Weight Loss Basics

Weight Loss Advices
Weight Loss Basics

Although there are an ever-growing number of diet books, plans and groups, many people just want to achieve weight loss by sensible healthy eating, rather than following a particular fad or fashion. But where to start your weight loss program? Well, the most basic and probably one of the best guides that you have, is your own common sense.

Most dieters these days have already amassed enough information about what is and isn't good for weight loss, to be able to decide whether or not a particular food is healthy, or is likely to help, hinder or otherwise affect their diet.

Very often it all comes down to a matter of balance. You know that there are certain things that, unless you have particular medical problems, are generally thought to be good foods that can help you to be healthier and lose those extra pounds.

Most dieticians would agree that eating good portions of fresh fruit and vegetables every day is going to be good for you. Also unless you are on a low carb weight loss diet wholegrain foods such as pasta, whole grain bread and rice are usually accepted as being beneficial, both generally and for weight loss.

These days drinking is also very much in focus for those who wish to achieve both weight loss and a benefit to their health. It is generally thought that too much alcohol is not a good and may bring about a variety of health problems, although small amounts may not be a bad thing.

Water, especially spring water, is thought by many nutritionists to be very beneficial to the health and there are some who say that it can also be helpful to those who are concerned about weight loss. Some encourage drinking water before meals as this can take the edge from the hunger and will let the dieter have smaller meals without feeling as though they haven’t had enough.

Lean meat and fish and also the occasional portion of oily fish such as salmon, are another group of foods that are usually thought to be beneficial to weight loss and general health. And also seeds, pulses and many dieticians recommend nuts as being beneficial.

There are, of course, many foods that are not generally recommended bydieticians as be effective for weight loss, such as refined sugar products and many fried and especially deep fried foods, such as French Fries. Although a certain amount of olive oil is recommended by many health professionals.

It is of course not just the food that you eat, but the way that you eat it that is thought to have an effect both on your health and your weight loss. Many people skip breakfast but many health professionals believe that this is not a good way, to either start the day, or to achieve any kind of weight loss benefit.

Generally it is a matter of good sense and a reasonable knowledge of what foods are good and should be eaten daily and what are not so good and should be eaten only occasionally. Despite having the ability to work out their own diet many still buy the many diet books that are on offer to have a specific plan to work to.

Some find that it helps to have it written down so that they know whether to eat a particular food or not. But if you want to there is no reason why you should not be able to decide on a good diet and healthy weight loss plan, although it is always a good idea to check with your doctor before you start a new diet.

Weight Loss and Metabolism

Weight Loss Advices
Weight Loss and Metabolism

How many times have you asked someone who appears to be eating large amounts of food, but maintaining the figure of an over enthusiastic long distance runner, how they mange it, only to receive the somewhat unlikely reply that it’s just their metabolism?
So what do you need to know about metabolism and how can it help you to achieve your weight loss goals?

The metabolic rate is simply the rate at which you use up energy as in calories. The higher the metabolic rate the more calories you burn, the better the weight loss. The lower the rate the fewer you burn. This can depend on a number of different factors.

Surprisingly and contrary to what appears to be basic logic, eating less can sometimes slow your diet down, or at least it can slow down the amount of weight loss. The thing is that many nutritionists believe that when you eat very small amounts of calories, the body “thinks” that there is not enough food available.

So in an afford to conserve the energy that is available it starts to slow the metabolism down, so that it can make the most use of the reserves that it has. So it is possible that far from helping your diet, that eating too little can actually slow your weight loss.

The theory is that the body will then do everything to conserve the best stores of energy that it has. This means that it is possible that the body will, instead of using up the reserves of fat and making you thinner, actually start to use the muscle tissue and burn this so that it can maintain a reserve.

Possibly one way to make sure that this does not happen is to make sure that you are eating enough food to keep you body from believing that it should go into starvation mode. But, at the same time, to control your calorific intake so that you will achieve the weight loss that is suitable for you.

