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While you can keep track of your walking time by manually writing down the minutes walked in a journal, it’s a difficult way to track your walking fitness plan, if you exercise throughout the day. Instead, use technology to track steps walked instead of time spent exercising. There are several different ways to track steps walked:

Track Your Walking Fitness with Accelerometers

An accelerometer differs from a pedometer in that it measures a mechanical motion (walking) against a frame of reference and converts it into an electronic signal outputted as steps taken, among the other data collected, such as calories burned and distance walked; one of the leaders in this wearable technology is FitBit. Their products can also synch up with an app loaded on your computer, so you have an online journal of your activity.

Track Your Walking Fitness with Pedometers

Pedometers differ from accelerometers in the way they measure steps. They count the number of strides taken over time, meaning you have to input the length of your stride in order for them to accurately measure the number of steps taken. While not as accurate as an accelerometer, they are less expensive and you usually have to manually track your progress.

Track Your Walking Fitness with Online Journals

Applications and programs to track your walking fitness plan progress come in both free and paid versions. One free program from the website Spark People makes it easy to track nutrition, fitness and weight among numerous other things.

For a paid program, try Fitness Journal. For $3.95 per month, you can track the same information, plus a lot more, including when your walking shoes need replacing. It also allows you to journal your progress and creates various charts and graphs making it easy to see your progress. For a whole list of online tracking options, search “Online Fitness Journals”.

Track Your Walking Fitness with Smartphone Apps

Applications that run on your smartphone is another way to track your walking fitness. While there are many applications you can use, one of the most popular one for the iPhone, Android or Blackberry is MapMyRun. With this app, it uses your smartphones’ GPS capability to not only track steps taken, but duration, distance, calories burned and even the route you took on a map. It also has the capability to journal your progress online.

With so many walking fitness tracking tools available, there really isn’t a reason to not start a walking fitness plan. Buy either a pedometer or accelerometer and start documenting your walking accomplishments today. Before you know it, you will be at goal.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

Should You Choose Walking versus Running for Your Overall Health Benefits?

Both aerobic activities are simple to perform and promote weight loss. And both walking and running help regulate a healthy sleep rhythm, elevate your energy levels while awake, and even allow you to maintain healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Running and walking can also be social exercises that you enjoy with friends or family members, and you can take a jog or a hike just about any time of the year, depending on where you live.

Walking is Easier on Your Body Than Running

Just remember that if you choose walking over running to improve your overall health, you will need to walk twice as far as you run to gain the same weight-loss benefits. Running is much more rigorous on your body, and burns more calories. But walking is also much easier on your joints since the impact of your foot striking the ground is lessened.

For Beginners Walking is the Best Place to Start

If you are just beginning some type of dedicated physical regimen, walking is definitely recommended, and you can always build up your endurance and physical fitness to include running in the future.

And in some cases, walking can give you many of the same benefits as running, with less downside. For instance, extensive research taken from the Runners and Walkers Health Study shows that both running and walking equally cut down on your risk of contracting age-related cataracts.

That significant body of information, compiled from tens of thousands of runners and walkers, also showed that runners could expect a reduction in the risk of contracting heart disease by about 4.5% by running one hour a day.

Running Beats Walking for Weight Loss

But those who spent that same one hour daily simply walking cut their risk of heart disease by over 9%. Certainly, walking and running both improve your overall health and fitness much more than if you were sedentary instead. So choose whichever exercise best fits your current fitness levels and situation. And for weight loss, running is definitely the better vehicle than walking. That is because of the increased energy expenditure, elevated heart rate and calorie burn.

Before Walking or Running for Exercise – Check With Doctor First

You should always consult a doctor before adding any type of exercise to your daily routine. But both walking and running are excellent ways to get you up and active, and are low-cost activities which you can enjoy even if you only have a limited amount of time on your hands.

There is no argument that running or walking is much healthier than not doing either, so put one foot in front of the other today and begin to enjoy the heart and total body benefits are that these simple but healthy exercises can provide.

