Diet and exercise is the best weight loss strategy

After analyzing data from more than 4,000 obese individuals, researchers from Harvard found that those who exercised and avoided fatty foods were significantly more likely to lose weight compared to those who tried liquid diets, nonprescription weight loss pills, and diet products.

More than half of the group said they tried to lose weight. Of that group, 40 percent said they experienced a weight loss of five percent or more, while another 20 percent lost 10 percent or more.

Meanwhile, according to experts, cutting calories through smart dietary changes is more effective at promoting weight loss than physical activity alone. While the ideal weight loss strategy would be to do both, the key to weight loss is burning more calories than you consume.

For example, because 3,500 calories equals about one pound or half a kilogram of fat, cutting 500 calories from your diet each day would result in the loss of one pound a week.

The study set out to find out what successful dieters are doing to shed unwanted pounds and keep them off.

People actually are losing 5% to 10% of their body weight or more using tried-and-true methods. The study included information on more than 4,000 obese people who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Of these, 63% said they had tried to lose weight. Forty percent said they lost 5% or more of their body weight, and 20% said they lost 10% or more of their excess body weight.

Several trends emerged among the biggest losers. Those who exercised more and ate less fat lost more weight.

A source of great frustration to those who weigh often is how body weight can fluctuate from day to day. With this in mind, I advise checking your weight rarely, no more than once a month.
If you watch too closely, you see swings up and down from day to day that leave you either joyful or depressed. The stock market doesn't move in a predictable linear fashion, and neither does your weight when you are trying to reduce.
The reason is water. Water influences your weight in two ways. First, muscle is mostly water, and that's why one pound of muscle contains only 700 calories (kcals) compared to the 3,500 contained in one pound of fat. This was discussed last week.
Second, and more important with regard to quick, daily fluctuations, is the role water plays in the storage of carbohydrates.
The base component of carbohydrates is glucose. A modest amount of glucose is stored in the muscles to serve as an immediate source of fuel for muscular contractions. Glucose also is stored in the liver. When the blood glucose level drops, the liver will inject glucose into the blood to bring the level back up.
Here's the main point: When glucose is stored, it is stored in long chains that are called glycogen. In making the chains, water is added in a 2.7 to 1 ratio. In other words, if you store one pound of glycogen, you store along with it 2.7 pounds of water.
When you break the glycogen chain, glucose and water are released. You use the glucose as fuel and you secrete the water. If you secrete one pint of water, you lose one pound.
So, let's assume you consume additional carbs one day for some reason and put them into storage. Bingo, you can easily gain a pound or two. Conversely, the next day, you are running low on stored carbs and, bingo, you lose a pound or two.
Let's assume you're taking the right approach, going slowly, eating the right foods, exercising daily. Even so, as you go along, you will encounter a slowing of your rate of fat loss.
This is inevitable because you are getting smaller and, as you do, you will burn off fewer calories each day.
As such, unless you hike your efforts by exercising more and/or tweaking your caloric intake down a notch, your rate of loss will slow to a crawl.
In addition, because your body is such a complex organism, it doesn't always respond logically to what you are doing. This means at times your weight will stubbornly plateau in the same way the stock market will trade sideways for prolonged periods.
If you don't weigh often and you have patience and are in the game over the long haul, these plateaus will work themselves out.
Lose Weight by Practicing Meditation for Just 10 Minutes a Day!
It all starts with thoughts. Thoughts become words, words become actions and repeated actions become habits. Gaining excess weight is a direct result of bad habits. To achieve success in losing weight permanently, habits must be changed. It is very difficult to change habits as they are seated at the very deepest levels of our subconscious mind.
How can we change these deep-seated habits?
Meditation is the process through which we engage the subconscious level of mind with the conscious level of mind. This way the power of mind is increased tremendously as the subconscious level of mind is a million times more powerful than the conscious level of mind. Meditation takes the mind to the deepest level of the subconscious state where the mind controls the body, not the other way around. The mind, in this powerful state, is able to dictate to the body to lose weight by changing some habits which are the root cause of the problem.
Following are some additional advantages of meditation:
1. Meditation helps us to explore our inner treasures and develop consciousness to inner happiness. It develops inner strength, energy and realization.
2. Through meditation, our mind becomes positive and by that virtue, our body starts behaving the way we want. Negative thoughts start going away.
3. Through meditation, we begin a new kind of realization of our bones, muscles, tissues and organs. It penetrates every cell of our body and makes positive changes in our cells. Meditation lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and stress related diseases such as heart attack and stroke. It also helps to reduce use of hypertensive drugs.
4. Meditation helps to channel quality and quantity of thoughts. We don't feel lonely and don't have a feeling of emptiness any more. We also don't feel over crowded with thoughts either. Our mind does not wander around in 1000 different directions.

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