There is not an answer that will suit everyone as to how many calories is enough to help with your weight loss. The best way to work out what is best for you is to visit a qualified nutritionist who will be able to tell you the most appropriate amount of calories for your dietary requirements.

Although the metabolism can slow when dieting to achieve weight loss it is believed by some that exercise can help. This may help in two ways. First the metabolic rate can be higher when exercising and so help to burn off those extra calories and help weight loss. Also exercising so that you gain more muscle can help to burn more calories as it thought that muscle burns calories more quickly
than fat.

One of the best ways to improve your metabolic rate and at the same time gain more muscle and help weight loss is to do more exercise. This can not only help to burn calories but also to add to the amount of muscle and allow the body to burn the calories more efficiently.

One Truth of Successful Weight Loss and Fitness

Weight Loss Advices
One Truth of Successful
Weight Loss and Fitness

Consistency is Key

We’ve already learned there are no shortcuts. We know that long term lifestyle changes are necessary for reaching our fitness goals. Do you know where most people fail in reaching their goals? How many businesses fail because the owners just didn’t stick it out long enough? How many people fail at achieving long term health because they stopped just a little too soon? Just about everybody.

You see the big payoffs come a little farther out than we expect. In business, the
learning curve is longer than we expect. What we think will happen in a year or two takes five. The typical business fails in less than five years, so most never really realize getting to that point of success. In fitness, what we really expect to see in eight weeks will probably come in twelve (if we are realistic). But because the typical person usually gets frustrated and quits in eight, they never see those benefits. They then assume the program doesn’t work.

A lot of the programs that satisfy this mentality are not good programs long term. They have quick short term effects which fool you into thinking they are good programs. Low carb diets, for example, can result in some immediate weight loss. However much of this is water loss and muscle loss. Long term these can have some serious health risks. Since they had some immediate results, people tend to continue to believe in them even though they don’t see those results continue long term.

You need to develop a long term benefit mentality. This mentality can be seen in
many cultures outside of our own. Many Asian cultures tend to plan business
expenditures over generations. They look at the effects of their actions many
years in the future. They are successful because of this. Think of everything you do long term. What kind of health am I going to be in one year from now, a decade from now, in my eighties?

Forget next week, it won’t be much different than this week.

Don’t use the scale too much. On a daily basis it’s not that important and can be very misleading. This will lead to failure. Use it on a monthly basis, not daily. Pay attention to other indicators more than the scale: measuring waist size; how your clothes fit; body fat analysis. These can be far better indicators than the
scale.

Set your mind to be consistent in your diet and your training.

However, the idea of never having a cheesecake again can lead to failure just as fast as having cheesecake too often. Set goals and give yourself some cheat days. That way if you really crave that piece of cheesecake, you can tell yourself you’ll have some on Sunday. I guarantee it will taste twice as good then.

I’ve avoided some pretty bad habits by putting that gratification off rather than saying I’ll never have it again. Mentally it’s much easier.

Set your goals to eat healthy and exercise six days a week. Then give yourself one day to eat junk. (You’ll probably be satisfied with less junk if you’ve been good all week). If six days is too hard make it five (or whatever you can handle) and change your goals later. Use this process and your chances of success are going to be very good.

Don’t hit it too hard at first. You’ll burn yourself out fast and you’ll never develop good habits. Ease into good habits and you’ll accept them. Developing good habits over time will ensure success; trying to change too fast will ensure failure.

When setting weight loss goals always keep this in mind: How long did it take to put that weight on? Getting it off is going to be different for different people, but it is going to be relative also to old long term habits.

Why are we so Overweight ?

Weight Loss Advices
WHY ARE WE SO OVERWEIGHT?

I suppose the easiest answer is fast food, but the problem extends out to so much more. Yes, the prevalence of fast food restaurants certainly doesn’t help. As Morgan Spurlock showed us with painful reality in his movie, “Super Size Me”, fast food menus offer us a heaping helping of fat, cholesterol, and calories. I highly recommend watching this movie if you find yourself addicted to McDonald’s – you
could very well change your mind after you see it!

