Weight Loss Advice: Achieve Your Goals

The weight loss advice found here won't have you shedding weight faster than Jack Bauer can take down an international ring of terrorists (that's 24 hours for those of you not familiar with the popular TV show). Real weight loss, the kind that changes your life forever, requires permanent changes to your lifestyle.

There's no magic pill, powder or program that's going deliver the results that compare to the ones that come from possessing a true understanding of your body and what it takes to achieve a healthy weight. Weight loss is really an attempt to permanently reduce excess body fat and that requires some time, effort and a little bit of know-how learned from practical weight loss advice.

Maintaining a healthy weight can be hard enough in today's drive-thru, super-sized world and healthy weight loss is often a real struggle. To make matters worse, we're tempted everyday with "quick-fix" offers and fad diets that usually fall far short of their promised results. (Has the old adage "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is" ever rang truer than in the weight loss industry?)

There seems to be a gross shortage of weight loss advice that provides a no-hype look at what it takes to achieve long-lasting, life-changing weight loss. If you're sick of the constant weight loss roller coaster that seems to plague so many people trying to lose weight then you've come to the right place.

Don't be discouraged if your last weight loss attempt wasn't a success. A little bit of weight loss advice that helps you to avoid common diet pitfalls and instead institute some simple but lasting lifestyle changes can help you fight the battle of the bulge and come out on the winning end once and for all.

Weight Loss Advice: Understanding Weight Loss

If your body had an owners manual you'd have effective weight loss advice at your fingertips and losing weight would be as easy as changing your car's oil. Unfortunately, no such manual exists so you're left to figure it out on your own.

Your weight really boils down to one simple equation:

Using the Weight Loss Formula

Of course, to create a calorie deficit you need a general idea of both how many calories you are consuming and how many you are burning. A lot of weight loss advice places a heavy emphasis placed on calories being consumed with little attention being paid to the calories being burned.

A common obstacle to weight loss is the belief that healthy, permanent weight loss can be achieved by simply cutting calories and not increasing activity levels. This may work for a brief period of time, but sustainable weight loss requires lifestyle changes to both diet and exercise.

It is actually much healthier to focus on increasing the number of calories you are able to burn in a day rather than severely limiting your caloric intake. Weight loss advice that promotes a severe reduction in calories can be dangerous and even detrimental to sustainable weight loss.

Tracking Calories Consumed

Understanding the nutritional value of foods is important and early on in your weight loss efforts you'll want to know how many calories are in the foods you're eating. But counting calories is often impractical and can be a difficult practice to maintain for long periods of time.

The good news is that with a little up front effort it becomes easy to know how many calories you are consuming. To begin there are two things you should do:

1. Keep a food diary. Developing this one simple habit will help you to make great strides toward healthier eating and natural weight loss. Simply write down everything you eat throughout the day and approximately when you eat it. This can be done throughout the day or at the end of the day, whichever is easiest for you. Just be sure to record everything you eat!

   This exercise allows you to see eating habits that you may not be aware of and have a complete record of everything you eat. It is very easy to forget everything you eat during a day and sometimes massive amounts of calories can be hiding in things you completely forgot you ate! Keeping a food diary can be a very eye opening exercise.

2. Use a calorie counter. A simple calorie counter like the one found here can be used to easily determine how many calories are in the food you are eating.

Taking these two simple steps you will help you develop a clear picture of what you are eating and how many calories those foods contain. What you're also likely to find is that you'll develop a sense for nutritional values and calorie levels in many different foods. As you learn to eat nutritious, low calorie foods and make exercise a habit you're likely to find that counting calories becomes unnecessary.

To lose weight you need to make smart food choices and consume foods that are rich in nutrients and vitamins and low in calories. Long term weight loss and weight management requires a practical plan that is easy to maintain.

Try using this simple weight loss advice to help with your caloric intake:

• Use common sense. You don't need weight loss advice to know that a Whopper and fries contains loads more calories than say a turkey sandwich you make at home. It's okay (and actually a good idea) to be informed about calorie levels in foods but there's no need to obsess over it. Try to get the majority of your calories from healthy sources such as lean meats and fish, whole grains, and fruits and vegetables and don't obsess over every single calorie.
• Eat several small meals throughout the day. This can be a bit difficult at first and may require a little planning ahead of time but it is well worth your time. Shoot for four to six small meals throughout the day with small, healthy snacks (string cheese, fruits and veggies, almonds) in between meals.
• Make sure your meals are balanced. Each meal should include protein, complex carbs, and fruits and/or vegetables. Try using these guidelines for quantities:

  1. Aim for protein portions that are approximately the size of the palm of your hand. Get your proteins from quality sources such as lean meat, fish, egg whites, dairy products, beans and nuts.

