focus on balancing vegetables, fruits, whole grains and low-fat protein. stay away from saturated fats and trans fats, sodium, and added sugar.

Strength training and flexibility exercises are crucial to include in your routine. pairing aerobic workouts with strength training is the most effective way for reducing body weight, waist circumference, overall fat mass and belly fat.

recommended that adults get 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week.

exercise burns calories and reduces visceral fat levels. It strengthens your heart and lungs, builds lean muscle mass, improves sleep, energy levels and mood.

diet and exercising complement each other in weight loss.

you can eat a 250 calorie candy bar in a few minutes, which would take an hour of brisk walking to burn the same amount.

it is easier to take in calories than it is to burn them when exercising.That is why diet is crucial to successful weight loss.

since it is normal to lose muscle weight, but gain fat as you age, the BMI scale effectiveness weakens with age.

someone who has a normal BMI, but too much body fat, is called normal weight obesity. Someone who is considered in this range has the same or greater health risks than someone who is obese.

For men, the circumference of the stomach that is 40 or more inches indicates unhealthy proportions.

a waist circumference of 35 inches or more indicates the body to be unhealthy.

strength training leads to less belly fat.

beer causes more fat to be stored in the stomach, while wine directs it other places.

fat in the abdomen affects your health much more than fat on the hips.

not exactly how much fat you have, but rather where it is placed is a significant factor in those who need to lose weight.

BMI is an iffy measure to determine if you need to lose weight. It doesn't take in account the muscle density. someone who has a lot of lean muscle may have a high BMI, but someone who has a lot of fat and little muscle may have a healthy ranged BMI.

a huge weight loss is not always required. Losing a mere 5-10% of your initial body fat can have some serious health benefits.

over 2/3 of adults in the U.S. are obese or over weight.

As you lose weight, your body mass and composition changes. This means that the caloric intake needed in a day changes. While the 500 cut calories helped you lose a pound a week, it may start to help you maintain your weight since a smaller size burns less calories.

It is estimated that 3,500 calories is comparison to one pound. To achieve the goal of 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss a week, you must cut out 500-1000 calories a day.

weight loss of 1 to 2 pounds a week seems to be the most successful method to keeping the weight off.

You must achieve the goal of eating less calories or burning more calories a day. It is crucial to weight loss.

Sleeping less than six hours or more than eight hours a night could cause you to weigh more.

Your basal metabolic rate(BMR) is the energy needed to do daily things, such as breathing, circulating bloo,d adjusting hormones and reproducing cells.

When you hit the plateau, consider reducing the caloric intake even more or revving up your workout to burn more calories.

When you lose weight, you normally lose some muscle along with the fat. Muscle burns more calories than fat. When you lose the muscle, your metabolism slows down, causing the constant caloric intake that used to help you lose weight is no longer working.

a weight-loss plateau is what happens to everyone when trying to lose weight. At first, you have steady numbers dropping, but then, even though you stick to the same routine, you are not losing any weight.

Ask yourself: what is going to be your motivation to lose the weight? how will you get off the couch and work out more? How will you prevent yourself from over eating?

Understanding what you want out of this new lifestyle is also a key step in becoming successful in weight loss. Also, understanding what your current motivators are, in regards to your eating and exercise habits.

Everyone knows the common steps to take towards weight loos: eat less, exercise more, but it becomes increasingly hard coming to the next step, which is applying it to your life.

This article held a lot of very good information for me to use. The author integrated a lot of factors for successful dieting. I will use this at the end when my narrator finally loses all the weight she wanted.

It was easier for Barbara to follow this new found "diet" because she was given step-by-step instructions of what to do and it eventually became natural for her to follow them.

When a group was given a two hour lecture on the alternatives to overeating, they had a completely different mindset on how they perceived their current lifestyle.

At her one year check-in, Barbara was following the rules of the alternatives and avoided most dangerous foods.

A lot of mental help was given to Barbara to prepare her for the upcoming changes. Articles, audio books, paperback books, and therapy sessions were the major keys in helping her outlook.

It is also important to give pros and cons of the previous lifestyle, and of the one about to be taken on. This way you understand the effects of both.

When you start a diet, you should talk to a therapist about your commitment to taking over this new lifestyle. You cannot be committed partially, it has to be full time for it to be effective.

The first steps in helping Barbara lose the weight for good was to help her switch her 7 deadly "sins" of overeating and replacing it with alternatives.

A study was done on Barbara, who had tried many diets in her adult years, but eventually gained back the weight and then some.

When eating more processed, salty, high-fat foods at night sparks the night eating syndrome because your body gets so used to craving these foods late at night.

