First, start pumping iron if you want to keep Alzheimer’s at bay, say scientists.  A study found lifting weights can improve cognitive function in those aged between 65 and 75.  According to this study, weight lifting can help to stave off dementia.  Check out this video of senior citizen working out.  We can find a huge amount of data to support the fact that resistance training stimulates your brain as much as it stimulates the muscle.  In fact, I have told many of my clients that they should be as mentally tired as their body after leaving the gym.  If you are focusing and concentrating on making your body do a specific movement you will build now neurological pathways that will aid later in life with better coordination, balance and of coarse strength.

Second, self image is important to all of us and can take a significant downturn after breast cancer surgery.  According to this article, weight training is not only safe for breast cancer survivors and may make lymphedema flare ups less frequent, but it appears help women feel better about their bodies.  A common misconception is that weightlifting needs to be done at the gym taking up hours of your day… the truth is… you can spend just ten minutes a day at home, dressed in street clothes, to achieve the same results as the vast majority of gym members.

Third, weightlifting releases hormones that help fight depression.  These are the same hormones that are released when we laugh.  Interestingly, these are also the same thing that happens when we take medication.  It is the same thing that happens when taking cocaine.  According to this article from the Wall Street Journal, exercise can be as useful as medication… in fact, recently a study found that over two thirds of people taking anti depressants received little or no benefit from the drug.  If you can get more benefit from ten or twenty minutes a day lifting weights then taking an expensive and potentially harmful drug it should be a complete no brainer.

With the benefits you receive from progressive resistence trianing you can improve you mental health as well.  warding off deression, dementia and improving your self image are three terrific bonus’ from hitting the gym.  There are many more benefits too, that are just too numerous to mention in a blog.  With a return on your investment of less then thirty minutes a day, it’s a wonder everyone isn’t doing it.  The key is the develope a habit that is engrained into you subconscious that is as routine as brushing your teeth or taking a shower.  Keep following my blog for more short but useful posts on how you can get more results, spending less time to improve your over all health.

Ask anyone who has lost weight permanently they will tell you, with 100 percent certainty, that setting long term goals with a flexible daily plan is the only way to get the real results you are after.

Granted, the title of this blog should be, “The One Thing You Need to Know for Permanent Weight Loss” or “How to Lose Weight Quickly and Keep it Off!”

Our brains control what our bodies do, and our bodies nourish our brains.  It is a “I help you, you help me” situation.  The latest developments in neo science shows incredible connections to how much exercise will improve our brain power, PBS aired a terrific program about brain fitness.  Exercise also trains our brain to make movements quicker and better.  Our balance improves.  Our reflexes improve.  Even our eyesight can improve.

We already know that exercise can help us lose weight.  Most everyone experiences a significant reduction in stress.  We can even stop the aging process.  By simply working out for thirty minutes a day we can get these benefits and much, much more.  Talk about a return on your investment… thirty minutes a day can add years to your life, give you the edge to advance at work, home and play, make you look better, feel better and be smarter.

It’s funny, today Mayo Clinic released that they have a new diet… the only diet by Mayo Clinic… surprisingly called the Mayo Clinic’s Diet.  The basis of the diet is behavioral changes.  That is no big surprise, ask any successful dieter and they will tell you, it is a series of life changes and it all begins with simply eating less then you burn.  I hope we have drilled that home by now.

If fact, I recommend to follow the recommendations of the Mayo Clinic Diet.  If you attend one of my seminars you will hear me discuss the core principles of the Mayo Diet, plus, you will experience the technics to imbed the book’s suggestions into your subconscious mind.  Put the tools of the Mayo Clinic Diet on cruise control.  (Set it and forget it.)

If you do that you will lose weight quickly, and keep it off Permanently.  My weight loss CD, has many of the suggestions from Mayo Clinic already on it… and I produced that CD years ago.  To order it, go here.

It isn’t any wonder that Mayo has chosen the very same topics as pro body builders have been using for years.  It because they work.  In fact, the book is just a bunch of old tried and true principles that have been working for years… and that is why I love it.

So, here it is, figure out how many calories you burn a day, then eat less then you burn by eating when you are hungry, quitting when you are full.

yea, I know, that sounds complicated.  it really isn’t.  If you eat exactly the same number of calories everyday for two weeks and your body weight does not change you know exactly how many calories you burn each day.  You know that because nothing changed.  If you lost weight you were eating less then you burned and if you gained weight you obviously are eating more calories then you are burning.

Scientifically it’s math.  3500 divided by 7 equals 500 to be specific.  There are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, and there are seven days in the week.

3500  calories in a pound of fat

÷7   days of the week

====

500   calories per day to loss one pound of fat per week.

You can find this information all over the place.  The real secret to weight loss is to keep burning 500 to 1000 calories per day more then you eat.  That’s it.  Keep track of what you put in your mouth… and burn more then you eat… period.  Most people, as I mentioned in my previous post, cannot accept that losing weight can be that simple.  Most of the time, including me, we want to make it too difficult thus un achievable… keep it simple… it will work.

In my next post we are going to bring this all together to create the simplest, easiest way to lose weight fast and keep it off forever.

Eat when you are hungry, quit when you are full.  As I stated in my previous post, most people want to make things harder then they really are (trust me, I am really bad at that) we don’t believe that something as big and powerful as dieting can be as simple as one sentence… but that is all you need to do… and here is how you are going to do it.

