DietingDieting is one of those things that is completely integrated into American culture.

Dieting

Dieting is one of those things that is completely integrated into American culture. On any given day, a huge portion of the U.S. population is "on a diet" and "counting calories" in one way or another.

Your Body's Efficiency

Have you ever wondered why, for so many people, weight gain seems to be a fact of life？ It's because the human body is way too efficient! It just does not take that much energy to maintain the human body at rest; and when exercising, the human body is amazingly frugal when it comes to turning food into motion.

At rest, the human body burns only about 12 calories per pound of body weight per day(26 calories per kilogram). That means that if you weigh 150 pounds(68 kg), your body uses only about:

150 X 12 = 1,800 calories per day

Twelve calories per pound per day is a rough estimate.

Those 1,800 calories are used to do everything you need to stay alive:

They keep your heart beating and lungs breathing.

They keep your internal organs operating properly.

They keep your brain running.

They keep your body warm.

In motion, the human body also uses energy very efficiently. For example, a person running a marathon(26 miles or 42 km)burns only about 2,60Ocalories. In other words, you burn only about 100 calories per mile(about 62 calories per km)when you are running.

Taking Calories In

The 1,800 calories that a typical person at rest needs per day is just not that many. Convenient food often takes the lead in our daily diets. In a typical day someone might consume some thing like this:

You might have two Pop-Tarts(r)for breakfast,

then hit Pizza Hut for lunch,

grab some Snack Well's and a cola for a snack,

head for McDonald's for dinner

and top it off with some potato chips while watching TV.

You can see how the number of calories coming in can easily reach 3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 per day without any effort at all. That's the problem.

Your body, it turns out, is extremely efficient at capturing and storing excess calories. Whenever your body finds that it has excess calories on hand, it converts them to fat and saves them for a rainy day. It only takes 3,500 excess calories to create 1 pound of new fat on your body.

The Idea Behind Dieting

To lose I pound of fat, what you have to do is burn off 3,500 calories. That is, over a period of time, you have to consume 3,500 calories less than your body needs. There are several ways you can Create that deficit. If you assume that you weigh 150 pounds and that your body at rest needs 1,800 calories per day(150 ~ 12 = 1,800)to live.

The only way to lose fat is to consume fewer calories per day than your body needs. For every 3,500 calories that your body takes from its fat reserves, you lose i pound(0.45 kg)of body fat. You can create the deficit either by monitoring and restricting your intake of calories, or by exercising, or both.

The idea behind most diet is simply to help you somehow lower the number of calories that you consume each day. That's all they do.

Why Diets Tend Not to Work

The reason why most diets tend not to work for very long is because they are not sustain able. A person gains weight because he or she consumes more calories per day than needed. The diet creates a temporary deficit. When the diet ends, the person goes back to normal eating and the weight comes back. What is needed instead is a sustainable diet m a food consumption and exercise plan -- that lets you live a normal life and eat normal foods in a normal way.

Building a Sustainable Diet

Building a. sustainable diet and exercise plan is the key to maintaining a consistent weight. This is not easy for many people. As descr

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