Category: Weightloss

You may think that losing weight is impossible; but really it isn’t. However, if you are thinking that it happens right away without absolutely any effort on your part; that is where you are wrong. If you are serious about losing weight and you are willing to stick to a healthy eating plan/diet, as well as changing your mindset, you will find that you will be able to lose your extra pounds quickly.

Both weight loss and diet plans are things that come and go in your life. They may even be your fad of the week and you begin to go after the concept without fully understanding how it can work for you. There are some diet programs that have been around for a while that really do work.

But if you begin to rely on just one special diet program you may fail because it is not appropriate for your personal genetic makeup. There could also be adverse side effects that may occur over a certain amount of time, which could result in some serious health problems.

You will also soon find that weight loss is more of a lifestyle than it is a type of physical act. There are a variety of different reasons why people fail at weight loss programs in general. The majority of these people failed due to not being properly motivated to lose their weight. There are a few tips though that you can do to help you avoid the failures of dieting.

1. Effort

* You will need to be ready to put forth some effort on your part. You need to be able to visualize your overall weight loss goal and push yourself towards the goal line.

2. Focused

* You will also need to be sure that you are staying focused on your overall weight loss goal. If you are willing to stick to a strict exercise routine as well as a dietary plan you will be well on your way. It may be discouraging because it may take some time to see results but it is important that you continue to stay focused. You should share your goal with your friends and families who can lend you support if you are down and help you get back on track.

3. Exercise

* You need to realize that losing weight can be fun and not associate it with work or a chore. If you are trying to lose calories do your exercise in ways that you would normally have fun. Play ball with your kids, play tennis, go jogging, take your kids to the mall and walk around. These are all still great forms of exercise and they will help you burn the calories.

If you are looking at losing weight quick, there will be a lot of effort involved. If you are not willing to put in the effort, that it will take to lose weight, you will fail.

Everyone you talk to seems to have dozens of tips on losing weight. Some are good common sense tips, but some seem to come out of left field. Even people who can’t seem to successfully lose weight and keep it off seems happy to offer up tips and advice to other people. That’s a pretty good indication that many of us know the best advice and tips on losing weight, but we just don’t follow them very well. Here are some that, if you use them in your daily journey toward losing weight, can help you.

Use smaller plates. This is one of those tips on losing weight that often makes people roll their eyes. It has nothing to do with eating or exercise, but it really does trick your mind into thinking you’re eating more food. A smaller plate will look fuller than a large plate if they have the same amount of food on them. You might even naturally put less food on the smaller plate, to keep it from looking so loaded down. It’s a mental trick, but you should try it because it works for many people.

Eat slowly. This is one of the oldest and most popular tips on losing weight. Have you ever watched a speed-eating contest? Imagine someone eating the same amount of food as the winner, but imagine them eating it slowly. The champion may have scarfed down 20 pies in very little time. Could you actually sit down with a fork and slowly eat 20 pies? It’s not likely.

The speed eater ate so fast, his body didn’t even have time to scream, “STOP, I’M FULL!” And if it had, he was only focused on putting more and more food in, just as we are when we’re “starving” and we gulp down our food. Eat slowly and you’ll reach a pleasant feeling of fullness rather than the one that means you’ve eaten too much too fast.

Watch your portion sizes. If fried chicken is your favorite, you might start out with 2 or 3 pieces on your plate. Try grabbing one small piece instead, and filling up on salad or green veggies to replace those missing pieces of chicken. Try to keep a portion of food about the size of your fist. Those mashed potatoes that you don’t want to give up? Still eat them, but stop after one small portion, instead of piling a mountain on your plate.

Don’t clear your plate. Of all the tips on losing weight, this one is often the hardest. As children we were taught not to turn down food because other people were starving. We might have even gotten punished for “wasting food” and forced to eat it. You’re not starving, and you can’t send that food to those who are, so do yourself a favor and don’t eat it. To avoid the guilt of wasting food, use another one of the good tips on losing weight and simply start out with less food on your plate next time.

You’ve either gained a few pounds you want to get rid of or you’ve finally decided that you want to win the war with the weight you’ve battled with all your life. You didn’t know how exactly you were going to do this but maybe you saw some commercials for Jenny Craig. Maybe you heard some people talk about Jenny Crait. You think this diet may be right for you, but you want some answers. Read on, if that is the case.

How does the Jenny Craig diet work?