Avoiding Bulky Legs While On a Walking Fitness Program

Because muscles have two different types of fiber, some walking fitness programs target one type of fiber better than the other. To avoid bulking up your legs, you want to follow a walking fitness program that targets slow twitch fibers as they do not grow significantly from their current size.

If you choose a program that targets the fast twitch fibers, you stand more of a chance at building up leg muscle than you may not want as those fibers do have the capability to grow in size.

Follow These Five Steps to Keep From Building Up Bulky Legs:

• When planning your walking course, avoid hills, inclines or stairs. Moving your body vertically emphasizes building up the glutes, hamstrings and calves, which can give you a bulky appearance. Staying on flat land works all of your lower body muscle groups equally.
• Maintain a proper posture by engaging your abdominal muscles and keeping your head and neck centered over your spine. This keeps your weight evenly balanced vertically across your muscles supporting it, thus not working one group more than others.
• Don’t walk with added weight. While ankle and wrist weight do increase the number of calories you burn while walking, the additional weight on your ankles can make your large lower body muscle groups work harder thus developing them more.
• The same advice applies to other things you may carry with you. What you carry in your backpack can add additional weight, so think about what you really need and leave the rest at home.
• How you walk can make a difference. In a proper walk, your foot should land on the outside of your heel. As your step progresses forward, your weight should shift forward and inward to your arch. At the end of your step, your weight should shift to the ball of your foot and then to your toes where you push off for the next step. If you land on the middle part of your foot, you can strengthen and ultimately enlarge your calf muscles.

For Walking or Running Choose Good Shoes

Of course, having a good pair of walking shoes that fit well and support your arch will make walking properly much easier.

By selecting a walking fitness course that works slow twitch leg muscle fibers and following the rest of the above steps, you can safely burn calories and lose weight without having to worry about bulking up your leg muscles. As you lose weight, your toned and well defined leg muscles will begin to show themselves.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

The largest non-profit entity providing diabetes research in the United States is the American Diabetes Association. So when such an organization annually promotes a Walk To Stop Diabetes, that should show you just how powerful the simple act of walking is in combating this dangerous and deadly disease.

It is also known that walking helps improve overall fitness levels, while supercharging your metabolism and allowing you to burn more fat and calories, which helps you lose weight.

Walking More Can Also Help Control Diabetes

If you already have diabetes, walking more can help control the affliction and avoid many of its dire consequences. And if you are at risk for diabetes, simply walking more each and every day could keep you from contracting this potentially deadly disease altogether.

This is because the act of walking not only helps you shed pounds, but it also substantially increases the amount of insulin receptors which are located on your cells. This allows your insulin to help blood sugar move into the cell directly, where it needs to go for proper functioning.

When blood sugar gets stuck in your bloodstream, it runs the risk of becoming attached to blood vessel walls, and possibly decreasing or even totally stopping blood flow in some areas of your body. Several studies have shown that for people with diabetes who take insulin, a regular regimen of walking can even help reduce the amount of medication that is required.

Walking More Helps Oxygenate Your Whole Body

Walking helps your heart beat faster to move blood throughout your body, and this helps oxygenate your muscles, which aids in burning blood sugar as well.

And as a wonderful side effect, increasing the amount of time you spend walking can also positively affect your gray matter. As a brain-sharpening and diabetes-defeating activity, the act of walking efficiently combats slowed brain activity which is often impaired in older diabetes sufferers.

Walking More Can Help You Think Clearer

Scientists have noticed that in many cases with older diabetes patients, the ability to think clearly is drastically reduced. But in at least one study, simple physical activity such as walking actually stimulated the very type of brainwave activity which diabetes had impaired.

Gerald Bernstein is an MD and endocrinologist at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, and he agrees with multiple findings that average to brisk sessions of walking just thirty minutes a mere three times a week is enough to significantly impact your fitness levels in a positive manner.

This means if you currently have diabetes, are at risk for diabetes, or are simply fit and healthy and want to remain that way. Put the positive power of diabetes prevention to work in your life by walking more, and immediately enjoy the wonderful health-enhancing benefits of this simple activity.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

We are all busy nowadays, so how does one find the time to do a little walking every day? It really isn’t that hard. For most people, it requires committing a little more time here and there out of each day.

