Weight Management - Win The Game

Whether you want to gain, lose, or maintain your weight, you must eat wisely to see lasting results. To successfully manage your weight, develop a plan that includes healthy eating, regular physical activity, and strategies to maintain your lifestyle changes. A successful regimen is one that is followed throughout life, not just for a few weeks. Weight management techniques are easy to learn, and with practice and patience you can see gradual, lasting results.

How Can I Manage My Weight?

1. Select well-balanced meals.

Regard weight management as the adoption of a life-long nutrition plan. A healthy plan for weight loss includes a variety of foods low in fat and added sugar. Foods high in complex carbohydrates and fiber (fruit, vegetables, and whole grains) provide bulk and a feeling of fullness with fewer calories. Lean protein sources with meals also promote satiety. Be sure that your plan includes foods you enjoy eating, and eat three or more smaller meals a day.

If you are trying to gain weight, select calorie- and nutrient-dense foods (such as raisins, nuts, peanut butter, and fruit juice), and eat more frequently throughout the day. Weight gain does not require stocking up on empty calories, like candy bars, chips, and soda.

2. Enjoy regular physical activity.

Physical activity is indispensable for long-term weight loss or gain. Weight loss without exercise can result in the loss of lean body mass as well as fat. The result is a lowering of your metabolism (called your basal metabolic rate). Because of this decreased metabolism, returning to normal eating patterns can actually lead to weight gain. Do both aerobic activities, (which burn fat, control your appetite, and reduce your risk of chronic diseases), and resistance training (which increase lean body mass and boost your metabolism). If you want to gain weight, resistance training is essential to make sure you gain mostly lean body mass, not fat.

3. Set realistic goals. 

Many people set unrealistic goals in their weight management plan. Remember that weight gain or loss should progress by no more than one to two pounds per week. If you are losing more weight than that, chances are the majority of weight lost is from water and not fat (and you are liable to quickly gain it back once you stop your drastic dieting methods).

4. Be aware of your calorie needs.

A deficit of 500 calories per day will result in approximately one pound lost per week. This deficit can be reached by moderately decreasing calorie intake and increasing physical activity. More severe calorie restrictions lower the basal metabolic rate, making weight loss even more difficult. The minimum daily calorie intake for an obese person trying to lose weight should not be less than 1200-1500 for women and 1500-1800 for men.

If you wish to gain weight, maintain a daily intake of at least 500 calories higher than what you usually consume. ETR3K853P3Z9

5. Incorporate lifestyle changes. 

In order to successfully manage your weight, include lifestyle change strategies to cement long-term eating and physical activity habits. Try keeping a diary of your current eating and physical activity patterns, including time, place, amount, whether you were alone or with friends, and how you felt afterwards.  Identify barriers to changing your eating or exercise patterns, and work to overcome these.   Also, notice positive weight management behaviors, and strengthen those activities.