Archive for December, 2008

Everything In Moderation

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

How many times have you heard that statement? The best results are always when anything is done in moderation. You gain body fat because you weren’t eating or drinking in moderation so in order to reverse that situation you also need to plan your weight loss programs so that eating or exercising that is involved with that program is also done in moderation.

Excessive exercising for somebody who hasn’t done much in the past can result in injury and that injury can make you less mobile and increase the opportunity to gain body fat.

Sudden changes in diet will send the body into reactionary mode storing fat. Gradual changes to your diet on the other hand done in moderation will not send signals to the body that is a starving and in fact you won’t feel as though you are starving either if you do it in moderation.

Making moderate changes to your food and exercise won’t infringe on your lifestyle anywhere near as much and that will in effect make it a lot easier for you to maintain the changes for a lot longer until they become second nature.

This is when you will get to the stage where you can gradually keep reducing the body fat and become healthier and healthier and more energetic as time goes on.

Even your intake or water has to be in moderation because drinking excessive water can flush out important nutrients from your system doing more harm than good.

You are better drinking a glass of water here and there throughout the day rather than trying to drink gallons of water in the hope that it will help you to lose weight faster.

Even good foods need to be eaten in moderation as excessive quantities of these foods can still cause the body to store them as fat.

It’s a simple rule to follow really; if you are eating drinking or exercising too much or too little you are unlikely to get optimum results.

What You Can Expect

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

If you’ve been on any diets or weight loss programs in the past then consider the results that you got from them because that is what you can expect if you go on the same diet again.

You need to look not only at the diet itself, the time that you were on it and whether you lost weight or not, but also the period after you stopped dieting and consider how fast you put the weight back on because very often that weight gain after dieting was a result of the diet itself.

If you are considering another attempt at that diet where you lost a lot of weight quite rapidly, it will be worthwhile to look a little further and see what the final outcome was over the medium to long term as that might paint a different picture and change your opinion on the effectiveness of the diet.

It might be time for you to consider an alternative way of losing weight or to be more precise losing fat because that is the most important thing that you should be looking at.

Consider using a weight-loss program that reduces the fat gradually and is easy to maintain while you go about your normal day-to-day life. You might think that it will take longer to lose the weight but what you really should be focusing on is getting to an optimum body shape and staying there for the rest of your life.

It is not much use to you to lose weight for a few months and put it on for the next few months and then repeat the cycle over and over again.

This is all that you can expect to get if that’s all that you got in the past and in fact it only becomes more difficult to lose weight and easier to put it back on so keep that thought in your mind before you embark on another weight-loss program.

Natural Weight Loss Products

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Many people assume that because a product is natural is a lot healthier for the body but this is not always the case as even natural ingredients, and particularly those that they put in weight loss supplements can cause other problems detrimental to your health.

Many natural weight loss products also have such a minimal amount of substances in them that are beneficial to weight loss that the chances of them benefiting your weight-loss program will be negligible.

That’s not to say that some natural weight loss products aren’t good but you need to be aware that many of them are just getting promoted as with any other weight loss and dietary supplement purely as a source of income for the people selling.

The FDA has in fact banned the use of many natural products that were used in weight loss supplements over the years because they are proven to cause anything from mild to severe reactions in some people.

A lot of these products only act as diuretics which cause a temporary loss of water giving people the false impression that they are losing weight rapidly.

You will in fact have a lot more chance of losing weight by an increasing the quantity of water that you drink and remaining hydrated all the time.

The best natural weight loss products are the good healthy foods that you should be eating every day in the form of fresh fruit and vegetables that will assure you have all the necessary vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function properly.

If you have any health problems such as high blood pressure or heart problems then you will need professional advice even when taking natural weight loss products to ensure your safety. Some natural ingredients can increase blood pressure and if you already have high blood pressure the results could be fatal.

Retaining Your Muscle Mass

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Retaining your muscle mass while on a weight loss program is one of the most important aspects that you need to concentrate on as this will help you to keep your fat percentage down long-term.

On the ultra low calorie diets the body begins to cannibalize its own muscle tissue as its defense mechanisms come into play.

An example of this is shown with some of these apparently slim fashion models who have quite high levels of body fat in proportion to their overall size.

The reason for this is the fact that they haven’t done any form of exercise or resistance training to maintain any reasonable level of muscle mass and this is only made worse by the fact that they are often eating a very low quality diet and nutrition is lacking.

It is not uncommon to see skinny models with cellulite and that is a sure sign that they are retaining fat in a higher percentage than they should be.

They would find that if they added a little bit of resistance training or even some form of decent exercise to their daily routine they would be able to still retain a slim figure but the body fat percentage would be considerably lower and they would look a lot more toned and healthy.

And healthy is what you should be aiming for when you go on a weight-loss program and not simply losing weight as actually improving your overall health and well-being will help you to live a better lifestyle for a lot longer.

Increasing your muscle mass also improves your metabolic rate whereas body fat has a very low level of metabolic activity. Nutritionists regard muscle as the furnace that burns in the body and this is what you should be aiming for.

If more weight loss programs focused on retaining muscle mass people would be unlikely to put the weight back on rapidly once they finished the program.