Measure Your Way to Fat Loss

     Losing weight is all about control. People don't sit down and plan to gain fifty pounds of fat over a twenty year period. It just happens because their eating and weight gain are out of control. Anything you can measure, you can control.

If you are one of those people, and you now want to lose that weight, you can do it easily enough, but you're going to have to get control, and you're going to do that by measuring the things you do.

I recommend you buy a couple of items.

First, you need scales that measure your weight, body fat, and hydration level. You will constantly measure these three as you lose weight. Although a few other brands give these measurements, I believe Tanita is the best. You can find them online or at many major retail stores.

Second, you need to purchase or have access to any type of exercise equipment that measures the calories and fat calories you burn. Go online to find the normal amount of calories you burn each day based on your sex, weight, height, and activity level. You need exercise equipment to measure how many more calories you're burning each day above that norm.

You also need a scale that measures the weight of different types of food you eat. I found these scales particularly helpful when I tried to ration myself to three ounces of meat or one to two ounces of cereal or chips. You can't guess at the amounts you're eating because you will always assume you're eating less than you actually are eating.

With these three items you'll be able to measure the amount of calories going into your body, the number of calories you're burning each day, and the amount of weight and fat you're losing each day. You'll also check your hydration level to make sure you're not just losing water weight, and you'll probably want to use a tape measure to take your chest, waist, and hip measurements.

Why will all this measurement help you lose weight? It's simple. A pound of fat equals about 3,500 calories. If you burn 500 calories per day more than you eat, you'll lose a pound each week. Burn an extra 1,000 calories per day, and you'll lose a couple of pounds per week.

Want to lose even more quickly? Eat even fewer calories per day. Burn more calories per day on your exercise equipment. It's simple enough, but you have to make a commitment to measure all calories eaten and all calories burned. You have to get in control of your weight loss.

You really can control anything you can measure. I personally lost forty pounds in sixty days. One chief component of this dramatic loss was measurement. I weighed three or four times every day. I always tried to weigh the same or less each evening than I did that morning. That virtually guaranteed that I would weigh from 1/2 to one pound less every morning than I did the previous morning.

You can't weigh once each week and be guaranteed to consistently lose weight. You have to measure the calories going in, measure the calories you're burning, and measure that weight loss and fat loss every day.

You can control anything you can measure---and that includes your weight.

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