Everybody wants to know what is the best way to lose weight? Is it diet or exercise? The truth is that you can succeed at weight loss with either method, but for either of them to be successful a person needs to know how the body burns the energy it takes it.

We are all subject to what is called the Basal Metabolic Rate. This lets us know the minimum requirements for us to live. It is based on the amount of calories needed to keep our organs functioning. Even walking to the fridge for some tempting snack or a cold one, and then back to the sofa for the next TV show would be considered exercise, just as doing a six pack ab exercise program is considered exercise when computing your BMR. The number is strictly the energy that is required to keep your organs functioning. Your BMR decreases with both age and the loss of muscle mass. People who are more toned have a higher basal metabolic rate. Women and men have different formulas to compute their BMR.

A detailed analysis of a person’s basal metabolic rate can be done but it requires a complete physical history of a persons’ body. There are formulas that can help a person figure it out and a search on the internet or some time spent checking out the message boards at biggest loser weight loss forum can help a person determine their basic metabolism rate. To find the numbers of calories we actually burn in a day we need to multiply our BMR by our activity. This equation lets you know how many calories you use every day. It can be used to help design both a diet and exercise plan.

All of this still does not say which is best to lose weight. By eating less food only, a person will make their number smaller. The smaller number is not as good at losing the pounds because you are not eating enough. Very restrictive plans can actually harm a person by altering their thyroid output.

Just working out is similar to just dieting, the drop in pounds will be harder. It takes a very hard fitness program to achieve any type of weight loss alone. That usually results in an increase in food consumption. Depending on how much exercise they get they should try to reduce their BMR by at most a thousand calories daily.

The bottom line concerning calories and weight loss is very simple. When you put out more energy than you take in, the pounds will disappear. When you take in more energy than you use, it is stored as fat in our bodies. For that reason a person must combine physical activity with proper food choices in the right proportion to get rid of the fat.

By putting a regular exercise routine into your schedule you can make your body run by. Fad diets are not recommended. There are many helpful sites on the internet such as http://www.fatlossfactor.com, for someone who needs guidance in coming up with a plan to lose the unwanted weight they are carrying.

It takes 3500 hundred calories to use up 1 pound, so that can be divided over a weeks time for a reasonable goal. The combination of exercise and calorie reduction will give you the results you are looking for with the added benefit of becoming much more fit in the process.~The answer to the question is to do a little of both to make sure that you are safely losing the weight that you want to.~A healthy lifestyle includes both eating right and regular activity and will result in a fit and trim body.} A little effort will go a long way towards happy weight loss.

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