Many people that should be exercising don’t because they believe they have to do it in one chunk of time; that is not true. While we should each get at least 30 minutes of exercise each day, it can be done in small chunks of time throughout the day and still reap the same benefit.

But keeping track of small chunks of time spent each day walking can be trying and most people will soon give up. Instead, let technology keep track of it for you in the form of steps walked.

Wear a pedometer or accelerometer and strive to walk 10,000 steps each day. Before you dismiss that goal as impossible, try it. You are already racking up more steps walking each day than you realize. By creatively adding in some of these opportunities to your workday, you’ll soon reach your daily goal.

Workday Walking Opportunities

There are many ways you can get in some extra steps while going to or from work, or while at work:

• Instead of finding a parking spot close to your workplace, park at the far end of the lot and walk in the rest of the way. It only takes a few extra minutes each way and the steps adds to your daily goal.
• If you take public transportation, get off a stop or two before the closest stop to your work and walk the rest of the way.
• Once you are at your workplace, take the stairs instead of the elevator to your office or at least for a few floors.
• As a healthy alternative to emailing a coworker in your same building, get out of your chair and walk over to their desk.
• If you have to go to a different floor for lunch, walk there and back.
• Instead of eating a big lunch in the cafeteria, bring a healthy lunch to work. Strap on your walking shoes and go outside for a walk. Just allow yourself enough time to get back, cool down and eat.

By incorporating a few of these tips into your workday, you will most likely be at goal and you added very little extra time to your workday. As a final note, keep track of the number of steps walked each day.

On days when you don’t meet goal, figure out what you can change so that the next time you reach your daily goal. It could be walking further, faster or seeking out a new step opportunity.

What’s the Best Time of Day to Walk for Fitness?

From a calories-burned point of view, there isn’t one time of day better than the other to walk. However, there are more considerations than burning calories that may influence when you walk; some bodily functions, and especially the habit of walking, respond better based on the time of day you walk.

The time of day for walks are broken down into four periods throughout the day:

• Morning
• Noon
• Afternoon
• Evening

Walking in the Morning

A morning walk has several advantages, such as sharpening your mental acuity and revving up your metabolism that will carry through for the rest of the day. So while you don’t burn any more calories by exercising in the morning, you will end up burning more throughout the day by going for morning walks.

Walking Around the Noon Hour

Usually done at work, exercising during your lunch break before eating the healthy lunch you brought from home, reduces stress, curbs hunger and improves blood flow so you can maintain your sharpness throughout the afternoon.

Walking in the Afternoon

Studies have shown that exercising between 3 pm and 7 pm is the best time to build endurance and muscle. Increasing your endurance not only allows you to walk farther but faster before you’ll get tired. Building muscle gives your body better definition, tones the muscles you already have along with increasing their size. Larger muscles mean more calories burned per day, but don’t worry, you won’t build enough to give you that bulked look.

Taking a Walk in the Evening

Exercising in the evening is a good way to reduce stress from a day of working. This time of day can be easier for some people as their muscles are already warm and flexible from the day’s activities. For many people, this perceived reduction of effort required makes exercising more enjoyable than during other times of day.

Some people end up not exercising because they can’t find a 30-minute block of time each day to devote to it. However walking time is cumulative – for example, you get the same benefits from walking 10 minutes three times per day as you do once for 30 minutes. So if “chunking” works better for you, then walk according to that plan.

Experts agree that it isn’t the time of day you exercise that is important, but to do it when it best fits into your schedule. As with all exercising, consistency counts, so if you can find a time of day when you can routinely walk, you’ll start to see results sooner and derive more benefits from walking.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

Walking is a great way to burn calories and lose weight. But there are a couple of things you can do to increase the number of calories burned and to maximize your workout. Three things affect the number of calories burned when you’re looking to walk off weight.

1) Speed is Important When You Walk Off Weight

Starting out, you may be able to only walk at a pace of 3 mph giving you a pace of 20-minute miles. However by working up to a walking speed of 4.5 mph, you end up with 13-minute miles. The difference in the number of calories burned is 20 calories per mile. On a one hour walk, that is an additional 92 calories burned.

