People come to see us for a variety of reasons but many of those are related to weight loss. Generally people understand the basics of losing weight: burn more calories than you eat. However, if you’ve ever tried to lose weight, or indeed put on weight, you’ll know that in reality it’s more complicated than this. However, there are some basic components of weight loss that are always worth revisiting.
Burn calories
All exercise will burn calories to some extent but cardiovascular exercise (walking, running, swimming, etc) is the most efficient way of doing this. At the same time you’ll be gaining other benefits such as strengthening your heart and lifting your mood.
Build muscle
This is the most overlooked or misunderstood element of weight loss. The more muscle you have on your body the more calories you’ll burn each day just keeping your body alive. Building muscle also protects again injury and makes day-to-day movements easier.
Eat well
The best way to lose weight is slowly since this gives you the best chance of maintaining the results. To lose weight at the right pace you should create an energy deficit of just 500 calories a day. The biggest mistake made here is to not take into account the extra calories burnt through exercise. If you’re burning an additional 250 a day through exercise then you only need to cut 250 from your normal diet.
Manage motivation
This is almost always forgotten, but as soon as you lose motivation that’s it. You can manage your motivation by settling goals in the right way, talking to yourself in the right way and much more. Have a look under the “Motivation” category for more blog posts on this…
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