6 Tips for Weight Loss

The first thing that people consider doing when they realize they need to lose weight is to stop eating; or at least drastically reduce what they have been eating. Although this will have an immediate effect on your weight it is a short lived effect and any weight loss will quickly stop once the body has adapted to a lower intake of calories.

So what most people need are guidelines or weight loss tips so they can effectively and safely lose weight and this is what this article will provide you with.

1. Beware of Crash Diets:

Crash diets are not good for your health. By lowering the intake of calories, sometimes by enormous amounts depending on the diet followed, can cause serious problems to your health. What happens is that your body begins to digest the fat that is stored as there is no energy being consumed in the shape of food.

This in itself sounds great, but the fat the body burns uses what little energy has been taken onboard. As a result you will suffer from extreme tiredness, illness and a weak immune system that leaves you less able to fight off even minor strains of infections.

A good way to avoid this problem is to use a weight loss program that uses a method called calorie shifting. This method encourages eating the right types of food, the foods in turn maintain a high metabolism and this in turn results in increase weight loss with the negative effects of a low calorie diet!

2. Eating properly:

This was touched on briefly at the end of point one. There are two types of food, good and bad. The good food contains lots of foods that have, what are known as, negative calorie values. A food with a negative calorie value is a food that contains fewer calories than what the body uses to digest it.

Therefore, if you take an apple for example that has a calorific value of 100, and eat it, you will burn off 50 more calories than the apple contains, as it takes 150 calories to digest the apple! A diet that comprises completely of negative calorie foods will practically guarantee weight loss.

On the other hand though there are many foods that contain empty calories, and these are the nemesis of the negative calorie foods and are very much what we are looking to avoid or limit in our diet. All foods that contain empty calories are referred to as junk foods; and amongst these are items like red meat, white bread, cakes, biscuits, anything that has a high sugar count, chips and many more besides.

3. Building your muscles:

We are not talking Arnold Schwarzenegger here, but weight training is by far the most effective fat burning exercise you can undertake. Muscle is heavier than fat, so using weight training as a method for weight loss can be disconcerting as you may not see your scales showing you getting any lighter.

What will happen however is that you will lose inches from problem fatty areas and your body fat levels will decrease rapidly Lean muscle uses a lot of calories both when working and at rest so the more muscle your body has the greater your body's metabolism will be, and the greater your metabolism the more fat will be burned. The best way to start building muscle is by using simple resistant exercises like press-ups and sit-ups.

4. Extra calorie burn using aerobics:

Aerobics are exercises that train the body to oxygenate for endurance, this oxygenating process requires a constant but steady burn of calories in order maintain muscle activity. Although aerobics do not induce the building of lean muscle they are excellent for your immediate well being and fitness levels but they are an excellent way of burning fat. Always ensure that you remain as hydrated as possible throughout aerobic exercise.

5. Extra stimulants and help:

There is a belief that caffeine or smoking assist in weight loss and there may be an element of truth in this as both are appetite suppressants, but neither are good bedfellows if you are looking to improve your health and lifestyle. Instead, you could look at the many natural supplements that target appetite suppression and readily available on the high street.

6. Diet Pills?

My advice would be to check out with your doctor first, whatever it is you are looking at taking. Even if what you are looking at using has had a number of rave reviews elsewhere. My own personal opinion is that if you combine a good exercise routine with a weight loss program structured using a calorie shifting method, you will not need any stimulants or pills to help you reach the weight you have targeted for yourself.

Losing weight is about being sensible, and obtaining and using good information. It doesn't necessarily mean sacrifice or suffering but will need you to apply a certain degree of compromise in order to achieve your weight loss goals.