2) Distance is Needed to Walk Off Weight

It stands to reason that if you are walking faster for the same amount of time, that you will cover more distance. However if you are just starting out, work on distance before speed. The advantage of increasing your distance first is that you build endurance, i.e. you are able to sustain walking at the same pace over a longer period of time. Once you have built endurance, you can work on increasing your speed.

3) Heavier Weight Matters When You Walk Off Weight

A 120 pound person burns about 65 calories per mile walking at 3 mph on a flat surface. As a comparison, a 180 pound person walking the same distance and at the same pace burns about 95 calories. Numerically speaking, the above facts would lead you to believe that as you lose weight, you would most likely will have to increase your energy expenditure to keep burning the same number of calories. However, what can happen is that as you become fit, your basal metabolic rate increases meaning you naturally burn more calories than you did before.

Healthy Eating When you Walk Off Weight

The other half of walking off weight is to eat healthy. You can’t expect to lose weight by walking and then coming home and gorging yourself with food that is bad for you. Keep in mind that the candy bar you ate takes three to five miles of walking to burn it off! When you’re trying to walk off weight, this can be a huge handicap so be aware of this destructive habit.

A healthy diet should consists of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, foods high in Omega 3 fats (such as tuna, salmon, mackerel, herring, walnuts and avocados) and lean meats.

Generally speaking a woman should eat around 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day; a man 1,500 to 1,600 per day. This should put you on a weight loss of one pound per week. If you lose more than one pound adjust your calorie intake accordingly as you may not be eating enough calories.

When you want to walk off weight and team up walking on a consistent basis along with healthy eating, you’ll be well on your way to losing weight the healthy way. Soon you’ll be enjoying life as a lighter and healthier you.

How Many Calories Do You Burn as You Walk Off Weight?

The number of calories while walking varies from person to person. You may walk the same route at the same speed with a friend who weighs about the same and is of similar age, and one of you will burn more calories than the other. Why is that?

The Other Variable as You Walk Off Weight

Besides weight, age speed and distance, the other variable is fitness level. If one of you is more fit than the other, the one that is most fit will have a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR), meaning that person naturally burns more calories at rest. While you can’t directly control your BMR, you can increase it by improving your fitness level; this is where walking comes in.

Know Your BMR

Regardless if you are walking to lose weight or improve fitness, you have to know your BMR as a starting point. An online search for “Basal Metabolic Rate Calculator” brings up a host of options. Pick one and enter your information – height, weight and age (and sedentary, if it asks for fitness level). The results are the number of calories your body needs each day to maintain your current weight at your current fitness level.

For example, a female weighing 120 pounds, 30 years old and 5 foot 4 inches tall needs to eat 1700 calories per day to maintain her current weight. To lose a pound of weight per week, she has to burn 2400 calories per day.

Calories Burned as You Walk Off Weight

So how far and fast does she have to walk to burn the additional 500 calories per day? On average, our example walking 3 mph for an hour burns 200 calories. And because speed is a factor, it makes sense that if she walked at a faster rate, she would have covered a greater distance over the same amount of time and would have burned even more calories. Having walked at 3.5 mph, would have burned an additional 50 calories.

Now before you think you are going to have to walk 2.5 hours per day, don’t forget that household chores also burn calories, so they factor into your 500 calories per day burned. For example, 30 minutes each of daily activities, such as showering, making beds, doing dishes and laundry, burn over 400 calories. Add in your hour walk and you are at 600 calories burned for the day.

Sometimes all it takes is to add in an hour of brisk walking per day – walking with a purpose – to get the extra calorie burn you need to lose weight. As you become more fit, and your basal metabolic rate increases, so will the number of calories burned at the same activity level. So strap on your walking shoes and get your “walk off weight” routine started!

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

It makes sense that to burn fat and ultimately lose weight, you have to get your body into the fat-burning mode. But just exactly how do you tell your body to burn stored fat instead of pulling from available sugars? By warming up first!

Warm Up Before You Walk to Burn Fat

To wake up your muscles and let them know you are in this for the long haul, walk at a slower pace than normal for five to 10 minutes.

