According to the World Health Organization, obesity is considered the number one health problem in the world. This opens up a huge market to immoral individuals interested in taking people's money rather than actually helping them improve their health.

Because of this many diet fads have come and gone through recent decades. There's always a new "quick fix" around the corner.

However, the path to a healthy weight does not have to be complicated. The simple truth is that weight is controlled by calories in versus calories out. Not to say that where the calories come from is not also important. The source of the calories certainly directly affects ones health. But what the scale reads is directly related to the amount of calories consumed versus the amount that are burned.

So to see a reduction in weight, one should decrease their caloric intake appropriately while also increasing the amount of calories burned. About 60% of calories burned by an individual are due to the Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). The RMR cannot be influenced by physical activity. RMR is affected by genetics, age, gender, surface area, and hormones.

About 30% of the energy a person uses comes from physical activity. This is an area that can be greatly influenced by an individual's exercise regimen, or lack of.

An easy way to quickly start making positive effects on the 30% that you can control is utilizing the F.I.T.T. principle. This acronym stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time and Type.

Frequency: As you might expect, this refers to how often you will exercise. After any form of exercise is performed your body completes a process of rebuilding and repairing. So, determining the frequency of exercise is important in order to find a balance that provides just enough stress for the body to adapt and also allows enough rest time for healing.

Intensity: Defined as the amount of effort or work that must be invested in a specific exercise workout. This too requires a good balance to ensure that the intensity is hard enough to overload the body but not so difficult that it results in overtraining, injury or burnout.

Time: Again, this is rather self-explanatory. Time is simply how long each individual session should last. This will vary based on the intensity and type.

Type: What type of exercise will you be doing? Will an exercise session be primarily cardiovascular, resistance training or a combination of both? And what specific exercises will you perform?

Use the F.I.T.T. principle to start making positive changes in your weight and health immediately. It can help guide you in choosing aerobic and anaerobic workouts (both important variables to see decreases in weight and in body fat) that will be the most effective to help you meet your goals.

Watch for Part II of How Nutrition Effects Your Health to learn how all calories are not created the same and why the source of your calories is also important.

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