Why am I fat?

Gaining unwanted weight is a result of two behaviors; not exercising enough and eating too much. Maintaining a healthy weight is done by adhering to a simple phrase: move more, eat less. If you’re wondering why you’re fat, you need to look no further than your diet and exercise habits.

Are you actually fat?

Before you go any further, you need to figure out if you’re actually overweight. Comparing yourself to beauty magazines or celebrities isn’t the right way to measure your ideal weight.

Body mass index or BMI is a quick and easy way to figure out if you’re normal or overweight. It compares your weight to your height and gives you a ratio that categorizes your weight as underweight, normal, overweight or obese. You can use the BMI calculator for help figuring out what your BMI is. Once you’ve figured out whether or not you are within your healthy weight range (aka are you fat), read on to learn how you’ve gotten yourself into this mess.

Weight Rule #1

Weight balance is about following a simple equation: calories in vs. calories out. The relationship between how many calories you eat and how many you burn will determine whether you lose, gain or maintain weight. There are two sides to this equation, both of which you can control; how much you eat and how much you exercise.

Many diets and weight solutions claim that they’ve found the secret to losing weight. They claim that you can still eat your favorite foods, put little effort forward and still lose weight. The truth is that losing weight is easy and hard. It’s easy in the sense that there is no guessing on what you have to do: cut calories and exercise more. It’s hard in the sense that you have to actually put forth the effort and do some work.

Calories

The biggest reason for unwanted weight is excessive calories. When you eat more calories than you burn, your body stores the difference (calorie surplus) as fat and the result is weight gain. A calorie surplus that is coupled with weight lifting will cause a gain in muscle mass. Combining a calorie surplus with inactivity will cause a gain in simple mass (fat).

Your first priority in fixing your weight problem is to control your calorie intake. Losing weight requires that you eat less calories than you burn (calorie deficit) which over time will force your body to use its fat stores for energy. Use the calorie calculator to figure out how many calories you burn each day. This will give you an estimate of how much you should be eating.

Exercise

In addition to eating too much, you probably aren’t exercising enough. The other side of the equation, how much you burn, is made up of body functions that keep you alive plus the exercise you perform. The more exercise you do, the more calories you burn which will allow you to lose weight without drastically cutting your calorie intake.

The Bottom Line

Perhaps the answer to this question seemed like an oversimplification, but the solution to unwanted weight is very easy. It’s easy in the sense that there isn’t much to be explained, but hard because you actually have to put some work into it. The solution for fixing fat is fortunately very easy, move more and eat less.