Before the answer to the question of “how does the Jenny Craig diet work” can be given, you have to understand a little bit about weight loss. Weight loss itself isn’t as complex and complicated as some people would like you to believe. In fact, weight loss can be summed up in one simple sentence: To lose weight, calories consumed must be less than calories burned per day.

Your body burns a certain amount of calories every day for fuel. Even if your job isn’t physically demanding, your body burns calories. Even if your only form of exercises is using your thumb to change channels, your body burns a certain amount of calories. The problems with weight occur when you consume way more calories than you burn. Obviously, the less physically active you are, the easier it is to go over the limit of how many calories your body actually needs.

Okay, okay, so now you want to know “how does the Jenny Craig diet work?” Well, when you contact Jenny Craig by phone or you visit a Jenny Craig center they ask you a series of questions. Based on your physical activity and eating habits, they will figure out what your daily caloric intake should be. Depending on your answers to the questions they ask, you will be able to eat anywhere from 1200-2400 calories per day.

Your diet plan will be completely personalized from the start. You will then need to buy their pre-packaged foods on a weekly basis. If you have a Jenny Craig center near you then you can go there on a weekly basis. If you don’t, they can mail your food weekly.
The meals you buy are very well balanced. They consist of low fat protein, the right kind of carbs, and healthy fats. Also, for optimum weight loss, you should eat 5 small meals per day, as opposed to 3 large ones. Jenny Craig adhered to this rule, they will want you to eat 5 meals per day.

What also sets Jenny Craig apart from most other diets is that when you go to your Jenny Craig center to get you food, you’ll also get one-on-one counseling. This will help you to stay motivated and focused. If you don’t live near a Jenny Craig center, you’ll still get one-on-one counseling. You’ll get your support by phone.

Most people gain weight or become obese because they have no time to cook healthy meals. They have to grab what is quick and what is convenient. Most of these types of foods are not good for them. What’s nice about Jenny Craig is that you will have delicious but healthy meals that are just as quick and convenient as the other types of foods.

Also most people fail diets because they get no support or the diet they try is based on a one size fits all approach. Jenny Craig is different in both regards. You will get one-on one-coaching and a program customized to your needs from the start.

If Jenny Craig sounds right to you, then get started now. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be able to lose weight, without having to give up quick, convenient, food. Once you start and succeed you’ll easily be able to answer someone else if you hear them ask: “How does the Jenny Craig diet work?”

If you have ever struggled with losing weight, then you may have come to the conclusion that it is virtually impossible to do so. The reality is that it doesn’t have to be all that hard. On the other hand, if you think that taking off those extra pounds is a quick and easy process that doesn’t require any effort on your part, then you are going to be let down. If you’re sincere about weight loss and you’re ready to follow a sensible eating plan, get moving and changing your attitude, you will lose weight more quickly.

Sometimes it seems as though diet and weight loss plans are a regular part of our lives; coming and going more often than we would like to admit. These are often fad diets that we latch on to in the hopes of finally finding the one that “really works”. However, it’s not a good idea to start any diet before you fully understand. The good news is that there are diet programs that have stood the test of time, and have been proven to work. Another thing that you may want to consider is that weight loss is not a one-time physical act. Instead, it’s a lifestyle change that you incorporate into your life.

Let’s be clear, there are many reasons why people don’t stick to weight loss programs, but lack of motivation usually isn’t one of them. What’s needed are some basic ways of increasing the odds of success. Here are some things you can do to put the odds in your favor.

1. Maintain your focus – A lot has been said about willpower and its lack of effectiveness. The problem with willpower is that it sets up the wrong mindset. When you think about it, you only need willpower when you are feeling deprived. Once you start thinking about things you can’t have, or how hard it all is, you are setting yourself up for failure. You need something better, and that’s where focus comes in. It’s the opposite of willpower. Focus on why you want to lose weight, what your ultimate goal is, and how you will feel once you reach your target weight. When you’re focused, you are thinking about the positive aspects of your weight loss plan, and that’s a good thing.

2. Get moving – Some people like to call this exercise, but at the same time, that word has negative connotations for a lot of people. Regardless of what you call it, you need to get moving if you want to increase your chances of success. The key is to participate in activities that you enjoy. This could be going for a walk, bowling, dancing, gardening, or playing frisbee. Just remember that any extra activity equals extra calories burned.

