Healthy Food Choices Has a Big Impact

---

Healthy food choices can have a big impact on your calorie count when managing your weight control. However, it's important to remember that weight management isn't just about counting calories. So, exercise a little and get good sleep. Long-term weight management is all about finding the right balance between calorie intake and physical activity. Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables can help you achieve successful weight control.

Eating twice the amount of the same food means consuming twice the number of calories. However, many fruits and vegetables are lower in calories and can be enjoyed in larger portions to leave you feeling fuller and more satisfied. Overall, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight requires a balanced approach that takes into account calorie intake, physical activity, food quality, and individual needs. Focusing solely on calories disregards the overall quality of different foods.

Tracking Identifies Good and Bad Habits

If you are someone who doesn’t like to plan ahead, don't worry. You can still learn from tracking your choices to figure out what's hindering your progress. Benefits of tracking food and exercise habits include:

1) What you should eat when – Having knowledge of what you should eat and when to consume those calories is important to making adjustments for energy expenditure at different times of the day.

2) Identify any overindulgences – Identifying any overindulgences can help you determine which foods were actually worth the setback to achieving your goals and what adjustments are needed to your nutrition plan.

3) Learn more about nutrition – It’s important to learn more about nutrition. For example, carbs fuel your muscles but fiber-filled veggies and healthy proteins help you manage your weight.

4) Alert you of needed actions – Tracking alerts you of needed actions by following the cause and effect of any nasty habits that you may have tried to ignore. It provides the incentive to push you to take action.

Resistance Training Can Use Your Own Body Weight

When you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. Strength training and aerobic exercise helps to maintain and increase lean body mass, which in turn increases the number of calories your body burns each day. Weight training can involve anything from free weights to resistance machines or even using your own body weight. But, weight training does not raise your heart rate as much as cardio, so strive for a balance for better results.

Fitness experts at Concordia University in Saint Paul recommend a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate cardio each week to maintain and even more if you're trying to lose weight. Weight loss is a combination of losing fat, lean tissue, and water. By reducing calorie intake and increasing physical activity, you can tap into those stored fat calories for energy and burning more calories than you consume is essential for healthy weight loss.