One recent survey of Americans on body image found that more than half of all men and women would rather lose their job than gain an extra seventy-five pounds. And nearly 20 percent of the population would give up, or consider giving up, 20 IQ points to have the perfect body.

Obviously, weight and the way we are perceived is an important factor in our daily lives. It’s not surprising then that dieting is on the minds of so many people these days, particularly as people get on in their forties, when the metabolism begins to slow and the pounds begin to add up. So which diet is best? I’ll tell you.

First, let’s look at some of the big blockbuster diets that have appeared over the past decade or so—the South Beach Diet, the Atkins Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, and so on. Each one of these diets has simply incorporated a different method of teaching you about nutrition in order to get you to lose weight. Each one gives you something to focus on, a behavior to motivate you, which is great because, after all, to lose weight you have to change your thinking.

But if you look at the fundamentals, the underlying theme of each diet is calories. Whether you do Atkins, South Beach, or Dr. Phil, it’s really all about calories.

When reviewed carefully, most diets are really nothing more than low-calorie nutrition plans disguised by clever marketing gimmicks. Scientific-sounding “facts” and hocus-pocus “research” are just ornaments on the diet tree. Diet-plan marketers go to great lengths to explain how their diet can work for everyone, or claim that it is carbohydrate intake or fat intake—or whatever the bad intake of the day is—that’s the culprit.

However, the bottom line is that the only way to lose weight is to have a caloric deficit, which occurs only when you burn more calories than you consume.

The average American today consumes 300 more calories per day today than did the average American of 30 years ago. Today’s average American also burns 260 fewer calories each day due to increased automation, technology, and sedentary occupations. Put those numbers together, and it becomes rather obvious why America’s waistline is growing at an alarming rate.

Check Your BMI

The BMI can tell you if you are underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. Adults 20 years old and older can calculate their BMI with this formula:

BMI = your weight/pds divided by height/in x height/in x 703

You are UNDERWEIGHT, if your BMI is below 18.5.

You are of NORMAL WEIGHT, if your BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.

You are OVERWEIGHT, if your BMI is between 25.0 and 29.9.

You are OBESE, if your BMI is 30.0 or more.

So here is Dr. Manny’s Freedom Diet. If you really want to lose weight, you have to do two things: eat fewer calories and burn more calories. This is not an optional “either/or” plan but an “and” plan. Of course, the calories you eat should be healthy calories. That’s all. Eat less. Exercise more. It really is that simple.

Fight obesity. Spread the word.

Exercise

People spend an enormous amount of time trying to find the perfect exercise, and while they’re doing that, their clock is ticking. Any physical activity is great, though the best kinds of exercise for you are those like walking, swimming, running, hiking, and skiing—all of which have a “global” impact on your body and mind.

Most important, you should stick to the exercise of your choice and do it regularly. If you adhere to those two principles, you’re going to burn calories, feel better, improve your metabolism, and benefit your health.

Any activity you do during the day—from climbing stairs, to housecleaning, to watching TV—will, of course, burn calories. But those activities don’t provide the necessary continuity, and I think the essence of getting into shape and having a good metabolism has to do with a continuity of exercise.

In other words, it’s better to burn 120 calories a day, seven days a week, doing your favorite exercise, for example, than to burn 800 calories doing the housework once a week. It’s the exercise regimen that has an impact on your health, not necessarily the intensity.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Estimated number of calories burned per minute based on an individual weighing about 150 pounds:

Sitting: 1

Talking on phone: 1

Sleeping: 1

Driving: 2

Housework: 3

Cooking: 3

Washing dishes: 3

Stretching: 4

Sex (active): 5

Walking (3 mph): 5

Calisthenics (moderate): 5

Ballroom dancing (fast): 6

Gardening: 6

Swimming (moderate): 7

Aerobics (low impact): 7

Hiking: 7

Jogging: 8

Stair step machine: 8

Bicycling (12 to 14 mph): 10

Basketball (full court): 12

Running (10 mph): 20

To easily calculate how many calories you burn in a day, go to www.healthstatus.com and click on “Calculators” then “Calories Burned.”

It is also very important to drink adequate amounts of fluid when you exercise. You need to drink about a half cup of water for every fifteen minutes of vigorous exercise. People think that muscle cramps during exercise are caused by a shortage of electrolytes, but that’s not true. You get muscle cramps because of water loss and dehydration. Drink that water!

Researchers once believed that people with apple-shaped figures – in other words, those who gained most of their weight in their stomach – were at higher risk of heart disease than people with other types of body figures.  A recent study suggests this may not be the case, Time.com reported.

In the study, researchers at the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration in the U.K. reviewed records of 58 different trials, involving more than 220,000 participants, and concluded that fat distribution did not affect heart disease risk.

They also found that other measures of obesity, including BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, were all about equally accurate in predicting heart attacks.  Compared to known risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and history of diabetes, obesity measures were found to be poor indicators of heart disease risk.

Previous studies speculated that visceral fat, which tends to accumulate around the midsection, is hazardous to the heart because it settles deep within organs and can pump out hormones that affect insulin sensitivity and promote diabetes.

However, the results from the new study indicate that while fat is an important factor in heart disease, it should not substitute for better, proven-to-work measures such as cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes.

The study was published in The Lancet.

Click here to read more from Time.com.

Body mass index, which most people use as a way of measuring body fat, may soon give way to a new, more accurate method that relies on measurements of height and hip circumference, WebMD reported.

“The body mass index (BMI) does not accurately represent the amount of [body] fat,” said researcher Richard Bergman, Keck Professor of Medicine at the University of California’s Keck School of Medicine.  It also has difficulty taking muscle – which is heavier than fat, but healthy – into account.

The new measure is called body adiposity index (BAI) and works well for Hispanic and African-American populations, but more research is needed to determine its accuracy for whites and other ethnic groups.

According to Bergman, the problem with BMI is that people only get a relative number assessing body fat.  With the new BAI, the number people get is the actual percentage of fat and is more accurate.

However, while BMI ought to be improved, tBAI also exhibits limitations, said Fabio Comana, an exercise physiologist at the American Council on Exercise, who reviewed the method.

The study was published in the journal Obesity.

Click here to read more from WebMD.