know exactly what my weight gain is related to but also know exactly how to get rid of it – number one thing for me was getting real with myself on what I was consuming and what I was doing for exercise. Good luck out there.