The 7 Keys To Permanent Weight Loss

As a weight-loss expert, I am often asked: What are the keys to losing weight? or What are your best weight-loss strategies? Every time I am asked this question, I give a different answer because weight loss is so complex and multi-faceted. Well, today, I decided to flesh out the most important strategies. These keys provide a great foundation and an excellent start.

The Top 7 Weight-Loss Keys

• Diet
• Exercise
• Water
• Sleep
• Stress
• Laughter
• Patience

Key #1 – Diet

Calories

Estimate your daily caloric intake by:

1. Taking your height in inches
2. Subtracting 60
3. Multiplying by 50
4. Adding 1300

• Never eat fewer than 1200 calories a day. This prevents your metabolism from slowing down.
• Spread your daily calories over 4 – 6 meals. This will boost your metabolism.
• Never go more than 12 hours without eating, this includes time spent sleeping. This prevents your metabolism from slowing down.

Carbohydrates – Follow these strategies to stabilize your blood sugar.

• Avoid white carbs. These include white bread, white rice, white potatoes, white flour, white sugar, and white pasta.
• Avoid other bad carbs such as high fructose corn syrup, other syrups, and other sugars.
• Eat your beans, other legumes, fruits, and whole-grains before noon.
• Eat your vegetables after noon

Proteins – Eating protein boosts your metabolism and is essential for building muscle.

Estimate your daily protein intake in grams by:

1. Taking your estimated daily caloric intake
2. Dividing by 20

Fats – You need fats, but all fats were not created equal.

Avoid saturated fats and trans fats

Key #2 – Exercise

• Strength train for 30 – 45 minutes, 2-3 times a week. Focus on exercises for your: glutes (butt), quads (front thigh), hamstrings (rear thigh), lats (back), pecs (chest), and delts (shoulders). These are your largest muscles in size and your biggest calorie burners.
• Do an aerobic exercise, which involves the legs, for 30 minutes, 2-3 times a week
• Get a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day

Key #3 – Water

Drink enough water to make your urine clear or close to clear. This helps to maintain your health and prevent your metabolism from slowing down.

Key #4 – Sleep

Sleep at least 7 hours every night. This helps to maintain your proper hormonal balance, stabilize your blood sugar, and decrease hunger.

Key #5 – Stress

Don’t sweat the small stuff and eliminate as much stress as you can. This helps to maintain your proper hormonal balance, stabilize your blood sugar, and decrease hunger.

Key #6 – Laugh

Laugh as much as humanly possible. Watch comedies, read funny books, and laugh at yourself. This helps to decrease stress.

Key #7 – Patience

Be patient. Losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. Large temporary lifestyle changes lead to fast temporary weight loss. Small permanent lifestyle changes lead to slow permanent weight loss.

Each of these keys is essential to losing and keeping off the pounds. If you address the first 6 keys and practice patience, the pounds will fall off and stay off.

Bonus Key

This is a good weight loss foundation. However for a comprehensive and inexpensive weight loss program, check out the ‘Don’t Go Broke’ Weight Loss Plan.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**

Poor Americans Don’t Live as Long

I read this interesting article in the New York Times. The article is about the widening gap in life expectancy between Americans of different races and socioeconomic levels.

The article gives a great definition of life expectancy, which is “the average number of years of life remaining for people who have attained a given age.”

It is widely know that the gap between the haves and have-nots in America is increasing. However, I always thought this was limited to salary, income, and net worth. The United States is the richest country in the world and we supposedly have the best health care to go along with that. So, why should the life expectancy be so different?

The Problem

The researchers have a few explanations. They attribute the differences to education, health insurance, and racism.

Educated Americans:

• Have more money
• Smoke less
• Live in better neighborhoods
• Engage is fewer risky behaviors
• Engage in fewer unhealthy behaviors
• Have better health literacy
• Are more likely to look for health information online
• Are more assertive in regards to their health
• Are more compliant with medical treatments

Americans with Health Insurance are:

• More likely to attempt disease prevention strategies
• More likely to get check-ups
• More likely to have regular screening tests
• More likely to get and use prescription drugs
• More likely to have a disease diagnosed early

Americans in Minority Groups:

• Get less aggressive care
• Are given less medical information from health care workers
• Are assumed to be “less appropriate candidates” for certain procedures

The Solution

All Americans can increase their life expectancy regardless of their socioeconomic level, race, or health insurance status. While the income gap and the life expectancy gap is widening, the information access gap is narrowing. If you are reading this post, you obviously have Internet access. The World Wide Web can provide you with most of the health information you need. With a few simple lifestyle changes, we can all live into our hundreds.

Action Plan

• Get your health information from quality sites, such as WebMD and Mayo Clinic
• Get your age and sex appropriate screening test done ASAP
• Stop smoking
• Stop having unprotected sex
• Adopt a healthy nutrition and activity plan, such as the Don't Go Broke Weight Loss Plan.
  

I know it is a shameless plug, but I had to do it.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**

Dr. Kal Sheds 135 Pounds

My success story was published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution today. I am very happy about it. You can check it out online here.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**

Doctor Prescribed Laughs #8

The Second Best Weight Loss Plan

Obviously, the best weight loss program is the Don't Go Broke Weight Loss Plan.

Losing weight is not as simple as they make it appear in the clip. However, following those simple steps would be a great start.

This clip was hilarious. I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Want to lose weight without breaking the bank. Lose weight permanently with the Don't Go Broke Weight Loss Plan.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**

Doctor Prescribed Laughs #7

Consider Using Elastic Bands

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you must strength train. However if you lack coordination, consider using elastic bands instead of free weights.

This clip was hilarious. I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Want to lose weight without breaking the bank. Lose weight permanently with the Don't Go Broke Weight Loss Plan.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**

Doctor Prescribed Laughs #6

Doctor Prescribed Laughs is explained here.

One of the Many Benefits of Working Out

If you follow Dr. Kal's Don't Go Broke Nutrition Plan and Don't Go Broke Activity Plan, you too can have these results. I'm just kidding.

This clip was hilarious. I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**

Strategies for Overweight Children - Establish a Junk Food Age Requirement

The obesity epidemic is now spreading to our children, as I discussed in this post.

Growing up I was an overweight child and an obese teen. I know the adverse effects this has had on my life. So, I am passionate about helping reverse this deadly trend. I wrote this article discussing strategies for overweight children.

In this article, I argue that the government should establish a fast food age requirement similar to the age requirement that was established for smoking many years ago.

Check out the article and tell me what you think.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**

F.M.U. - How to Grow Wings or Get a Wide Back

I wrote a blog post on Israel's Fat Man Unleashed Blog.

The post is about how to not get a cold this winter. Check out the post here.

**Please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or certified fitness professional before starting or changing your diet or exercise program.**