Meal Replacements and Exercise Are Stepping Stones to Weight Loss

Like millions of Americans, or Canadians for that matter, you may be struggling with a weight loss problem. It’s not entirely your fault; the society in which we’ve chosen to live, and the way we’ve opted to let it grow, makes it difficult to have an active lifestyle.

Think about it: a great many people work sitting down, for hours on end, in front of a computer, and hardly get any exercise. Our towns and cities are for the most part designed for people who drive, so any incidental exercise is almost entirely out of the equation! To make matters worse, we have to chosen simplicity for our food choices, which it turns it is not simple at all! Processed food may just be one of the greatest evils ever unleashed upon western civilization, if only in terms of a long term, stealth health hazard!

Like almost everything, losing weight is a matter of mathematics, so to speak. A single pound of accumulated fat is, for all intents and purposes, 3,500 extra calories over your individual requirement over a given period of time. For example, if your daily protein requirement is 2,000 calories, you need 14,000 calories per week. In any given week, if you eat the equivalent of 17,500 calories, you’ll have gained a pound. If you eat 10,500 calories, you’ll have lost one. It’s as simple as that.

Getting active is a great way to get started on your road to weight loss. Of course, depending on your individual situation, getting active can mean many different things. Perhaps walking at a stately pace for 30 minutes is the most you can do, or you may be able to get on an Elliptical trainer for a full hour with no difficulties. You need to find something that you can fit into your daily schedule, and that you enjoy, so you don’t get tired of it.

Controlling your caloric intake is of paramount importance to your weight loss efforts. You need to know exactly what you’re ingesting; you don’t necessarily need to cut down spectacularly (again, depending on your circumstances) but you need to know the total, at the end of the day, so you can take action. Having a list of what you eat over a day or a week makes it easy to either cut down on needless snacking, or to take action in other ways. For example, if you know that you eat 3,000 calories’ worth of chips (crisps) a week, you know that you need to exercise for at least that amount to offset it.

One of the simplest ways to cut your caloric intake with no pain, no fuss and no complications is to replace one of your meals with a health meal replacement option, such as ViSalus. I would personally recommend cutting out dinner, as it is the meal that tends to make us accumulate fat the most, but any meal cut lets you get closer to your fat loss goal. Always make sure to replace the meal with a substitute that contains all the nutrients, proteins and vitamins that your body needs to work. You’re trying to cut out calories, not starve yourself!