Once you are warmed-up, increase your speed to at least a brisk or moderate pace; your daily goal should be to walk at this pace for at least 30 minutes.

What Does a Brisk Pace Feel Like?

While the speed you walk depends on your fitness level, the way it “feels” to you will be the same. Your breathing rate should increase, but you should still be able to carry on a conversation with your walking partner. Your heart rate should measure from 50% to 70% of your maximum heart rate, 220 minus your age. On a less technical side, it should feel like you are rushing to get to get to an important appointment because you are running late – you know, that quickened pace.

Increasing the Number of Calories Burned

Let’s face it, you are only going to be able to burn a certain number of calories by walking the same distance at the same pace. As your body gets more fit, it will adapt by becoming more efficient. So to increase the number of calories burned, it makes sense that you either have to walk farther or faster (or both). But wait, there is a third option – weights.

By wearing wrist or ankle weights, you increase the amount of work exerted even though you are not walking any further or faster. Your heart beats a little faster- you perspire a little more; your body is working a little harder.

While wearing weights, move your arms in a back and forth pumping motion to burn even more calories, build muscle and lose more weight.

Walking builds muscle. By working your large lower body muscle groups, they become more toned, better defined and stronger. Now your “new” muscles burn more calories (even at rest) than your old ones did because it takes more energy to fuel them than it did before.

By wearing wrist weights, you are also improving your arm and shoulder muscles, making them burn more calories too. All-in-all, it adds up; the “new you” is now a fat burning machine, burning more calories than before. As you burn the calories you’ll burn fat but you have to get started and the best time is now.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

We know that walking at a brisk pace (at least 3 mile per hour) is not only good cardio exercise, but it can help you lose weight. However when combined with other types of cardio exercising, such as water sports, biking and weight training, you can achieve your weight loss goal quicker.

Water Sports and Walking

If you have bad knees, swimming and water aerobics may be ideal forms of cardio training for you. Not only are they low-to-no-impact exercises, they work your heart, lungs and many different muscle groups very effectively. When swimming, use various types of strokes to work different muscle groups and get the maximum upper and lower body benefit. If you enjoy doing water aerobics, add water weights to get even more benefit from your water training routines.

Biking and Walking

Biking is another low impact cardio exercise that is good for weight loss. Not only does it work the larger lower body muscle groups for maximum calorie burn, it builds up those same muscles so they burn more calories even when not exercising.

Anything you can do to make an exercise harder to do or to build muscle will burn more calories. When biking, go faster or further. Instead of biking with the wind, choose to go against it; on a varied course, go the direction that gives you the most uphill rides. You’ll get better workouts and burn more calories.

Weight Training While Walking

To increase the effectiveness of walking, use either light wrist or ankle weights (or both for maximum calorie burn). Walking while wearing just one pound weights will significantly increase the number of calories you burn.

Because walking and biking tend to specifically work the lower body muscle groups, consider adding in a couple days per week of upper body weight training per week to push your weight loss to the next level. You can use dumbbells, free weights or kettlebells; all tend to work your upper body, thus defining and toning those muscle groups. And if you are female, don’t worry about “bulking up”; it just won’t happen because you do not have the necessary level of testosterone needed to build huge muscles.

Each exercise by itself has limitations as far as how much each can affect weight loss, but by combining them, you can burn more calories during each workout and achieve your weight loss goal quicker. Once at goal, keep walking and doing these exercises at a lesser intensity to maintain your weight loss.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

Walking, as a way to improve your health and trim your waistline, requires the use of a good exercise technique – Specifically, a good walking technique involves:

1. Using good form; let’s start with your head and work our way do.
2. Looking forward and not down with your eyes when walking; this way your neck, shoulders and back all stay in a straight vertical straight line with your head.
3. Giving some rhythm to your walk by naturally swinging your arms; to get even more benefit out of your walk and to burn more calories, use light hand weights and “work” your arms in a back-and-forth pumping motion.
4. Tightening your abdominal core when walking. A strong core gives your body good posture and helps keep head, neck, shoulders and back in alignment.
5. Making sure as you take steps forward, your foot contacts the ground on the outside of your heel first and as your step progresses, your weight should shift inside to your arch and then shift back to the ball of your foot and finally to your toes where you push off for your next step.

