Don't forget the exercise

To lose weight you merely need to use more calories than than you eat. It's really that simple.
So in reality if you just change your diet you will lose weight.

So why do I need to exercise you ask?

First and most important are the health benefits. So many health problems people suffer from can be solved or at least reduced by exercise. If there's a medical condition it's almost guaranteed that some form of exercise will help. People who exercise regularly also sleep better and cope with stress much more easily.
This is a subject that is just too long for this post.

What you're interested in is weight loss. Just changing your diet will burn calories but exercise will burn more calories from fat. Then of course you have to think about how you'll look when you've lost the fat. Do it with diet alone and you'll look good. Add exercise and you'll look great.

I'll go into exercise a bit more in detail next time.

Excellent health assesment site

I thought I'd pop in a quick post about a site I Stumbled.

healthstatus.com

It has a wealth of health calculators. If you want to estimate anything it's here.
I'm pretty impressed.

Take a look at it yourself.

Ask your doctor

In my last post I started talking about losing fat. As I said before there are no shortcuts so everything I'll tell you in the next few posts will be basic, common sense advice.
Start changing your lifestyle a little at a time and before you know it you'll be well on your way to looking and feeling better.

Before you start a diet, an exercise routine or any major lifestyle change you really need to see a doctor. This is the most important and most overlooked point.
The first reason is that you really don't know what's going on in your body. A doctor will be able to tell you if there are any potential problems. Most of the time you'll find that they'll give you the green light. If you're very unfit or overweight they'll most likely warn you to start off very easy and work your way up. (A piece of advice that applies to anyone new to diet and exercise).
Even if you have some health issue like blood pressure problems or heart problems you will still be able to exercise or diet but the doctor will give you some guidelines specifically for your condition.

A doctor will also be able to help you establish a good baseline to work from. They will also give you some realistic goals. Most of the time people pick a random weight loss figure and an unrealistic time frame. Nothing derails progress like totally missing a goal.
You really can't know where you're going unless you know where you started. So without a basic, accurate measure of your body fat you can't know how much to lose.

Another very important bit of information to find out is how many calories a day you can safely eat to lose weight. As a basic indicator, you never want to eat less than 1200 calories a day.

Losing weight series - Introduction

One of the basic things I get asked all the time is how to lose weight. The reality is that no matter what people say or what you see on T.V. there is no shortcut.
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

The first thing I'd like to clear up is that losing weight and losing fat are two very different things. After all you can lose weight by losing muscle while doing nothing about your body fat.
What matters more? Weighing less or looking good.

The reality is that if you're overweight it may not be great for your self-esteem but it's really bad for your health. I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know.
Now if someone is overweight and truly happy with the way they look then that's not a bad thing. Although, if they were being very honest you'll find that they aren't all that happy.

The problem is that it's no good feeling good about how you look while your health is suffering. I'm not going to go into a long rant on the health issues with being overweight because you've heard it all before.

In the next few posts I'll go through the basics of losing weight.

A place to start

Welcome to my blog. If you're reading this then welcome to my first post.

The first thing I'd like to cover here is that I don't know everything about health and fitness.
Like everyone I'm still learning. I'm also not a health professional.
Everything you'll read on this blog is what I've learnt and discovered over the past 12 years or so.

I'll do my best to find useful information that you can use to help you become healthier and fitter. I've spent the last few years helping family and friends with their fitness related questions. If it's got anything to do with exercise, diet, vitamins or anything else I've probably covered it.

I hope that you'll find this to be a wealth of simple, useful information to improve your life.