The Goal is to achieve Ideal Weight

Weight Loss, Weight gain and weight maintenance are some of the topics of enormous discussions and a wild goose chase.

Many people try various methods to lose, gain and maintain their ideal weight. They become sick and tired of working hard and then they give up.

But Remember, Giving up is as easy as a pie

Today I decided to give my hand to all those people who are struggling hard to achieve their weight goals.

If you are one of them, come hold my hand for this long journey; let’s try to make it more of fun rather than boring.

You must be wondering who am I? To guide you during your weight loss journey.

I am just a normal lady who gained enormous weight after delivering my first baby, then I did a lot of research to lose weight naturally. I was feeding my baby so I could not take any weight loss pills, she was delivered via C Section so couldn't do exercise, but despite many odds, I did not quit and you can see my pictures to see the result.

The first photo is with my 3 months baby and in the second one she was 9 months.

 After doing all the research I decided to help other people to achieve their ideal weight, even I am on the way, but together we will be able to do it faster.

So, our goal is to lose weight naturally, without any side effect.

Let us understand the concept first in laymen terms and then go into technical details of it.

For maintaining a healthy body one must do three things regularly –

1. Drink Lots of water:- Ideally you must drink 1 litre on every 20 kg of your ideal weight.For instance, if your ideal weight is 60 kg you must drink 3 litres of water daily.

I understand its difficult to remember how much water you drunk in the whole day, so you can take three 1 litre bottles and fill it in the morning make sure you finish it before you sleep in the night.Is that a good way out?

For those who find it difficult to drink water, I would give you an example, say you are given 4 glasses of water to wash your saree or jeans, will it be possible for you to clean it? 

No.

The same thing happens with the body, it becomes impossible for our body to clean the waste, which results in constipation and then weight gain (constipation is one of the major reasons for weight gain).

2.  Exercise daily :- Whether you do yoga , pranayam , vigorous exercise, walking , jogging, aerobics, zumba dance and whatever suits you, JUST DO.As it is very important for you to remain active, it not only burns your calories but also enhances your fat burning capacity (BMR).

3.  Nutrition :- To remain healthy we need many types of nutritious things which does different functions in our body.Carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and fibers are some of them and they are further subdivided.In all we need 114 nutrients for smooth functioning of our body.

(I will discuss them in detail, in some other post.)

Now let us analyse the meal that we have every day.It contains chapati/ rice, some times daal, little vegetable, very  less or no salad.

So, we have plenty of carbohydrates, very less proteins , vitamins and minerals and very less or no fiber.Do this analysis for your plate.

If you have a healthy body it will be very easy for you to achieve your ideal weight goal.

Do you know what your ideal weight is?

Just check it out now-

1 kg = 2.2 lbs and 1 m = 100 cm

Many of you devote 24/7, to maintain this ideal weight.

Some go on diet for less calorie intake, some workout like hell to burn extra calories so on and so forth.

In this blog, I am going to discuss each and every aspect of maintaining the ideal weight.

Let us say for example, my height is 153 cm and my weight was 71 kg.

Now from the above chart we understand that my ideal weight should be between 43 kg to 52 kg , on an average say 50 kg.

Now I have to lose 21 kg to achieve my ideal weight.

BIG TASK HAS TO BE DONE AND A BIG GOAL HAS TO BE ACHIEVED.

Today, I am 57 kg and lost 14 kgs

How did I do it?

We will discuss every thing step by step.

First you have to understand the reason why do you need to maintain a healthy ideal weight.

Look in the above case I was 21 kg overweight, all my body organs are designed in such a way that they must work for 50 kg body weight, now as the organs are working more than their capacity to satisfy 21 kg weight more, there start the problem of malfunctioning of various organs.

The consequence is in the form of diseases like diabetes, hypertension or high blood pressure, heart strokes and what not (the list is beyond our expectation).

So, to be free from such big diseases you need to maintain your ideal weight.

Even lower than ideal body weight is also going to cause many diseases like osteoporosis, breakdown of muscle, weakness, chronic fatigue and what not.

So, there is an unrest need maintain your ideal weight to remain healthy.

And we know that HEALTHY IS HAPPY :-)

You must understand certain technical terms before taking any action like calorie , BMI and BMR.

Calorie: - A calorie is a unit of energy. When you hear something contains 100 calories, it's a way of describing how much energy your body could get from eating or drinking it.

