Your weight success can be as simple as taking control of your lifestyle and making positive choices, including healthy eating and regular exercise.

As fad diets come and go, making lifestyle changes that help you achieve your healthy weight is fast becoming the cornerstone of most nutrition strategies. As part of efforts to fight our nation’s obesity and diabetes epidemics, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight makes sense.

But what exactly does healthy weight mean and what value does it offer?

Healthy weight is not a new concept but its approach toward weight loss differs from other diets. While many diets focus on look as good as a movie star in order to keep you motivated, healthy weight focuses on well-being and lifestyle.

First promoted as part of the Mayo Clinic Diet over a decade ago, it stresses the “lifestyle change that can help you maintain a healthy weight for a lifetime.” At the heart of the program is balancing your basal metabolic rate, that is the number of calories you consume with the number of calories your body uses. This is key to the healthy weight solution.

According to the Mayo Clinic:

Your age, gender and body mass index (BMI) determine your “basal metabolic rate,” or how many calories you need each day to stay at your current weight. You need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose one pound (.45 kilograms).

So subtract 500 calories each day from your base rate for a daily calorie goal that helps you lose about a pound a week.

Burning extra calories through physical activity may increase your weight loss, so you may want to adjust your calorie intake if you’re more active.

Three things you need to know about achieving and maintaining your healthy weight include:

1. Know your Body Mass Index (BMI), which is calculated from yours weight and height. BMI provides a useful indicator of body proportionality and for most people can be used to screen for weight that may lead to health issues.

2. Depending on if you need to lose weight or maintain your healthy weight, calculate your calorie recommendations as determined by Mayo Clinic. Go to the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid.

3. Set goals to achieve and maintain your healthy weight and stay reminded of them using CraveMate or free CraveMateLite. The apps can help you stay focused as you work toward your long-term plan.

Don’t delay. Know your numbers and get started today — just for the health of it.

Via: cravemate