But you should also bear in mind these three walking technique tips if you’re going to get the most from your walking workouts…

Walking Technique Tip 1 – Exercise (Almost) Daily

The United States Department of Health and Human Services recommends moderate exercise at least 2 1/2 hours each week to stay healthy. For most of us, this can be broken down into 30-minute increments of walking five days per week, interspersed with one day of strength training and resting on the seventh day, to round out your weekly healthy walking plan.

Walking Technique Tip 2 – Set Realistic Goals

If you are extremely out of shape and have not exercised for a while, start slow. Once cleared by your doctor to exercise, try walking five minutes per day for the first week. Increase this amount by five minutes each week. After 6 weeks, you will be walking 30 minutes per day.

If you can’t find a 30-minute chunk of time to walk, you get the same benefit by walking twice a day for 15 minutes each time or even three 10-minute daily walks.

Walking Technique Tip 3 – Track Your Progress

Tracking your progress is the part that gives you the motivation to stick to your healthy walking plan. Today, there are several electronic “tools” on the market to make tracking easy. Invest in a good pedometer or accelerometer to keep track of how many steps you walk each day. Your goal, between walking and other steps you take each day, should add up to 10,000 per day.

Benefits of Using the Correct Walking Technique

Besides losing weight and getting healthier, following a walking plan can lift your mood, improve coordination, strengthen bones, and even prevent or negate the effects of various illnesses, such as heart disease, high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.

To make walking even easier, enlist a friend or family member to walk with you. Both of you will reap the benefits of walking when consistently using a healthy walking technique.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

What if You Were Told to Stop Dieting?

Doesn’t that sound fabulous? The problem with many people today is that they have been told several myths about nutrition and dieting. The problem with most diets is they do not deliver all of the nutritional goodies that your body needs. So your body begins to crave things which are not healthy for you in its search of what is lacking.

Your diet fails, and you gain weight. If you stop dieting today and start eating “real” food that is whole and unprocessed, you will not only achieve and maintain a healthy weight, but you will improve your heart health and your chances at living a long and fitful life.

Another untruth which you may have been told is to follow a fat-free diet to lose weight. Did you know that many fat-free foods are chock-full of unhealthy nitrates and sugars? Your body actually needs fat in your diet, as long as it is healthy fats. These are found in the whole, unprocessed foods like nuts, fruits and vegetables.

These are usually very low in calories and extremely high in the essential vitamins and nutrients that your body does need. So instead of gaining weight by eating a sugar-filled fat-free diet, you lose weight and fat.

When foods are modified to last longer on store shelves, the effect is unnatural. Remember that most one ingredient foods like an apple or banana are perfect as is.

Did you know removing the pulp to make apple juice causes it to lose most of its value for both overall health and weight loss? A typical apple contains just 72 calories and a healthy 3 grams of fiber. But 8 ounces of store-bought apple juice nearly doubles the calorie count to 120, and you receive no helpful fiber at all.

Stop Dieting and Stick to Whole Foods

Stick to whole foods and your weight loss efforts are rewarded. When you stop “dieting” and simply eat what you already know you should, unprocessed foods like dried beans and peas, whole grains, fish and lean meat, you will find your body quickly heading in the direction of its ideal weight. You will also find that you can eat more while consuming fewer calories and “bad fats”, and this in turn helps you drop the pounds.

This is because natural vegetables, fruits and whole grains are extremely high in complex carbohydrates and fiber that help regulate your digestive system.

When your digestive system is not working perfectly, your body begins to store fat. And the reason why many people today overeat is because processed foods have much less nutrition, vitamins and nutrients than a natural diet delivers.

Stop Dieting and Stop Eating Processed Foods

Processed food is also chock full of preservatives, sugars, sodium, trans and saturated fats. These will lead to fat and weight gain, and also take years off of your life. And since your body notices less fiber and nutrients coming in, you eat more of those bad foods to attempt to get what your body is so powerfully craving.

One of the great benefits of today’s technologically advanced information-filled society is the ready knowledge that fruits, vegetables and whole grains form a healthy diet.

