The fitness world today is filled with a lot of junk. You are bombarded with new infomercials everyday of fancy machines that guarantee results, corny diet plans and a plethora of supplements that inevitably get taken off the market after a few people die. There is a lot of money to be made off people wanting to lose weight and look better. Save your cash because there is only one fundamental truth in the weight loss jungle.

Fact: In order to lose weight, calorie intake must be less than calories burned.

That’s it! No big mystery just a simple dose of common sense. If you eat more than you burn your body will store some of the excess. The body’s storage method is fat. There’s only two ways to tilt the calorie equation in your favor. You can cut down calorie intake or you can increase activity to burn more calories. If you want to be most efficient you need to do both.

The most important kind of exercise for weight loss is cardio. The key is doing some type of exercise that will get your heartbeat up to around 140 beats per minute and maintain for at least 45-35 minutes. It can be running on the treadmill, elliptical machine, stair climber intense aerobic workout video, soccer or basketball. Whatever exercise you choose for your workout you need to be sure you can maintain that level of intensity to maintain that high heart rate. The most effective time to do your cardio is in the mornings before breakfast to burn your stored reserves (fat) or in the evenings before bedtime so that the body burns reserves while you sleep.

The benefit of using machines like the treadmill and elliptical in the gym is that they allow you to measure your heart rate, times and distance run. Also the option of increasing incline or resistance can intensify the workout. After doing your 45 minutes of cardio you can head over to the weights to do some weight training.

If weight loss is your only goal this step is not necessary. However chances are that with your weight gain you have some problem areas. Most guys struggle to shake the love handles and maintain the six pack while building arms and pectorals. Ladies often want to tone arms, legs and butt. Sculpting your muscle along with cardio will produce much better looking results. You can break the major muscle parts into 5 groups: Chest, Arms, Legs, Back and Stomach.

Try to allow 2 days in-between each weight workout to allow your muscles to recover. When you lift weights you are essentially tearing muscle fiber. Given enough time the muscle tears will heal and grow back stronger giving your more size or definition depending on your workout style. If you lift weights before the muscles have healed you only sabotage results as the fibers get torn again before having a chance to rebuild. We can go into much more detail about weight lifting and the different effective exercises but we will save that for another edition.

Any diet that says, “Eat as much as you want” is to be avoided. Atkins is not an excuse to pig out and quadruple your cholesterol with all that meat. Everything must be done in moderation. The reason that most diets fail is because they are way too restrictive and complicated. They are too hard to maintain and result in people going back to their poor eating habits. I find that the most effective way to diet is to make simple and healthy alterations to your usual consumption. You need to look at what you are eating and do away with wasted calories.

In today’s health conscious environment almost everything you buy at the grocery store has nutritional information on it. Make use of that information while buying food to watch out for things with excess sugars. The best way to gauge how much food you need is to find out your basal metabolic rate (BMR). BMR is the energy your body expends at rest doing necessary functions like heart beat, breathing and maintaining body temperature. You want to have your calorie intake around the same level as your BMR. You can use simple calculators like http://www.diyglobalsolutions.com/bmr_bmi.htm to get an idea of your BMR and basic calorie needs.

The body breaks down carbohydrates and sugars and stores as fat. You need carbs but any excess is going straight to your problem area. You need to do away with foods that add all those extra sugars and carbs. When eating rice and stew for example rather than have the rice be the bulk of the meal reduce your portion so that the rice is about 35-40% of the meal and the rest is meat and vegetables. Multiple REDUCED portions every 3-4 hours also helps with training your body to burn calories more efficiently.

Fast food has got to go. There are way too many calories packed into fast food. I shed a tear when I found out my breakfast burrito from Sonic’s had 750 calories in it. I can eat three home made sandwiches and be twice as full for less calories. Here are some foods to avoid:

Soft drinks – Avoid like the plague. It’s all sugar and water works just fine. Juice is healthier but still has just as much sugar. Drink water or drink diet soda. I love diet Sprite. Avoid the diet drinks with high levels of sodium.

Fast food – All the burger joints contain way too many calories in their meals. You get a meal at McD’s with large fries and a drink and you’ve essentially eaten your BMR for the day.

Pizza – Plenty of carbs in the dough, plenty of oil and grease and lots of cheese. Bad combination.

Chinese food – Tends to come with a lot of rice and fried stuff. Fried rice especially is to be avoided.

Chicken joints – No Church’s and no Popeye’s. Remove fried foods from your diet.

Make a habit of making your own meals. Rice or pasta is easily cooked and a George Foreman grill makes preparing your own non-fried meats really quick and easy. Once a week you can pig out on junk food and sodas if you so crave. Just make sure you don’t go back to your old habit of poor eating and maybe do an extra 15 minutes cardio the next day to make up for your debauchery. Also do not eat any food less than 3 hrs before you go to sleep. Any food digested while you are sleeping is getting stored due to lack of activity.

So to summarize in order to lose weight you want to burn more calories than you consume. You can get a base of how many calories you need by calculating your BMR. Eat at least your BMR calorie requirements while doing cardio for 45 minutes at least 4 times a week. Work out with weights after running to sculpt the desired areas of your body that need work. Remove the foods listed above from your diet and when eating reduce the amount of carbs and supplement more meat and vegetables. Try not to eat after 8 p.m.

If your BMR requires 1,600 calories, you consume 1,800 calories and your run for 45 minutes at 5 mph at an incline of 2 on the treadmill you will burn around 500 calories. Your effective calorie intake will be 1,300 calories. You will lose weight. As your cardio improves so does your metabolism which makes your body more efficient at burning calories.

I’ve been doing this for 6 years now with good results. Sometimes I get lazy and fall off and when it gets too much I get back on and whip myself back into shape in a couple of months. I recently dropped 20lbs using this basic program. As in anything in life effort will yield results. You’ll be the envy of all your friends, pull you a baller man/woman and never have to work at the mall again.

Email Chima at Mc_fine@yahoo.com