  2. Include a fist sized portion of complex carbohydrates with each meal. Try to stay away from processed and refined grains and instead focus on whole wheat bread, wild rice, whole wheat pasta, multigrain cereal, and potatoes.

  3. A fist sized portion of fruits and vegetables is an excellent goal. If possible try to consume five to six fist sized portions daily. If you're like me, this can be tough and it may be a good idea to take a daily multi-vitamin to ensure you're getting all of your essential vitamins and minerals.

  4. Limit your saturated fats, sugars and sodium with all meals.

• Stop eating when you are full. There's no need to clean your plate at every meal. Take your time eating allowing your body to recognize when it is full and then stop when you reach this point. If you find yourself becoming hungry shortly after meals it's okay to satisfy your hunger with a healthy snack.

Calculating Calories Burned

Think about this simple fact; even if you consume 3,500 calories a day you can still lose one pound per week as long as you burn 4,000 calories a day! As you can see, it is important to know how many calories you are burning on a daily basis.

There are a couple of ways to go about calculating the calories you burn:

1. Calculate your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and/or your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This can be done very accurately with a professionally administered test or roughly via the use of standardized equations. Your RMR can be multiplied by an activity variable to determine your daily caloric need.
   
   
2. Calculate the actual calories burned for all activities in a 24 hour period. This method requires you to keep track of all your activities for 24 hour periods and then calculate the calories burned for each activity (with the use of an activity calculator). While fairly accurate, this method requires a little bit of effort on your part in recording and calculating your activities.

I highly recommend taking the time to have your Resting Metabolic Rate professionally tested by a doctor or certified personal trainer. These professionals can use your RMR along with other measurements (such as body fat percentage) and activity levels to very accurately determine how many calories you burn in a day. You'll need to spend some money for these services but this will provide you with the most accurate assessment of your caloric needs to lose or sustain weight.

Exercise and Weight Loss

Any weight loss advice worth a lick has to include exercise. Engaging in consistent exercise is a critical habit to develop in order to lose weight and then maintain your new healthy weight.

It's common for people to think the only reason we exercise is to burn calories. In reality, the true purpose of exercise is to send repetitive messages to your body asking it for improvements to various physical capabilities, including the ability to burn fat.

Let me put it to you like this, if you exercise for one hour a day, seven days a week (more than you need to or will, but a good number for examples sake) you would still only be exercising about four percent of the time.

So, while it is nice that you burned 600 calories during your workout what is even more important is how your body functions throughout the day in response to the messages you send it through the exercise you complete.

In other words, burning calories during exercise is important but because you only exercise a small portion of your total time it is not nearly as important as teaching your body to burn more calories while you aren't working out. Regular exercise will do just that.

Engaging in both aerobic exercise and some form of resistance strength training coupled with healthy eating habits is the only surefire recipe for healthy weight loss.Click here to find out how using heart rate training to guide your aerobic workouts can help you blast the fat.

Muscle mass also has a dramatic impact on your metabolism. Your muscle cells are your body's engines and they require fuel (calories) to function. The more muscle you have, the more energy you require and the higher your metabolism is. Muscle is your fat fighting friend. Take the time to learn how to build lean muscle for calorie guzzling engines!

Weight Loss Advice: A look at emotional and social aspects of weight loss

If you only ate to satisfy hunger and fuel your body losing weight would be much less of a challenge. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. As you well know, food is a common part of many social interactions and can also be a great source of comfort and stress relief.

The people you are surrounded by in life also have an impact on your eating habits. As your friends and family eat, so goes your diet. Weight loss is difficult to achieve if the other members of your household pay little attention to eating a healthy diet or tend to make light of effective weight loss advice.

My weight loss advice promotes the all important step of carefully noting your eating habits. How and when do you eat? Do you really only eat when you are hungry? Do you eat when you're stressed or bored? Do you always reach for the snacks while you're watching TV? Do you have to eat when people around you are eating?

Learning to recognize your eating triggers can help make it easier for you to make changes. By identifying any personal challenges to weight loss you can more easily work towards gradually changing those habits and attitudes that have blocked your path to successful weight loss in the past.

Weight Loss Advice to Overcome Obstacles

You're likely to encounter a few obstacles on your way to a healthy weight. It helps to take a look at some common roadblocks you may find yourself faced with so you can be prepared to break through them before they even become an issue.