Listed in the table are several habits that pertain to overeating. One that sticks out is the task snacking. This is eating while doing other activities; such as watching tv, cleaning or just being on your phone.

Hormone deficiency has been used in the matter of discussion of why does overeating occur.

After a year, 80% of people who went on a low calorie diet have regained their weight back. This helped generate the conclusion that dieting does not work.

The study that has been given the best results seems to be a diet where the calories are decreased in correlation to the physical activity during the day increase.

This article showed a study between different carb level diets, particularly low-carb and very-low-carb. This is a very good article to use in my paper. I will use the experiment to help give way of what the narrator has gone through with her weight loss journey.

Trying a "very low carb diet" does not give guidelines for how much fats or proteins to have in a day, which could end up sparking the cholesterol levels and eventually lead to some cardiovascular diseases.

A diet with less cholesterol and an increase of protein is the most efficient when it comes to getting the daily dosage of nutrients and energy.

When you have the recommended, or above, serving of fruits and veggies, it reduces the risk factor of cardiovascular diseases and some cancers.

constipation and nutritional deficiencies have been a major effect of poor vegetable and fruit intake.

glucose is the main energy source for most body cells.

While going low on fats, the protein intake needs to be increased.

popular diets praise low-fat meals for weight control, with less saturated fats and sugars.

This article showed an effective way to start a weight loss journey. I will use this in attempts to describe how the narrator finally lost the amount of weight she needed and how she began her healthy lifestyle.

The results from the experiment showed that when you participate in a diet program, the quality is much higher when looking at the quality of the diet.

Fiber intake is a must when you are looking to have an effective diet.

The increase in diet quality was resulting from the decrease in sugar intake and an increase in fruits and vegetables.

Those who had a 5% or greater weight loss were the ones who took in less fat.

Nutrition is a major concern with diet plans. Many of them look at completely cutting a food group, less calories, or no fat.

The total of fruit, milk, meat and beans increased, while grains and carbs decreased in the program.

The 16 week program resulted in a drastic change in healthy eating.

Weight loss is good, but the diet quality and the factors within the diet are what is the most important.

2/3 of adult Americans are overweight or obese.

Women are put in a 16 week diet program and the results are that all of them had a significant weight loss, but lacked some major nutrients.

This article discussed the difference between plant foods and a meal replacement diet. I will use this in attempts to show all the various diets my narrator has tried, but not succeeded with.

Although weight loss was significant, the energy level did not change.

All subjects showed a decrease in all those blocking their blood flow and causing them to be intolerable to insulin.

The results of the study showed significant weight loss for all the subjects, but only a few hit the mark that they predicted.

Taking on a very low caloric diet can result in weight loss, but also a lot of unfavorable additives , as well.

Obesity is reaching new high numbers, which is taking a toll on the quality of life and health.

When an obese person loses a large amount of weight, they will experience binge eating due to the fact that they cut their usually large portions.

The majority of people who lose a large amount of weight regain it.

This article was an experiment on how different variety of meal sizes and amounts throughout the day. Results showed that to burn more fat, it is recommended to eat more meals than if you are just trying to lose mass. I will use this to show the type of diet my narrator will be on.

Eating more frequent meals has also been a factor in helping build and tone muscles.

Since 1-2 meals a day changes your body mass tremendously, it is also resulted that 1-2 meals a day will change your body fat percentage. This is because you are dropping the mass, so the percentage will automatically go down, even in the slightest.

For those looking to lose body mass, not containing fat, it is proven that 1-2 meals a day will help guide that.

As another graph showed, the most substantial difference in fat mass is when 5 or more meals were eaten in a day, compared to 1-2 meal or 3-4 meals.

A graph shows that have 5 or more meals a day is the key to weight loss.

Studies showed that smaller portions were not a substantial key to change in body mass, but a very large factor in fat mass.

High protein foods frequent throughout the day are very beneficial to fat burning and energy preserving.

Eating smaller portions more frequently is the key to successful weight loss and weight maintenance.

This article was very helpful in the aspect of giving a variety of concepts for healthy weight, maintaining it, and how it could be betrayed. I will use this for many resources throughout my creative writing research paper.

If you can't start the diet yourself, or seem to be comfortable setting up the plan for yourself, there are many weight loss programs that can help you set a set of what to eat and what times to do certain things.

Finding the motivation through another person can certainly be a great way to stay on track with your dieting and weight loss.

Keeping a diet will help you stay on track with what you ate and how much activity you did. You can also write down your weight once a week, or how much you please, to show how the change in diet is affecting your weight.

When you set goals for yourself, you tend to strive for it more than you would if you just said you wanted to lose weight.

