Archive for September, 2008

The best way to lose weight

When it comes to weight loss, it goes without saying that exercising is one of the best ways to lose weight fast. If you can workout regularly, you will not only lose fat but also strengthen your body by building muscles. However, along with exercise, it is also important that you change your food habits. If you keep on munching on junk goods then exercising won’t serve any purpose, and in the end you will realize that all your hard work have gone waste!

Now, exercising is surely hard work, but what is a lot harder for most of us is giving up on the junk foods although it’s definitely is not the best way to lose weight. Let’s face it: you love junk foods and you want to eat them until your death. Forgetting about the junk foods itself means the end of life for you!

Here are some steps you can follow to lose weight instantly!

1. Count your calories: To keep track of what you are putting into your mouth, calorie counting is the very first thing you need to do. You should try to consume fewer calories than what you burn, because that is the best way to lose weight. In order to understand how much calories your body needs to survive, just multiply your body weight by 10!

Do keep in mind that calorie counting is only for weight loss and once you have lost weight successfully, you shouldn’t be so hard on calorie intake. This is not to say that you can go back to your old bad eating habits, but if you restrict your calorie intake for a prolonged period of time, you will start losing muscles. Muscles loss is not a good thing, because the more muscles you have, the more fat you will be able to burn and it is one of the best way to lose weight without doing anything!

2. Small meals are the way to go: Yes, I know that you are accustomed to eating three large meals per day and fill in the ‘gaps’ with junk foods, but did I tell you that you need to change your eating habits in order to lose weight? Along with the kind of food you eat, how you eat it is also important. Try to break down each of your large meals into half; in essence, you should be eating six small meals instead of three large ones! Frequent eating will keep your metabolism in high level, enabling you to burn fat. It will also boost your energy level, improve your digestion and build muscles!

3. Don’t skip anything: Don’t ever skip meals as this is definitely not the best way to lose weight. More importantly, don’t try to remove fat or carbs totally from your diet. Remember that protein, fats as well as carbs are the three building blocks of your body; removing one or the other will result in total disintegration. What you should eat are good carbs found in cereals, fruits, etc. (instead of the fizzy drinks and concentrated fruit juices), good fats found in chicken, tuna and salmon, etc., (instead of animal fat or dairy products), and of course protein, which can be found in plenty in chicken and whey protein powders.  

The best way to lose weight

Best weight loss programs

Weight loss is all about lifestyle changes, the reason why it sometimes proves to be too hard for the new comers. Let’s say that you have lived a sedentary and uninhibited lifestyle, and now you have to change all that. Perhaps you are used to sitting on the warm sofa for hours on end, watching television, while eating packets of potato chips and burgers at the same time. Now, if someone tells you that instead of sitting on the sofa, you have to workout in the gum everyday, and that you can no longer eat your favorite foods, how would you feel like?

Sure, the initial enthusiasm about weight loss and the desire to acquire a slimmer body will overcome your initial frustrations, but as time goes by, there will be bad days when you will find your weight loss plan to be too restrictive and frustrating to continue; naturally you’ll give it up all and resume your old (read bad) habits. To make sure this doesn’t happen you need to motivate your subconscious mind from time to time. The way you motivate the subconscious mind is called the motivational exercise. Don’t worry! Unlike your regular exercises, this one involves no hard work!

1. First step – Reassess your weight loss goals: You need to know what it is that you want to achieve from your weight loss goal, and more importantly, why you want to achieve what you want to achieve. You need to be clear about your priorities, and then decide on how you plan to lose weight. Unless your weight loss goals are clear, you won’t be able to achieve them!

2. Second step – Have a chat with your buddy: When it comes to weight loss, support is everything. Do you have a friend who is undergoing through the same pains as you? If yes, speak your heart out to him. You will notice that you have not only started feeling lighter and better, but also motivated enough to make further progress in your weight loss plan!

3. Final Step -Visit your doctor: Even if you follow the best weight loss programs in the world, there will be times when you will hit a plateau and start gaining weight instead of losing it. Tell you doctor everything about the weight loss plan you are following, and the results you got from it. Your doctor should be able to prescribe remedies accordingly.

Don’t get disheartened if the weight loss plan recommended by your friend doesn’t work or you. Eeach individual body has its own unique chemical composition and your weight loss plan may or may not suit this composition.

Best weight loss programs

Best weight programs

You know what is the worst thing about dieting? It will help you lose weight for sure, but it won’t help you in keeping that weight off. As soon as you stop dieting, you will gain back all the weight you had lost, and possibly some more! In this article I will tell you not only how to lose weight permanently but also keep it off for good, which I believe is the most important aspect of weight loss.

1. Don’t diet; choose foods wisely instead: The very first step towards weight loss is to stop thinking about diets and calories and start understanding how you can make your life better and healthier! Before you join any weight loss program, make sure that it is tailor-made for you. If your weight loss plan recommends foods that you don’t want to eat, you won’t be able to lose weight in the long run.