At any rate, many of these restaurants are now offering health-conscious choices including salads, potatoes instead of French fries, yogurt, and grilled meats instead of fried meats. So with these items now included on their menu, why aren’t we losing weight? The answer lies within our choices. Those choices extend to home life as well.

Many people live horridly busy lifestyles, and they more often than not opt for pre-packaged foods that contain high amounts of salt, fat, and other unhealthy components that contribute toward weight gain. We tend to maintain a mostly sedentary lifestyle choosing to watch a favorite television program after dinner rather than going out for a walk like they used to do decades ago.

This type of life style unfortunately is being learned by our children as well. When I was young, we couldn’t wait toget through dinner so we could go outside and play a game of kick the can as the sun went down. We rode our bikes everywhere and only watched television when “The Brady Bunch” or “The Partridge Family” was on. Hey, we had our priorities!

Today, you’re more likely to find kids on the computer or in front of the TV with a video game controller in their hands. Kids know more about the story line on Desperate Housewives than many of their housewife mothers. They can tell you about all of the new products being offered through commercials they see in between their programs. In fact, the average child these days will watch more than 15 hours of television each and every week.

Now, we’re not saying television is BAD. In fact, some programs can be beneficial and even helpful in making kids smarter. What we’re saying is that kids need to get outside more instead of sitting in front of the TV eating Cheetos and drinking sugar rich soda.

The statistics are showing this to be true. Fifteen percent of all children and teens are overweight - a number that has tripled since a previous study done in 1980.

Some people blame their excessive weight gain on slow metabolisms. In some cases, this might actually be true. However, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed what no one really wants to face: we’re overweight because we simply eat too much of the wrong foods.

Losing weight is actually quite simple – eat less, exercise more. But we’re resistant to that message. Mainly, it’s because we’re looking for a quick fix – an easy, painless way to drop pounds without sacrifice. After all, losing weight just CAN’T be that easy, now can it?

No, it isn’t. You have to consider portion control, food choice, exercise, how much exercise, what kind of exercise, etc. But worrying about all of the specifics will do you little good. You need to get the big picture in mind first before worrying about the specifics.

What you want to do is lose those extra pounds. And there are many, many ways to go about that. But before you wait around for the next miracle diet, try some of the tried and true methods we’ll show you. It’s not as monumental as you think it is!

Walking For Weight Loss

Weight Loss Advices
WALKING FOR WEIGHT LOSS

Exercises are good for your workout program because they help tone flabby muscles while also burning calories. But aerobic exercise is best to burn fat. A great way to get an aerobic workout is to walk.
Walking is the easiest and most effective exercise we can use in our workout routine. But you need to know more than one foot in front of the other to get the most from walking as aerobic exercise.
Because of how the body draws on fat stores versus other stored energy sources, the first thing you need to do is increase the time you spend walking. While we’ve said that 30 minutes of exercise is good for fat burning, when you walk, you really need to bump this up to at least 45 minutes, but ideally an hour.
Obviously, it might not be possible for you to fit an hour of walking into your busy schedule, but try walking every day allowing a few days for an hour and a few days at 30 minutes. Alternate them, however. If you walk an hour on Monday, walk half an hour on Tuesday, etc.
If you’re only going to be walking for 30 minutes, increase your speed. A leisurely stroll isn’t going to give you that aerobic workout that your body needs, so step it up a bit. But don’t overdo it. If you can’t talk and walk, you’re over-exerting yourself and you should back off a bit.
You can also introduce some type of weight for you to carry when you walk. This could be something simple like a small weight, or you can go to the pantry and pull out a couple of cans of corn! Keep them in your hands as you walk and move your arms back and forth in your strides. Adding weight will also help tone your arms – an added perk!
If you’re walking outdoors, perhaps in your neighborhood, take along a walk-man and play some upbeat music to keep you walking. Not only is it entertaining, it keeps you going as well!
And remember, that all walking counts – even if it’s during a shopping trip to the mall!