Having an hour to an hour & a half of exercise everyday will make sure to maintain your health, even if it is just something small.

Having most of the weight resting on your stomach puts you more at risk of health issues than having the weight on your hips or thighs.

Your emotional state can seriously impact your weight and lifestyle.

A child who has obese parents will follow in their footsteps of having an unhealthy lifestyle.

Always switching back and forth between gaining and losing weight will slow down your metabolism to compensate for the frequent body and health changes.

Partaking in stressful events or activities continuously will cause fat to be stored in the body and make weight gain very relevant.

If you don't get the normal amount of sleep that your body needs to rejuvenate itself, it will promote weight gain.

Your body doesn't fully register the food as fast as you eat it, so by eating faster, you will consume more since you don't feel as full as you should.

Always taking your car, bus, train, airplane, etc. to places makes you less prone to do any physical activity. The fact that it is easy to get ahold of these transportation methods are one of the causes of weight gain.

Weight varies with age. It is evident that you do not exercise or participate in as many physical activities when you age, as you did when you were younger. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle at all times helps prevent massive weight gain while aging.

It is not only eating healthy, but exercising just as much as you eat.

Some of the health problems that are related to being overweight and not eating healthy.

Having a healthy lifestyle not only makes your appearance better, but your internals healthy and look better as well.

This article brings honesty to a whole new level. The author experiments what the effects of being brutally honest has on relationships with people. The author explains how difficult it is to be honest in every situation. Sometimes it is beneficial to tell the whole truth, but saying a white lie very once in a while is healthy. I will use this to explain the main components of a healthy relationship.

By being radically honest, it sparks conversation and discussion between two or more people. When He shared that he sometimes refers to his wife as his sister, his wife found it humorous and it got a lot off of his chest.

There's a difference between willingly telling everything you think about and telling the truth. He went out of his way to call his friend and say that he fantasizes about his wife, when he didn't have to say anything to him at all.

This paragraph is another example how being too honest can affect a relationship. He blurted out during a business meeting that he would sleep with the editor if he were single.

I feel like being brutally honest could potentially affect a relationship. As in this instance, his wife was upset that he said he did not want to hear the rest of her story.

In this article, the author uses farting as a key ingredient in finding your true love. She uses stages to describe that farting is a very big step when in a relationship. I will use this to support the idea that our love is out there.

Funny way of looking at such a small thing. Why is farting such a big deal?

When you choose to open up to your significant other, meaning farting in front of them, some may end up being turned on or become even more sexually attracted to you.

Some couples can love the flaws of each other, but some times farts are just too much for the other person. So, we turn to turning on the water while going to the bathroom or having the other person cover their ears.

When you are able to fart in front of your significant other, it is a sign of true love.

The argument is that short men make better husbands. It is not that they arr desperate to find someone, but they are desperate to be in love and to please someone. This article explains that short men have matured and have a better view on life, and therefore make better husbands. I will use this to support my love argument.

He does look short, but the way he presents himself in the drawing makes him seem as if he is not actually short. He became "blind" to his own shortness.

Weird way of saying short men are more attractive to women...

I'm not understanding how resources has to do with the marriage and how short men make better husbands???

The fact of the matter is that everyone cheats. No one can be totally in love with their spouse that they stay faithful for the rest of their long-lived lives together. The author of this piece hooked up with many married men, and realized that she will never find love because she knows what is to come of it. This article explains that love is just a title and that you are bound to be cheated on/cheat. I will use this source to counter the other arguments on the matter of true love.

This is VERY powerful to me. It reminds me of this show I watch where a guy and girl get married, but the girl's sister comes into play AFTER the marriage and wants the husband. You only want it when you can't have it. If you can have it, it's too convenient.

The feeling of new hands on your body is an exciting and pleasurable feeling. The guilt of cheating is not there, as you are too busy enjoying the stranger in your presence

This is why most people cheat, they're "new". They need something new in their life and not always stick to the same thing every day.

His wife probably believed this pity of a lie, since it seemed to be such a simple and normal thing for her husband to be doing.

I agree with this statement. I think that no one is truly faithful to their partner 100%.

Gross visual.

This says something about Illinois and the population that lays here.

Ironic that Ronald McDonald was outside of a promotion tent for growing, when all McDonald's uses is unnatural and processed foods which are not grown nor will help anyone grow...

The use of metaphors gives the reader a more inside view on what is being see through the author's eyes. This one, in particular, helped me imagine completely what was in front of David.

Yep, I definitely agree with this. He is not promoting or trying to lure people to go to this fair, he is just simply stating his opinion on it.