Starting a Weight Loss Program? Read These Important Weight Loss Tips

You may be looking to lose weight either for health reasons or to improve your appearance, whatever the reason you will most likely be looking for tips or advice on how to get started. Tips and advice are things that are not in short supply and this article will highlight a number of them that will definitely help you in your quest to lose weight.

Eat the right things!

Number one on the list must be to eat healthily. Eating healthily means watching and monitoring exactly what you eat and not necessarily how much you eat. You could in reality end up eating more than you were before starting your diet by swapping junk foods that contain high levels of calories with fruits and vegetables that are what are classed as negative foods (foods that contain fewer calories than are used to digest them!).

One of the first things you should do when looking at improving your diet is to learn a little about the foods that are good for you and those that are not. We have already mentioned those that are good for you; the negative calorie group of foods, their opposites the bad foods, often referred to as junk foods, are the foods that take fewer calories to digest than they contain, therefore they leave unused calories in the body, that if left unused will turn into fat.

These foods are known as empty calorie foods and must be either limited and controlled or eliminated from your diet completely. It is a drastic step to look at completely eliminating them from your diet so limitation is probably the favored option.

Plan your meals to be as varied as possible.

In order to succeed in your diet change it is advisable to vary your meal plans as much as possible to avoid the drudgery that is often associated with a change to a low fat or healthier diet. The easiest way to find out information related to healthy foods and recipes is to look for it on the internet. One valuable piece of advice would be to find a good weight loss program that utilizes a method called calorie shifting.

Low calorie and fad diets should be avoided as they are all detrimental to your health!

Any diet that forces the body's metabolism to go into starvation mode is a bad diet as it will lead to fatigue, illness and a poor immune system. This bodily reaction happens because the body eventually gets used to the level of calories being consumed and over time adapts to survive at this newer lower level of calorific intake.

This in itself is ok, but should the intake of calories drop below that which the body requires to function normally and to carry out normal day to day tasks the body will start to burn fat in order to service its needs.

The problem is that the body will become critically low in energy and as a result you will be constantly fatigued, this is a fundamental sign of starvation, and that is not a good thing!

Calorie shifting allows you to eat well and lose weight quickly and consistently.

Now, you may think that the fat burning that is achieved using low calorie or fad diets is exactly what you are trying to achieve, and in all fairness, you would be right but they are achieved at a cost!

There is a better solution that not only achieves a quick weight loss but also this weight loss is a sustained weight loss unlike the short term benefits offered by the low calorie and fad diets.

This method is called calorie shifting and it is a method of juggling the food you eat, and therefore your calorific intake, in such a way that the body is fooled into not adapting to a lower metabolism (the result of a decrease in calorie intake).

Your weight loss is quicker and easier with regular exercise.

The two types of exercise you should consider are aerobic and anaerobic exercises:

Aerobic exercises are designed to improve endurance and fitness levels and are associated with most sports and gym routine programs, such as step.

Anaerobics are exercises designed to increase muscle mass, and are basically acknowledged as being power exercises such as weight training.

A combination of these two would be ideal as both have benefits but if I was to favor one over the other I would have to opt for anaerobic weight training.

Lean muscle requires calories constantly, both when being worked and when at rest, and the more lean muscle your body has the higher your metabolism will be. Aerobic exercise on the other hand will benefit your fitness generally and has an immediate weight loss effect, but only whilst exercising, once you stop exercising so does the calorie burning.

Try to buddy up, dieting and exercise will be much easier.

Dieting and exercise are extremely difficult adversaries when you are tackling them with little or no support. Drum up a like minded ally and you will be amazed how much easier your battle will become. Some people benefit from supporting others and receiving support in return whilst others compete with their diet buddy, it doesn't really matter as it is the end result that is the most important.

Goal setting and keeping a log will give you the mental stimulus to succeed.

You would be amazed how many people start a diet and either; have no idea what they need to target each week to achieve their desired target weight or; have set themselves an impossible target and destined to dieting failure, often resulting in giving up.

We should all have a target weight we want to achieve before commencing our weight loss program, and whatever it is we should look to lose no more than 2 pounds a week, as any more than that may not be achieved, and failure is something we have to avoid each week in order to reach our final destination.

So, make it as achievable as possible and you will be setting yourself up to succeed. Yes, it may take longer to reach your target weight but you will have a greater chance of success, and don't forget to log everything. You will benefit immensely from knowing exactly when and how specific things have or have not made a difference to your weight loss program.

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