The Effectiveness of Natural Weight Loss

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The weight loss industry currently yields over 60 billion dollars a year, and that number is on the rise!  It is no secret that the majority of Americans today could stand to lose some weight, and with such a massive weight loss industry, there is no shortage of options when it comes doing so. For many years, diet programs such as weight watchers, and strict diets such as the Atkins diet were the “go-to” for dieters. Numerous fad diets have also come and gone and some extreme dieters have turned to surgery, drugs and diet pills as a means to lose weight. Although these methods of weight loss still exist, natural weight loss is now gaining popularity and with the ever growing obesity epidemic, the mentality and methods behind natural weight loss couldn’t have come at a better time.

Natural Weight Loss and the Associated Diets

The reason why natural weight loss is becoming so popular is because the most common methods of weight loss are either unhealthy, unsuccessful or both. Firstly, diets don’t work.  It’s an established fact, and their unremitting failure is what fuels the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry. A little voice in your head may be thinking that this statement is not true, because you know someone who has lost weight on a diet, or perhaps, you yourself have lost weight on one. But even if the diet produces immediate weight loss results, the restrictive nature of all diets makes them unsustainable, and the majority of dieters will regain the weight and then some, as soon as they go off their diet.

Another option for weight loss is weight loss surgery. Although surgery tends to produce more lasting results than diets, they are extremely costly and can cause complications such as infections, constipation, blood clots, gallstones, nutrient deficiency, malnourishment and even death.    Surgeries also involve down time and they necessitate lengthy absences from work.

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Prescription drugs have also experienced popularity amongst dieters; however they can cause a wide range of unwanted side-effects including: insomnia, dizziness, restlessness, dry mouth, increased pulse rate, constipation, headaches, runny nose, diarrhea, oily stools, gas and sore throat.  In addition, they can cause health problems such as high blood pressure, pulmonary hypertension (a potentially fatal disorder), valvular disease and a deficiency of fat soluble vitamins.  Over the counter diet pills can also cause a range of unwanted side effects, they can be dangerous to one’s health and the efficacy of many of them remain unproven.

Other Methods of Weight Loss

In contract to the above methods of weight loss, natural weight loss produces lasting results, and it does so without putting your health at risk. At this point you may be wondering what exactly natural weight loss is. Natural weight loss does not involve restrictive dieting or completely eliminating food groups from your diet. Instead, the natural weight loss approach involves slowly changing your eating habits and creating a new, healthy way of eating that you can sustain for life.  For instance, instead of deciding to avoid all processed foods, you should slowly reduce your consumption over a period of days, weeks or even months—whatever feels most natural to you.  Your focus should be incorporating more healthy foods into your diet as opposed to eliminating the unhealthy ones, because this focus shift will prevent feelings of deprivation and allow you to lose weight without the emotional struggle inherent in most diets.

Another important part of natural weight loss is exercise. You should not force yourself to exercise excessively; instead you should try to incorporate physical activities that you enjoy into your daily routine.  Walks with friends or loved ones after dinner, tennis matches, swimming, dancing, hiking, and biking are all great examples of enjoyable forms of exercise. The best part of natural weight loss is that you will actually experience enhanced health, increased energy and greater vitality as a result of it; all of which will help you to continue to make healthy choices and ultimately to keep the weight off.

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