LESSON TWO -- Weight Loss Takes Time: In general, an average 150 pound person can only metabolize or burn about two pounds of fat/adipose tissue per week. So what does that say about any claim that promises to help you lose 30 pounds in a month’s time? You will lose about 22 pounds of water and muscle weight with at most, eight pounds of fat weight. That's why doctors calculate Body Mass Index. BMI is a direct indication of the percentage of body fat make-up. All things being equal, any more then 10 pounds of weight loss per month and muscle mass is being lost as well,

LESSON THREE: Don't Starve Yourself If a person rapidly reduces their caloric intake to a very low level, the body’s natural starvation defense mechanism begins to slow its metabolism down till it matches the intake of calories...a process that takes a few weeks. Weight loss slows and out of frustration, dieters go off their diet and resume normal eating. But now the metabolism is at a very low level and the body begins storing all the extra calories as fat, causing weight gain. Unfortunately, the slowing of the metabolism in periods of starvation is a genetically ingrained protective mechanism. As a result, it actually takes longer to speed up your metabolism after it slows down in this manner. Don't go onto a severely reduced caloric diet without proper planning, which we will address below.

LESSON FOUR: Understanding the crux of weight loss To lose weight, one must burn more calories then you take in, period. A simple way to do this is by purchasing an inexpensive pocket-sized food calorie book located in the checkout line of a grocery store and a food scale. Add up everything you eat for a week (paying attention to portion sizes by using your scale) and divide by seven days. Simply reduce the daily intake by 500 calories and there's very little risk of slowing the metabolism. While 500 calories might sound like a lot, this is easier than it sounds...avoiding a big snickers bar or a couple of cans of soda for example would do the trick. After a couple of weeks, reduce the daily caloric intake again and continue to repeat this caloric reduction until more calories are being burned than what's being taken in. A step-by-step, wise approach will not trigger a reduction in metabolic rate. Let’s now turn to the part we all hate, if done right, and that's the exercise.

LESSON FIVE: Exercise Exercise is the other part of the spread sheet. Let’s dispense with the fallacy that a lot of calories are burned with exercise. The truth is, far fewer calories may be burned with heavy exercise. As an example, the average 150-pound person who runs 2.5 miles in 30 minutes (5mph) only burns 360 calories. That means one would have to run 30 minutes to burn off a candy bar.

In reality, metabolism spikes upwards after 20 minutes of aerobic exercise activity in which your heart rate is in the target zone. By staying in the target zone while performing an aerobic exercise activity, 20 to 40 more calories per hour are burned for the next 24 to 36 hours. The amount of increase in the metabolism spike is directly related to the length and vigor of the exercise program.