Two out of three Americans are overweight. The primary cause is that we eat more and exercise less. There is no doubt that the more advances we make that enhance our lifestyle the heavier we become. Wait a minute! What about all those low-fat foods that we eat now? How come I reduced fat in my diet but Im still gaining weight? Its a simple answer. A few years ago we all became aware of the detrimental effects of fat in our diet. What did we do? We began to concentrate on lowering cholesterol and taking fat out of our diets. This is a good thing. However, The National Center for Health Statistics studied eating habits of 8,260 adult American between 1988 and 1991. Their research showed that Americans had significantly reduced their fat intake but still packed on the pounds.

How can this happen? There is no mystery. In the process of counting fat grams, we stopped counting calories! Many of us bought in to the theory that if it is low-fat it wont make us fat.

WRONG!

You cant forget about counting calories. If you eat more calories than you need the body will store them as fat. It doesnt matter whether the calories are from fat or carbohydrates. One school of thought believes that eating small amounts of fat can actually keep you from over indulging on total calories. The theory is that dietary fat causes our bodies to produce a hormone that tells the intestines to slow down the emptying process. You feel full and therefore are less likely to overeat.

Adding a little peanut butter to your rice cake may satisfy your hunger for a longer period of time, thus preventing you from eating more than you need.

Heres more news that is surprising. Tufts University scientists put 11 middle aged men and women volunteers on a variety of average, reduced and low-fat diets.

The results? Extremely low-fat diets which provided only 15 percent fat from calories (this is a diet near impossible in real life) did have a positive effect on blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels. However, a reduced-fat diet (much more realistic) only affected those levels if accompanied by weight loss.

In fact, they concluded, cutting fat without losing weight actually increased triglyceride levels and decreased high density lipoproteins (HDLs), the good cholesterol that helps protect again heart disease. We can deduce, therefore, while excess fat isnt healthy, fat is also not necessarily a bad thing. Without some fat in our diet, the body wont make nerve cells and hormones or absorb some of the fat soluble vitamins.

Okay, so how can you determine your ideal weight? Just how much fat and how many calories should you consume to reach and maintain a healthy weight?

One answer wont work for everybody. So you need to do some figuring to determine how much fat and how many calories you can have. First, you need to determine your ideal weight. Here is a simple method to determine what that weight should be:

For Women

The ideal weight for a woman who is exactly 5 feet tall is 100 pounds. For every additional inch above 5 feet, add five pounds. If you are shorter than 5 feet tall, subtract five pounds for every inch you measure below 5 feet.

Next, determine whether you have a small, medium or large frame. Using a measuring tape, measure your wrist. If your wrist measures exactly 6 inches, you have a medium frame and the weight number you calculated above, does not need to be adjusted. If your wrist measures less than 6 inches, subtract 10 percent from your ideal weight. If your wrist measures more than 6 inches, add 10 percent to your ideal weight.