More lessons learned

In the mornings, while I eat breakfast and get mentally ready for the day, I read a lot about health, fitness and weight loss. I wouldn't call myself an expert by any means, but I have really learned a lot the past 6 months.

One thing: as you lose weight, you burn less calories naturally. The guide I've read the most says to take your weight and multiply it by ten to get the number of calories you burn in a day. For me that would be 1738. Add more calories if you are pretty active. This gives you the number of calories you should be eating to maintain your current weight. Eat less to lose.

But the most interesting fact I've learned while reading up on all of this is that cardio work isn't enough. Many people think that the only way to lose weight is to do lots of cardio, but that just isn't the case. We've got to work on muscle building as well.

Myself, I am afraid of gaining muscle because I know it weighs more than fat and I'm afraid it will make me even bigger. But that's silly talk. Every mythbuster article I've read addresses that exact myth!

The more muscle we have, the more calories we burn. So, as we lose weight, we need to be working on increasing my muscle mass through strength training. This is also important because women lose muscle mass as they get older unless they work to fight the loss.