Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Losing weight is easy, unless you decide to complicate things by looking for advice in all the wrong places. There are way too many discouraging and misleading fitness myths that get passed around, and you need to begin your journey by wiping the slate clean.
The most basic rule for weight loss is ‘Calories in vs Calories out’. This means that if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight.
What is a calorie? A calorie is simply a unit of measurement used to express energy in terms of food; a slice of white bread contains 60 calories, a cup of white rice contains 240 calories, one 4oz chicken breast contains 130 calories.
Everybody has a maintenance level of calories. These are the amount of calories you need to consume in order to provide energy for your day-to-day activities, voluntary and involuntary, which include everything from eating, talking, sleeping and breathing to working out, typing, cooking and even tapping your fingers.
For example, my daily maintenance is around 2,500 calories. If I eat above 2,500 calories, I will gain weight, and if I eat below it, voila! Weight loss.
So how many calories below maintenance should you actually eat? A 20 per cent deficit would be a great number for safe and healthy fat loss. Figure out what your maintenance is, and subtract the number by approximately 500. This should allow you to lose approximately two kilos a month; 7,500 calories make up for one kilo.
How do you track such numbers or even count calories? It’s easy. Download an app such as myfitnesspal or livestrong on your phone and just keep a diary of what you’re eating. These apps have helped me tremendously to lose weight and stay fit even after I initially shed the pounds.
What you need to take back from this is that it’s not always what you eat, more importantly it’s how much you eat. Set a realistic goal for yourself and slowly work your way towards it. Immediate results are difficult to come across, but with a healthy diet and complimentary exercise routine, you’re going to see a noticeable difference after the first 12-15 weeks.
Editor’s note: After four years of fighting the battle of the bulge, Hamza Farooq mastered the art of getting fit and started sharing the secret to his transformation through his health blog, as reported in last week’s HealthWeekly.
When the 22-year-old Al Rashid Group marketing co-ordinator, from Barbar, graduated from high school, he weighed in at approximately 86kg, which, according to him, was quite high for someone only 173cm tall.
After years of research, dieting and exercise, he figured out the healthy way to shed those pesky pounds and now weighs in at about 70kg with a body composition of approximately 85-90 per cent muscle mass.