Choose a weight loss program that contains foods you would love to eat everyday, throughout your life! Forget about low-calorie, low-fat and low-carb diets: they won’t work for you if you cannot main the recommended diet. The last thing you would want for yourself is choosing a diet plan which seems more like a punishment than anything else.

The best way to lose weight is to find a weight loss program that you think would work for you. Most weight loss programs will hand out a nutritional chart to you which would tell you which food contains what calorie content. Choose stuff that you would want to eat! Usually, vegetables and fruits are the best and healthiest foods you can have in the world!

2. Change your lifestyle habits: Most diets out there will help you lose weight in the short term, but rarely, if ever, you will one that would help you keep the weight off as well. The reason is that the only way to keep your weight off permanently is by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. No diet in the world can do that for you.

In a very recent study it has been proved that most of the best weight loss programs can help an obese adult lose fat within seven months or less, but as soon as the person stops dieting, the weight comes back.

Strategic planning and lifestyle adjustments are the only ways you can maintain your slim figure. Strategic planning includes choosing a workable weight loss program, setting goals and acting accordingly. Lifestyle adjustments include eating healthy foods and keeping yourself away from fried stuff, as well as working out regularly in the gym. If you follow this lifestyle you won’t have to face the problem of obesity again!

Best weight loss programs

Best weight loss programs

I recently received some questions from my newsletter subscribers. From the type of questions I was asked, it was clear that all of them are enthusiastic about weight loss, and they are trying to find a specific ‘weight loss formula’ rather than go the old way of following a healthy diet and exercise plan. Now, is there really anything called ‘weight loss formula’? We will see.

Question 1: I want to lose weight very fast, But right now, I can afford to skip only one food from my meal. Which food would you recommend me to skip?

Answer: You cannot expect to lose weight fast by skipping one or the other foods, nor is eliminating an entire food group from your diet advisable. In order to lose weight permanently, you need to change your entire eating plan. Let’s say that currently you are thriving on calorie-rich junk foods such as pastries, burgers, cookies, cakes, candies, chocolates, fried foods, etc. You need to discard all of them from your meals. Your meal should only consist of solid and healthy foods that not only provide the necessary nutrition to your body but also help you lose weight. Natural fruits and vegetables are the foods you should eat daily!

Some other things you need to forget about are your favorite drinks, that is, if they happen to be one of the following: alcohol, soda, beer, fizzy drinks, etc. Substitute these drinks with water.

There will be times when you will be confused about the next step you need to follow for weight loss. This is why I would recommend that you join a weight loss program. However remember that simply joining a program won’t do the trick; you must stick to it too! Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who join a weight loss program with all the enthusiasm and then quit it after a few months!

Question 2: If I drink only water, will I be able to lose weight fast

Answer: Yes and no. While water can surely help you with weight loss, you cannot lose weight fast simply by drinking water. You should also change your overall lifestyle habits. Of course, water will help you with weight loss in several different ways. Firstly, it will curb your hunger, so that you can feel fuller even with very little amount of food (remember that the less you eat, the faster you lose weight); second, it’ll boost your metabolic rate by as much as 30-38%, which in turn will help you burn fat faster. For best results, however, you should drink no less than eight glasses of water per day. Drinking water before, after and during meals is recommended and they will help in your lose weight fast endeavours.

Best weight loss programs

There are times when having everything in black and white actually helps in the long run. Take wight loss for example. Let’s say that you are doing everything fine and losing weight at the rate you desire! However things won’t always be the same. However hard you try to be consistent in your weight loss efforts, there will be times when you will stray and give in to your ‘food cravings’. That is where a weight loss journal will help you. A weight loss journal will enable you to analyze what it is that has gone wrong in the whole weight loss process!

There are several reasons why you should maintain a weight loss journal:

1. Keep track of your food habits: When you want to lose weight, the very first thing that you need to change is your food habit, because it was your extraordinary food cravings that led you to your current situation. You need to switch from the unhealthy to the healthy food habits. However, this requires a lot of self-discipline on your part. It is not very easy to forget about your old junk foods that you loved so much. This is the reason why most people find it hard to stick to a diet for very long. A weight loss journal will help keep detailed records of your eating habits, including what you ate and when! That way you are able to understand which foods you should continue eating and which ones you should discard!

2. Keep track of your workouts: Keeping track of your food habits is only part of the whole equation; you also need to keep a detailed journal of your workout. You need to record things such as which workouts you are doing, and the results you are getting from them. As you may understand, this record will help you realize that some workouts are working better for you than others. Then you simply stick to the winners and get rid of the losers!

Now let me get this straight: many people would find it hard to maintain a wight loss journal. Creating a journal is one thing, and updating it on a daily basis is a totally different game altogether. You need to record every piece of food that you eat right from your breakfast to supper and maybe even beyond. Very tedious, isn’t it? But then again, you are doing everything to archive one purpose: weight loss. Think about how good you will feel about yourself when people will praise you for the new slimmer body you have acquired! Your weight loss journal will serve as a proof of how hard you have worked to achieve your goals!

Now if that is not enough incentive for you to start maintaining a weight loss journal, I don’t know what is!