Calories aren't bad for you. Calories are ENERGY that fuel our bodies; much like gasoline fuels our cars. Without sufficient calories our heart would not beat, our lungs would not function, and our brain would not work.

Your body needs calories for energy. But eating too many calories and not burning enough of them off through activity can lead to weight gain.

Calories and Weight Gain

If you exceed the number of calories your body requires each day you will eventually gain weight. It takes an excess of 7000 calories to gain 900 grams of fat. For example, if your body needs 2000 calories a day to maintain its current weight and every day you consume 2500 in two weeks you would gain 1 Kg. One day of overindulging does not cause instant weight gain, it is due to continuous consumption of extra calories.

So, remember if you took years to gain extra weight, it will take a very long time to come to ideal weight, so don't expect a lot from yourself be patient and continue your journey to achieve your ideal weight.

Calories and Weight Loss

To lose weight you need to use/burn more calories than you consume. Example: If you eat 2000 calories a day, and are maintaining your weight, you would need to burn 250 calories  per day to lose a 225 gram in one week. If, in addition, you decreased your caloric intake by 250 calories a day, a 500 calorie a day total deficit, you could then lose 450 grams per week.

It’s important to understand that although drastically reducing your calories in a short period of time may initially result in dramatic weight loss, the body can rarely continue along this restrictive path, especially if the person is consuming below their resting metabolic rate.

Its the vicious cycle which you can see below.

So remember: calories are our friends! They are what give us the energy to play with our children, excel in our careers, and enjoy our friends and family, and live life to the fullest. You can’t live without them but choose healthy foods to make sure your calories are packed with disease fighting nutrients to keep you feeling healthy and young!

There are many fat burning foods which you can include in your diet to achieve your weight loss goal.

Many ready made diet plans are available, which you can try to achieve your weight goal.

Monday to Sunday Diet Plan

6 Meals diet plan- Indian Meals

1 Month Diet Plan

Morning Banana Diet

7 days Cabbage soup diet

But, you must never compromise with the daily nutritional requirement of your body.

You must understand Daily nutritional requirement of your body and accordingly plan your diet.

Daily Nutritional requirement:-

This chart outlines average daily nutritional needs for healthy adults age 25 to 50. Since your age, size, activity level and health all affect dietary considerations; your requirements may be different.

Source: National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Recommended Dietary Allowances (10th Edition, 1989).

Now, going on crash diet to cut down calorie intake may lead to other malnutrition diseases thereafter.

So, plan your low calorie diet without compromising with the nutritional requirements of your body to keep healthy.

As I have already discussed, there are various diet plans which can help you lose weight go through them and apply one which suits you. I will be discussing the concept of BMR and BMI, so in my opinion you must plan your diet after understanding that. It will help you understand your body better.

Some people do not eat much, still they gain weight. So, there must be some other reasons also which contribute to weight gain and there are more reasons for weight gain in women.

Further, there is some of the very important terminology which you must know before taking any action towards your goal.

BMI: - Body Mass Index The body mass index (BMI), or Quetelet index, is a measure for human body shape based on an individual's mass and height.

Calculate your BMI from the right most cornor of the blog and then,

Check out in which category your BMI falls in the below table-

In the above case I was 153 cm (5' 1'') and 71 kg. So my BMI ( calculate it from the BMI calculator on the Top right most corner of the blog) comes out to be 26.8, which means I was in the over weight category and has moderate risk of developing heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes.

But the good news is as soon as I reach towards ideal weight and come in the range between 18.5 to 24.9, she comes in the healthy range.

Now my BMI is 21.5.

BMR :- Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is an estimate of how many calories you'd burn if you were to do nothing but rest for 24 hours.

It represents the minimum amount of energy needed to keep your body functioning, including breathing and keeping heart beating.Your BMR does not include the calories you burn from normal daily activities or exercise.

Now what we understand is that we must try to consume little less calories than our BMR , so that our body burn calories stored in our body.

In the above example, I am 28 year old and lightly active then her BMR comes out to be 1427 calories per day.

If she consumes 1200 calories per day then she will burn 227 calories each day without any workout.She can further enhance this figure by doing exercise and burning extra calories.

Thus before starting any diet plan and exercise program you must know your BMR.

You can calculate your BMR from the top right most corner of the blog and plan your weight loss plan accordingly.