How important can 250 calories be? That’s just one extra slice of cheese pizza, another small piece of cake or one regular-sized Snickers® bar.
As it turns out, 250 calories can be pretty important. Burning 250 more calories per day can be the difference between losing one pound per week and maintaining your present weight. Eating an extra 250 calories can have the opposite effect. Over the course of a year, they can add up to 52 pounds!
Suddenly, 250 calories are very important.
When it comes to healthy living and weight maintenance, every little bit matters. So, as you consciously choose not to eat as much pizza and cake as usual, you can accellerate your weight loss by doing these eight simple things:
#1: Take the Stairs
Taking 10 minutes to use the stairs can burn as many as 120 calories. Doing this just twice a day will almost accomplish the goal of burning 250 additional calories a day.
#2: Park Further Away
Every step counts. Even if it only adds 1/10th of a mile to your walk, if you do it every day to and from work it ends up being 52 miles of additional walking in a year.
#3: Stay Active
Spend the last few minutes of every hour out of your chair. Stretch, walk around, play air guitar, or whatever it takes to get moving. These actions won’t burn all that many calories, but they will help activate your body to burn more throughout the day.
#4: Put your gym between work and home
Make it so that the decision to go to the gym is an easy one. It will be much more difficult to avoid the gym if you pass by it every day.
#5: Eat Breakfast
Skipping breakfast can cause a number of problems, one of which is that you tend to overeat at the next meal. Even if you only eat an apple or banana, this will help deter binge eating.
#6: Plan Ahead
Good planning can be the difference between making healthy and unhealthy choices. Pack your gym bag the night before and plan and cook meals in advance. That way you can just grab what you need in the morning.
#7: Drink Water
Staying hydrated allows your body to operate at an optimum level with all metabolic functions working.
#8: Portion Control
Four ounces is the standard for one serving of meat. This is about the size of a deck of playing cards. Typical portion sizes in America are more than eight ounces. Controlling just this portion can cut hundreds of calories every week.
Guest post by Ellsworth Smith, Mercy Weight Mangement intern from Kent State University, a Canton, Ohio native, and a fan of exercising, eating, high fives, learning and Harry Potter. A veteran of the United States Navy, Ellsworth holds a bachelor’s degree in exercise physiology and in nutrition and dietetics. He is currently completing his master’s of science in nutrition.
