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). A safe program is one that takes a Weight Loss Lifestyle approach and as such influences every aspect of your life, including eating, sleeping and exercising. Therefore, our aim is to provide you with the guide lines necessary to help you achieve this healthy lifestyle, and to do this its important that you are made aware of some facts:

1. Why are you currently over weight?

This is one step that almost every weight loss program forgets to consider, and yet, it is as important as the actual weight loss diet and exercise. By understanding why you are currently over weight you can stop yourself from falling into the same trap again, and from putting weight back on. Many weight loss programs fail to provide a sustainable solution purely because of this reason.

So, what are the most common causes of obesity? The root cause of obesity is often the result of one or more of the following factors:

• Poor understanding of a what is a healthy lifestyle
• Emotional distress
• A medical condition
• Bad eating habits
• lack of proper exercise

2. A correct diet plan

The old saying "You are what you eat" is absolutely true. Simply put, and with the exception of a small minority that have a medical condition, obesity is caused by taking in more calories than your body needs to carry out its normal daily functions. At the same time, it is important to realise that cutting excessive calories from your diet can also have fatal consequences. Your body needs energy to function and the trick to weight loss is to know how much energy your body needs to carry out its daily function. Under no circumstance should you try to cut out any food group altogether. Even some fats are essential to achieving a successful weight loss (remember, a successful weight loss is one which can be maintained long term).

Unfortunately, most people are naturally impatient and want result fast. This impatients is also often applied to weight loss. Weight Loss companies have have jumped on this and have provided people with weight loss fat burners and diet programs that specifically targeted the need for people to loose weight fast. But, these are almost never sustainable as the body adapts to them and will then start to gain weight. In some extreme cases, the quick fix solutions have also been shown to have serious associated health risks.

A healthy Diet plan

So, what exactly constitutes a healthy diet plan and how can you tell which plans are healthy and which ones are likely to be controversial? A healthy diet plan is one which:

• Does not leave out any food groups. In order for your body to function properly your diet MUST contain all the essential food groups in the right proportions. These essential food groups include: Proteins, carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, and the healthy essential fats.
• Encourages you to count the calories you eat.
• Encourages you to Eating little and often of the right foods.
• Sets a long term goal for your weight loss.
• Encourages to take a holistic approach to weight loss and not just focus on diet alone.
• Does not rely on artificial chemicals or pills to induce weight loss.

A healthy diet plan will not just tell you not to eat something, but also gives you alternatives to help you satisfy your craving. Alternatives such as:

• 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.

3. Exercise

Exercise is an essential factor in loosing weight and burning calories. Exercise is more essential to the human body than just helping people to loose weight and look good. The human body is designed in such a way to rely on constant physical activity to help it to function normally. Scientific research has shown that exercise has a direct effect on the healthy functioning of the muscles, the brain, the skeleton, the nervous system and every organ in the human body. In fact there is no part of your body that is not effected by a healthy exercise routine.

However, if your goal is specifically to loose weight, then you should understand the importance of not only the type of exercises you do, but also the intensity at which you do them. When your goal is to loose weight then you must always try to exercise within your Weight Loss Heart Rate zone and ensure that you do not go above or below the limits of this zone. Its vital to understand that over exercising is just as bad as too little exercise, specifically if your goal is to loose weight. If you exercise too much you will raise the body's Cortisol levels which is a hormone responsible for causing the body to store more fat than usual. Its therefore important to have an understanding of how the body's energy system effects weight loss as this will assist with training in such a way to optimise your weight loss program.

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 in the long run, and quiet often end up putting on more weight. This is because a wrong diet tend to promise quick solutions, and very rarely, a permanent one. In order for you to sustain your weight loss, you have to plan a long term lifestyle change. The ONLY safe way to loose weight, and to make sure it stays off, is if you set yourself very gradual and realistic targets which should include the following:

• Gradual weight loss by adopting a healthy lifestyle and diet.
• Sufficient sleep (you must have 8 hrs sleep every night as lack of sleep will raise your body's Cortisol levels).
• Regular exercise but within your Weight Loss Heart Rate zone.
• Try to limit the amount of emotional stress in your life (Emotional stress raises the Cortisol levels).

Remember, if you want a permanent solution then you have to plan for a gradual weight loss and a gradual lifestyle change. A gradual change will have a less of an impact on your state of mind, which will result in your body adapting to the changes permanently.

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 eat. 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 and starvation as your body needs food to function! So by fighting a craving to eat, you are in fact fighting your survival instinct. 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 emotional and psychological support to one another.