Weight Control  is Easy When You know the basics

Simple Principles of Weight Loss
by Joe Leech

Don't Make Weight Management So Complicated!

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Hundreds--if not thousands--of articles, books, and even medical texts have been written on the subject. Let's clear one thing up though: You put the weight on over time, so you are not going to lose weight fast.

In addition, a similar amount of diet products ranging from food to pills to "who knows what" have been put on the market.

Frankly, dear reader, in the mind of the author.. IT's OVERKILL TO THE EXTREME.

Why?  Because weight control is very simple and boils down to one simple formula:

Calories/Energy/Food In (F) = Calories/Energy/Food Burned (FB) + Calories/Energy/Food Excreted (FE) + Food Stored (FS)

Abbreviated, we'd see it like this: F = FB + FE + FS

It just doesn't go anywhere else.. you take the  calories in and you either burn them, store them, or flush them. Nothing else happens. When you take more in than you burn or flush, you store them.. and when you store them.. they store as Fat.  Doesn't that seem simple?  In essence it is.. and now here comes the big "IF" ...

That's true IF calories or F in is in the right form to be burned! You see, there are many variables.. and that's why all the other books and articles on the subject!

Let's look at this another way.. like a car. Energy is energy, Fuel is fuel, and in this case, we are going to take it in as gasoline.   If we keep adding gasoline to a standing car, we start to store it in the gas tank... until it's full. If we keep adding gas (F), the tank over flows (FE). But if we start the engine, we start to burn some of if (FB). If we are sitting there with the car at idle, we burn very little, but if we start in motion, the faster we go (assume level surface), the more we use. And if we have varying amounts of weight in the car, for any given speed, we vary the amount of the burn. If we change the spark plugs or injectors and do a tune up; maintain tire inflation correctly, for any given speed, we also vary the rate of the fuel burn.

And if we put a good, optimized mixture of fuel in, as opposed to a cheap bottoms grade gasoline, we burn it at a varying rate.. and in fact, some of it, while technically "gasoline" or "F" is fuel being added we don't burn it at all.. it just goes to gas tank storage.                                

Are you beginning to see the picture?  Simple formula, but so many variables.   And no two cars.. or no two bodies we have ...  react exactly the same way.

That's why we have so many other books, articles, etc. We all have many variables that are individual and specific to each one of us.

Let's consider what some of them are.. and what we can control:

 F   That's food and fuel. All has some caloric value, but not all is "burnable" at the same rate, nor has the same value. You see, the fuel we burn has essential constituents of carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and other elements. That which has  calories alone has been referred to as empty calories, a term I'm sure most readers have heard of. The key in weight management is to not only limit the calories, but to take in the calories that are carriers or compounds of the carbs,the vitamins, the minerals and other essential nutrients.  In theory, one could consume 5000 calories a day and virtually starve to death! And at the same time, they would look fat because they are not burning them; they can't excrete them all, and so they store them. Yes, the body can burn and use fat, but in turn it produces chemicals within itself that become toxic and one enters what is generally known as a state of ketosis.

Most diets concentrate all on providing one with the right source of F intake. The commercial diet products simplify the process, whether in  some liquid form, such as a "shake", or in a pre packaged meal.  Others such as weight watchers teach you how to mix and blend your food. 

This is all  good... as far as it goes... but onlydeals with the left side of the equation. But it's a start. What you need to know is that you only have a small part of the equation you need to work with.

Now let's move over to the right side.

The most important factor here is the FB, or  food burned. Like the car, there again are many variables. The first is the level of activity or speed. Like the car at idle.. the body at idle uses very very very little energy. If you are idle most of the time, you simply are going to store more of the F you take in than you are going to burn!

And here's a catch 22 and "good news and bad news"... Just like the car can burn at different rates whether in motion or at idle depending on circumstances.. your body composition has something to say about the FB rate. The more fat you have as opposed to the more muscle mass you have.. the less you burn. Fat consumes F  slowly.. in fact, it adds to itself; Muscle consumes F more readily.

And the less you move, the more muscle resorts or morphs to fat; the more you move (and do so in the right way), the more fat burns and converts over to muscle.  But what about the "carubretion" of the body?  That has to do with our individual metabolism.

Some of us burn much more quickly than others due to the unique chemistry we all possess.. and this is an area that most of us can not control. Hormones, genes, and a whole lot of other items that only some very specialized medical doctors think they understand... can effect our metabolic rate. It's not something the unlearned want to mess with it, because as you increase your metabolic rate, you can do things like raising blood pressure or decease the rate of nutrient absorption.  But for now, you need to understand that the metabolic rate plays a key role.

One of the by products of energy burn is heat. Makes sense..just like burning any other fuel. If your metabolism is relatively "high", chances are your body will feel warm a good part of the time. And conversely.

Lastly, depending upon your viewpoint, you might believe that God has created rather unique beings in all of us, and given us a unique gene pattern. Yes, there are some which are not quite "right" as in the cases of birth defects, and the writer can't explain that But for most of us, we have a rather well balanced machine with a pre written inherent basic control software program that results in a weight "set point". Our food cravings are set to a certain level, our metabolism is.

If we adhere to the basic pattern we are programmed for, which is to say a balance of F + FB, our FS will seek its own balance. If you are eating and exercising moderately, accept your weight, for any modification will only result in temporary change conditions as long as you are doing the behavior modification. After that, the equation rebalances itself.

Having outlined these principles, we hope you now have a grasp of the big picture.

If you have a weight management problem, now that you understand the variables, our advice is that you do  NOT try to make any changes on  your own by reading the latest book or trying the latest diet fad. You are probably only changing one variable, and unless you know of a way to permanently change the behavior, your results will be temporary at best.

During that change, you might also change the metabolic rate pattern you were programmed with.. so.. our final advice: Seek medical consultation to get your individual body diagnosis before ever starting the "Do
It Yourself" major change. Hope this helps.

As the site manager, we come across several articles on topic. If you have not all ready done so, we invite you to click the "articles" link in the footer to explore others you might find of interest.