3. Effort – Yes, weight loss takes effort. There is no way around it. Fortunately, the more effort you put in, the more weight you will lose.

Aerobic exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. If you are looking to include exercise in your life to improve your health, lose weight and prevent disease, you should seek an exercise program that is enjoyable and fun for you. The key to exercise and its positive benefits is consistency. You should seek an exercise that you could do every day for the greatest benefits to your health.

Many people find that including a variety of aerobic exercise in their daily routine is also a great way to stay motivated and interested. For many people finding one type of exercise that they enjoy is enough to keep them going day after day, but others may become bored and need something new to spice things up a little bit. Finding a good selection of exercise types will help overcome this problem.

An aerobic exercise must increase your heart rate for at least twenty minutes to be considered beneficial. Brisk walking can be included as long as it increases your heart rate and you are able to sustain it for twenty minutes or longer. Running is a sure fire way to get your heart rate up to aerobic levels, but it can be difficult for some to do if they have not exercised for a while. Starting off with a brisk walk is a good way to gradually build into a plan that includes running or jogging. Many people decide to stick with the walking because it is less stressful on the joints.

Bicycling is an excellent aerobic exercise that is very enjoyable for many people. You should be sure that you are following a difficult enough route to be sure that you reach the correct heart rate during this type of exercise. Coasting on your bike will not increase your heart rate and could cause it to decline while you are working out.

A stationary bike or a treadmill is one way that you can keep track of your heart rate while you are exercising. Many of these home aerobic exercise machines will monitor your heart rate, calories burned and miles completed during the workout. For those who are looking for improvement in their workout, these machines are a great way to see your improvement over time.

The key to gaining all of the health benefits that you can achieve with exercise is consistency. Health conditions that respond well to the introduction of exercise include heart disease, diabetes, obesity and many more. Your body will look better and more importantly you will feel better.

Exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, is a great way to increase your energy levels during the day. If you find that you get tired halfway through your workday, take a walk at lunch or start off your day with a brisk walk to get your day off to a great start. Eating a healthy diet along with exercise is the one true fountain of youth. It can help you look and feel younger for a longer period of time and it is never to late to get started on your exercise routine.

If you want to loose weight fast, the first thing you need to realize is that you probably aren’t going to lose weight quite as fast as you want to. For some people, 2 pounds a week is fast. Anymore than 2 pounds a week generally isn’t considered healthy, unless you’re very overweight. If you have 15 pounds to lose and want to lose it all in two weeks, you’re going to have to adjust your thinking or you’re either going to be very disappointed, or you’ll resort to a really unhealthy method of weight loss and risk making yourself sick.

Yet, if you need to loose weight fast over a period of a few days or a week just to fit into a dress for the weekend, for instance, and you realize that if you drop pounds quickly you’ll likely put them back on after the weekend is over, there are some things you can do to drop a few pounds right away.

When you loose weight fast, you’re losing water weight, not actual fat. So as long as you understand that your quick weight drop is really a very temporary thing that’s easily undone and you don’t risk your health to do it, you could be very pleased with the results.

First, stop drinking anything with calories in it. Just that alone can help you loose weight fast. No alcoholic beverages, no sugar in your coffee, no soda other than diet soda, and no fruit juice or flavored waters that have calories in them. Just this step alone can cut hundred of calories from your day. Replace those sugared beverages with water. Don’t drink 64 oz of water in one sitting—that can even be dangerous—but try to get that much in slowly throughout the day.

If you really want to loose weight fast, you can drastically cut back on your calories. While 1200 calories is really just above a starvation diet, if you limit yourself to that or fewer for only a very short time like a few days, it won’t harm you. We’ve all had those days where we’re sick with the flu or we don’t feel well and we eat very little. It happens from time to time naturally, so doing it on purpose for a short burst won’t hurt you either, just don’t decide to starve yourself as a method for long-term weight loss.

Stick to easily digested foods like vegetable soup with little fat in it. Soup can help you feel more full while you’re eating so little food and take away the growling stomach that will no doubt happen at least a few times if you cut your calories back drastically. Drink seasoned broth, or clear or tomato-based vegetable soups for best results.

Avoid potatoes and starches like corn and peas. Go for broccoli, lettuce, spinach, celery, and other greens. Oranges and strawberries can help your sweet tooth. And take a multivitamin, so you’ll still get important nutrients while you loose weight fast.