We often mistake “not being full” to equaling “being hungry”.  So the next time you think you are hungry, ask yourself, “would tuna right out of the can taste good on a bed of fresh lettuce” or “would a bag of unbuttered, unsalted popcorn taste good?”.  If the answer is no, you are not hungry.  In other words, if you are standing with the refrigerator door hanging open looking at all kinds of food asking yourself what might be good, you are not hungry yet.  In fact, most of the time when we feel hungry, we are really just thirsty, so drink a glass of water.

Here is the best way to quit eating too much in one sitting.  The next time you get something to eat just eat half of what you where planning to eat and save the other half to eat in about forty minutes… in the vast majority of the time you will not be hungry in forty minutes but rather in a few hours.  The correct scientific term for this is “halvesies”… just kidding, but it is a great way to remember to cut EVERY meal in half until you learn to quit eating so much at one time.

So there it is, eat when you are hungry (remember the tuna on lettuce) quit when you are full (halvesies) and you are on your way to a new slimmer, healthier you.  The next step is to start keeping a journal (writing it down) of the number of calories you are eating.  You do not have to be perfect, just get a good general idea (with in a couple hundred calories a day) of how much you are eating.

In my next post I will explain the simple way figure out how many calories you burn in day and then how to do some simple math (it is as easy as remembering a phone number) to begin losing all the weight you want to lose.

DO NO DISMISS THIS FORMULA AS BEING TOO SIMPLE!

Everyone I know who has applied these two simple principles has lost significant amount of weight and never felt like they were on a diet or being deprived of food.  Because of the basic nature of the process it is impossible to overeat.  Eat when you are hungry, quit when you are full… remember, if you do over eat a bit, it will take longer for you to get hungry again, just weight until you are hungry before you eat again.  Once you get this system down, you will find yourself getting hungry about every four hours.

Stay with me into the next post to put the finishing touches on the easiest, simplest way to lose weight fast and keep it off.

Relax, take a deep breath, we are about to take aim at this confusion, blow away the smoke, and make this the simplest, easiest fat burning program that you have ever seen.

In fact, we have nailed it down to one sentence.  Eat less calories then you burn.  With this single, simple formula, we can work miracles.

Often, people think that there must be something more complex, or some kind of secret to losing weight.  Unless you have a serious medical condition, the reason you are not losing weight is you have not developed behaviors that will result in permanent weight loss.  It all comes down to making sure you burn more calories then you consume.  That’s it.  It’s math, not magic!

There is only one thing you need to know to lose weight:  eat less calories then you burn.  Yes, I know, not earth shattering news, but it is the silver bullet you were looking for.  Seriously, aren’t you tired of chasing promises that are too good to be true?  You are not going to get that from me… with me, you are going to get exactly what you need to lose weight… and keep it off forever.  No more. No Less.  No hype.  No fluff. No gimmicks. In short, I am not going to sell you a load of crap.  Just the basic nuts and bolts program that is simple, easy and most of all, achievable for everyone who has the initiative to follow along.

It’s common knowledge, to lose weight, just eat less and exercise more.  OK.  Since we know that, and it is that easy, why are we not losing weight.  Apparently there is something else we need to know.  Well, that something is:  changing the behaviors that created our bad habits.  Those habits need to be replaced with simple and easy to do habits that will get you losing weight quickly and easily.

Let me give just one example.  Most of us looking into to mirror in the morning and say, “I need to lose some weight”.  Hey, that’s great, but the time you need to be thinking “I need to lose some weight” is just before you go to bed and you’re in front of the TV about to eat the last of the ice cream.  Behavioral changes can be implemented without difficulty… it is simple to learn how to incorporate the new habits… and I will cover how to do that in the next few posts in my blog.  This post focus’ on how to lose weight permanently… and it all begins with one simple and basic scientific fact… the only way to lose weight is the burn more calories then you eat.  There is no other way to burn fat.

Show me any diet plan and I will show you how the basis of the plan is to get you to eat less calories then your body burns.  So let’s just go with it.  Calculate the number of calories you burn a day (this will be in a future post) start keeping track of what you eat (more future posts) and watch the pounds drop off forever… I want  to make this a part of your daily life… just like brushing your teeth.

As a professional in the fitness industry for years, I have worked with the pros and have learned how to do this right.  This is not the place to list my creditials so I will just say, I was the guy who to taught gym staff how to teach people to lose weight.  A personal trainer’s personal trainer if you will.

For every properly done diet program there are dozens trying to set you up for failure.  Designed to take your money again and again by keeping confused, thus falling for the next diet that promises quick weight loss.

If you have tried to lose weight in the past and have not reached the goals you wanted, stick with me, it may take a few posts to cover all the information we need to success, but we will cover everything necessary to create a healthier, leaner and happy you.

Health care is charging you more if you are over weight or a smoker.  Even though WV employees are offered a program to help them lose weight just 15% of the eligible employees are utilizing it.  I have heard a number of reasons for not participating but my guess it is the same old excuses… most of them stemming from not understanding how to lose weight permanently.  It really isn’t as difficult as most people think, you do not need to spend 2 hr a day in the gym nor do you need to starve yourself.  Just do something.  Start today.  do it several times a week.  in 52 weeks you will be surprised how easy it was and how happy you are you got going.