Weight Loss

Although the food you eat is the most important factor in your weight loss program (remember that calories and weight loss are directly linked). Weight loss is only achieved through a balance of healthy Weight Loss Lifestyle. Therefore, a safe Weight loss is achieved by considering the following factors:

1. Why you are currently over weight

This is one step that almost every weight loss program forgets to mention and yet it is as important as the actual weight loss program By understanding why you are currently over weight you can stop yourself from falling into the same trap again, and put the weight back on.

So what are the common causes of obesity? The root cause of obesity is often caused by:

• Poor understanding of a correct lifestyle
• Emotional distress
• medical
• Bad habits

2. A correct diet program

The old saying "You are what you eat" is absolutely true. Unless the obesity is caused by some medical condition, obesity is simply a matter of taking in more calories than your body needs to carry out its functions. It is however important that you do not make the mistake of cutting the calories with cutting out any "food groups". Even fat is essential to achieving a successful weight loss (a successful weight loss is one which can be maintained long term).

Unfortunately, a large number of Weight Loss industries have specifically designed a weight loss program to help you achieve weight loss fast and quickly, but, these program are almost always damaging to the long term health of a person and are also not sustainable.

A long term and successful weight loss program involves:

• Eating correctly (i.e. do not leave out any food groups, even fats)
• Eat calories that you burn
• Eat the right amount at the right time

Your Diet and what you should be eating:

In order for your body to function normally your diet MUST contain all the essential food groups, which includes Proteins, carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, the right fats.

Unfortunately a VERY dangerous and yet popular diet claimed that to loose weight a person must only focus on the protein and carbohydrate intake. It claims that by cutting carbohydrates and focus on eating protein and fats alone, will enable the body to loose weight. What people forget is that the person that "invented" this diet system had a long history of heart disease.

Protein is the building blocks of life. With out protein your body and your muscles can not grow or regenerate. The next important group is the carbohydrates, despite what some highly miss-leading diets claim. Carbohydrate are necessary for your body's function and its energy system. Research has also shown that when people cut out carbs, it also effects the brain's functionality as well as the normal energy system.

What is the best secret to loosing weight?

It is important that you understand how human body functions before you partake in any successful and long term sustainable diet. In order to survive, human body has genetically been developed to adapt to its environment. So, if the body "feels" that the next meal might not be forth coming when it needs it, then the human body will compensate by lowering its metabolism rate so that it can store some of the calories as body fat for future consumption. Vice versa, if the body "feels" that it is getting regular intake of energy (i.e. when a person eats little but often), then the body will adapt by speeding up its metabolism rate. The trick is to understand how much is "little" and often. It is important as if you miss judge this, then you could be eating a lot and often, which will lead to obesity.

Another important factor is when you eat a specific food. It is important that you do not eat carbohydrates or sugar for at least 4-5 hrs prior to going to bed. This is because when we go to sleep, our metabolism rate drops drastically, which means the carbs and the sugar would be stored as fat.

3. Exercise

Exercise is an essential factor in loosing weight and burning calories. Exercise plays a more vital function than to just help you achieve "Weight Loss". Without exercise human body will not function properly, it's that simple! Research has also shown that exercise not only has a direct effect on muscles, but the brain, the skeleton, the nervous system and every organ in your body. In fact there is no part of your body that is not effected by a healthy exercise routine.

4. How to sustain the weight lost

Its a well known fact that majority of people who follow a diet program fail to sustain it. One of the down sides of following a wrong diet program is that as soon as you are off the diet, you will put on more weight than before. This is because wrong diet programs tend to provide quick solutions and not a permanent one. One of the surest ways of knowing that a diet program is harmful is that it promises "quick" results! Even if you are not worried about long term weight loss, or the fact that you will probably put the more weight back on once you are off the diet program, then it may pay for you to remember that any weight loss program that helps you loose weight in a short space of time WILL also be damaging and harmful for your body.

5. Emotional Support and Encouragement

Loosing weight is not always easy to do. Its simple enough to say "well, I will just follow the perfect eating habits and change my life style"! However, in reality, you have to fight against your most basic instinct, to survive. Every "normal" living creature has a built in survival instinct. This instinct tells our body to react to external and internal dangers. The internal danger is hunger or starvation! So by fighting a craving to eat, you are in fact fighting your survival instinct. But the problem is that your body, for some reason, does not recognize that its not hungry. Its for this reason that you should always try to have the support of your friends and family when embarking on a diet program. Research has shown that the people who attend diet classes are more likely to loose weight and keep the weight off than people who do it alone. This is because weight loss classes are designed to provide mutual support to one another, through emotional support and encouragement.

So, where would you start your weight loss program?

Your first step should be to re-train your craving for junk foods and sweets and go for the more healthier alternatives. For example:

• Instead of cream crackers go for wholemeal crackers.

  This is because cream crackers is high in fat and salt, where as the wholemeal variety is not only lower in fat and salt, it also has a low Glycaemic Index (GI) which means it makes you feel less likely to feel hungry soon after.

• Swap biscuits and Pingles for cracker breads.

  Most biscuits and especially Pingles are very high in fat. But this is not the good healthy fat, which means you are likely not to burn it off soon after and is therefore stored as body fat.

• Swap your Nachos for Veg Stick.

  Nachos are high in fat and salt. This means its not only bad for your waist line, but its also bad for your blood pressure and heart as well!

• Instead of salted nuts go for the unsalted variety.
• Instead of Ice cream go for frozen yoghurt or frozen semi-skimmed milk.
• Instead of cream cheese go for cottage cheese.

  Cream cheese has the highest fat content of any cheese. Cottage cheese on the other hand is virtually fat free!

• Instead of milk chocolate try dark chocolate.

  Milk chocolate and white chocolate have more sugar and fat than dark chocolate.

• Instead of fries (or chips) go for potato wages.

  Fries (or chips) are usually cooked in deep trans fat which is extremely fattening.

• Instead of bread or pasta in the evenings, try vegetables or protein such as meat.