Each of these tips will help you loose weight fast. However, you should check with your personal physician to make sure are physically fit enough to loose weight fast.

One of the best things you can do to lose weight is get a calories burned counter. What these do is monitor your activity so that you know how many calories you’re burning each day. This will allow you to balance your calories coming in with your calories going out, and lose weight quickly.

There are many different varieties of calories burned counter to choose from, but the best known is the BodyBugg, which has been featured on television on The Biggest Loser. It’s the small little device you usually see strapped around the contestant’s arms, and it helps them monitor their activity to lose big weight.

They all basically work similarly. The devices use a variety of methods to monitor and collect data about your physical activity. A calories burned counter usually contains an accelerometer, so they can monitor your motion. The accelerometer is also used to calculate the number of steps taken, which also contributes to daily caloric burn.

The calories burned counter also generally monitor galvanic skin response. The skin becomes more conductive when you sweat; the device is able to keep track of how much you’re perspiring. The counters also monitor body temperature and the amount of heat you are putting into the atmosphere.

All this information is then cross checked with other factors like your age, weight and gender and used to create a fairly accurate picture of the amount of calories you are burning. If you wear a calories burned counter all day, you can get a twenty four hour picture of how many calories you are burning each day.

For this to be helpful in losing weight, you also need to know how many calories you are taking in. A typical calories burned counter also comes with a computer program that will allow you to enter your food in and calculate how many calories you are taking in. Without this information, what you learn from your calories burned counter is interesting but not useful.

The proper way to use a calories burned counter is to tailor your workout and eating plans to best fit your own bodies. In general, you want to be burning 500 calories more than you’re eating. That’s not a lot of calories, so this should be a fairly easy goal to hit.

The first thing you need to do is use your calories burned counter to find your caloric equilibrium, the point where your activity and the amount of food you take in are in balance and you are neither gaining or losing weight.

Once you have found this, then you should look to reduce your food intake by 250 calories and increase your activity by 250 calories. Neither of these is very hard; changing from regular soda to diet soda will get many people to the calorie goal.

The activity goal can be met by walking an additional two and a half miles per day or just making sure to add additional activity through the day. You should be adding stairs into your day, parking further away and just generally trying to get more activity. Your calories burned counter will let you know how you’re doing.

The best way to find the healthy eating diet that’s best for you is to pay careful attention to what you eat, and how it makes you feel. It might seem like a time consuming process, but you should write down everything you eat for at least a few days. Don’t eat differently than you normally do. If you usually have fast food pizza twice a week for supper, for instance, go ahead and do what you normally do. Then write it down, as well as how you felt that evening.

After a few days, you should have a log of everything you’ve eaten over the last few days (a week or more is ideal, though) as well as notes about how you felt after eating, and your general sense of wellness. Did you wake up feeling puffy? Were you cranky a couple of hours after dinner for no reason, or was your mood fine?

Now, choose a healthy eating diet that interests you. Whether it’s low-fat, vegetarian, or low-carb doesn’t matter right now. Just choose the one that appeals the most to you. If you’re trying to lose weight, obviously choose one designed for weight loss. But if you’re looking to simply follow a healthy eating plan, then just choose one that seems nutritionally sound to you and that you can follow without feeling deprived and miserable.

Continue to record what you eat and how you feel once you’re following your healthy eating diet. You might be surprised that the way of eating you thought would be good for you really isn’t. If you’ve been eating a very unhealthy diet, you can expect to feel a little different on the first few days of any healthy diet. You might feel a little deprived at first if you allowed yourself lots of indulgences before. Give it more than a few days so you can really see how you feel eating those kinds of foods.

If you choose a low-fat, high-carbohydrate plan, for instance, and after a week you realize that two hours after every meal you feel sleepy and irritable, it might be time to try a lower-carbohydrate way of eating. So you can change from a high-carbohydrate healthy eating diet to a lower-carbohydrate plan. Then keep track just as you have been doing and see how you feel on the new plan.

If you choose a healthy eating diet that’s pretty low in carbohydrates and stresses protein and fat and you find that you feel nauseous a lot or just out of sorts, then it’s clear that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life eating that way. Try a higher-carbohydrate plan and monitor how you feel. You’ll also want to keep track of your weight during this time and see how each different way of eating affects the scales. By keeping track this way, you can even pinpoint individual foods that might make you feel bad or cause cravings, so you can avoid them in your healthy eating diet.