Yes, doughnuts and fatty salad dressings taste great. But they can lead to fat and weight gain, and a multitude of health problems. To stop dieting, stick to whole, unprocessed foods for the bulk of your diet when you want to lose weight and gain total body health.

An Introduction to the Belly Fat Epidemic

Millions of people struggle with weight loss. One of the primary areas in which fat collects is around the midsection. We’re talking about abdominal fat or belly fat. And as you get older, the fat continues to accumulate around the midsection. It’s so common that we even have names for it. We call it the “spare tire,” “beer belly,” “muffin top,” or “love handles.”

Why is Belly Fat is So Difficult to Get Rid Of?

There are many different reasons why fat likes to accumulate in the midsection, and those reasons are the same explanations for why it’s so difficult to get rid of. Let’s start by exploring why belly fat is so difficult to get rid of and then we’ll dive into what belly fat is, why it’s so dangerous and how to get rid of it for good. Because it is possible to have a trim and healthy waistline.

Age and Hormones

Two things happen as you age. The first is that your metabolism slows down. So this means that you automatically burn less fat and calories during a standard day. The trouble is that you’re still probably consuming the same number of calories. The extra calories are stored as fat.

The second reason that fat accumulates as you age has everything to do with your changing hormones. Both men and women begin to see a decline in their sex hormones. We’re talking about testosterone and estrogen in this case. The decreasing amount of these hormones changes where the body stores fat. In both men and women, more visceral fat is stored.

Another way that these hormones impact fat storage and weight gain is through sleep changes. In women particularly, the hormonal change affects sleep quality. Sleep has been directly linked to appetite hormones like leptin. It may feel like your body is working against you. Your hormone levels drop, making you store more fat and making you hungrier.

Stress and Belly Fat

Stress is one of the biggest causes of belly fat. Cortisol is a hormone that is released when a person is under stress. The body shifts all of its focus to help you survive a fight or flight situation – even if you’re not in any actual danger.

Your brain cannot tell the difference between stress from rush hour traffic frustrations and a bear chasing you. It reacts the same way, which is to essentially shut down digestion and shift energy to help your muscles. Your heart rate and breathing increase, and all your fuel is stored as fat.

Yep, cortisol tells your body to store your energy and calories as fat. It tends to store it right in your midsection.

Good Old Fashioned Genetics

You can take a look at your family members and know whether or not you’re prone to belly fat. It tends to be genetic. There are three basic body types; mesomorph, ectomorph, or endomorph.

Male endomorphs tend to store fat in their abdomens and often have the “beer belly” that has become common. Female endomorphs tend to be curvy and store their fat in their backsides and breasts. They’ll be described as pear shaped or have an hourglass figure.

Mesomorphs, if you’re curious, tend to be muscular and athletic, while ectomorphs tend to be tall and thin. Female mesomorphs may store fat in their abdomen and can be described as apple shaped. Of course there are many different combinations of these body types and there is evidence that specific genes determine how many fat cells you have, as well as where those fat cells are most abundant.

Your Diet

You’re probably not surprised to learn that what you eat has an impact on your body fat. In fact, diets that are high in sugar and starchy carbohydrates cause insulin resistance. When your body is becoming insulin resistant it stores fuel as fat rather than signaling your cells to uptake the calories for fuel.

You eat more because you’re tired and your cells need the fuel. Unfortunately, this cycle leads to fat accumulation in your abdomen and eventually it can lead to diabetes. This is one of the reasons it’s important to recognize fat accumulating on your stomach and to take steps to get rid of it.

Childbirth and Your Abdomen

Childbirth doesn’t make you gain belly fat. What it does do for women is change the look of your stomach. After having a baby a woman may find that her stomach has lost its muscular tone. The good news is that even after having many children, a woman can get her flat stomach back.

Abdominal fat isn’t fun, and it makes clothing difficult to find and uncomfortable to wear, but there’s more to belly fat than meets the eye. In fact, belly fat is the most dangerous type of fat. Let’s take a look at the research behind the dangers of belly fat and then we’ll move into a discussion about how to get rid of belly fat.