Why Weight Loss Programs Fail:

• You have to sacrifice too much. Diets that outlaw entire groups of food (most commonly carbs, fat and sugar) are more than just unhealthy - they're almost impossible to maintain. Lifelong weight management requires a healthy, well-rounded diet with an adequate balance of nutrients and vitamins.
• The weight just keeps coming back, no matter how many times you lose it. Ah yes, the infamous yo-yo dieting struggle. In today's quick-fix world most diets are designed to help you quickly achieve a weight loss goal but provide no plan for maintaining your new healthy weight.

  Weight loss advice that relies on restricting certain foods or severely slashing calories very well may provide the short term results you're seeking but won't provide a foundation for a sustainable diet and the pounds will come back as quickly as you lost them.

  What's more is that a restricted diet sends a signal to your body that it needs to conserve energy for lean times. It does this by burning less and storing more fat for later use and reducing the size of your body engines (muscles). This means you can't burn fuel (calories) at the rate you previously did. Once you start eating normally (which you will because a restricted diet will leave you unsatisfied) the weight will quickly come back due to your slowed metabolism. This is a prime example of why "fasting" diets are counterproductive to permanent weight loss.

• Food is social and your diet isolates you. Have you ever skipped out on an enjoyable evening with friends because the dinner and drinks don't fit into your diet? Bummed out because you can't do lunch with your co-workers now that you're on a strict diet?

  There's no doubt food is a very social part of daily life. If your diet keeps you from attending social get-togethers or makes you dread otherwise fun activities, failure is almost a certainty. Without practical and realistic healthy eating strategies you may end up feeling alienated which can lead to cheating or ditching the diet altogether.

• Every little setback leaves you feeling too guilty to continue. Even the most disciplined of us give in to temptation from time to time. The good news is that an occasional indulgence doesn't shoot all your efforts in the foot.

  Again, any diet that requires you to sacrifice too much will leave you feeling deprived and will not be an effective lifelong diet. Weight loss is about the big picture so focus on that. It is unrealistic to think you'll go through life without enjoying your favorite foods every now then.

  Did you know?

  The generally accepted rate for healthy weight loss is no greater than two pounds per week. The faster you lose weight the more likely you are to put the weight back on! Click here to find out why crash diets are detrimental to sustainable weight loss.

• You've been duped one too many times. A lot of weight loss advice is geared to do one thing: convince you to buy some supplement or fancy (but worthless) new piece of equipment that promises amazing results.

  Let me offer this piece of weight loss advice; if you're continually buying into some new diet pill or program that leads you nowhere, STOP! Unfortunately, long term weight loss and healthy weight maintenance are not easy and there is no substitute for a balanced diet and consistent exercise. Effective supplements and programs do exist but save yourself a lot of time and money by researching products before buying. And remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

• I'm not losing weight as fast as the commercial told me I would. Most diet companies are only interested in moving their product and they'll say or do just about anything to do just that. This leads to an industry full of inflated promises that are simply not realistic.

  Any weight loss advice that makes you believe that achieving your weight loss goals will be quick and easy is doing you a disservice. Buy into the hype and unrealistic expectations and it's easy to get discouraged. Set realistic goals and you'll be motivated as you achieve them making it easier to reach for bigger goals.

Weight Loss Advice and Popular Diet Plans

Take the time to educate yourself about weight loss and there's no reason you can't realize amazing results on your own.

Still, millions of people realize success with reputable commercial diet programs. The structure, ease and support some of these programs provide can be of great benefit. If this sounds like it might be up your alley there is one program I recommend: Weight Watchers.

The real beauty of Weight Watchers is that it does not restrict or require any foods. It is a program very much inline with much of the weight loss advice found on this page. The program is easy to follow and takes nearly all the difficulty out of food selection. The program's participants experience a high level of success and it is hand's down the best program I've found for promoting permanent weight loss through lifestyle change.

No matter which diet plan you choose (commercial or your own) it must, most importantly, satisfy you. If it does not it is almost certainly destined for failure. Remember, the goal is to develop long term eating and exercise habits that support healthy, permanent weight loss and healthy weight management.

Weight Loss Advice: The Bottom Line

Your body has the ability to maintain a healthy weight naturally but it depends on you to take care of it. Use this weight loss advice to achieve an active, healthy and energetic body that will help with the prevention of lifestyle related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

The intelligent decisions you make today will not only make you look and feel better now, they'll influence your future health allowing you to enjoy life well into your later years. Take this weight loss advice to heart and I promise you'll be happy with the results.