Lose Weight with Healthy Eating

Although there are many ways to lose weight, from cabbage soup diets and detox fasts to intensive cardio training and military boot camps, the basic rules remain the same. Weight loss is not rocket science. You do not need a personal nutritionist to create your menu or a fitness instructor to take you through the moves (although it can help). In fact, a study published by Foxnews.com a few years ago showed that the only weight loss program with proven results was the weight watchers program. All the others could not guarantee success. So forget those fad diets and get fit quick schemes, and focus on losing weight the right way – slowly, carefully, with exercise and healthy eating. Here are our simple tips for losing weight. Here are some top tips from MotleyHealth.com – Learn How to Lose Weight and Get Fit.

1. Reduce the size of your portions

No matter whether you are healthy or have a medical conditional, you can only ever put on weight as a result of overeating. Apart from a few very rare conditions, which make maintaining a balanced diet very difficult to achieve, weight loss results from curbing your appetite. One tip is to reduce the size of your serving plate. Simply by eating from a 10 inch plate instead of a 12 inch plate, subjects under test conditions, eat 22% less food in a sitting.

2. Count your calories

As energy in minus energy out equals surplus energy leading to fat, counting calories (energy in food) allows you to balance what you are eating against energy used. Women on average only require 2000 calories a day, men average 2500. If you are very active you will require more, but for most people this guideline works well.

3. Eat a balanced diet

Eating more protein for breakfast helps us to feel fuller for longer, meaning less mid-morning snacks. Also, lunch portions can be reduced if a healthy breakfast is eaten. Avoid traditional cooked breakfasts of sausage, bacon and fried eggs though, as this can result in too much salt and saturated fat. Drink milk, eat cereals with milk, oatmeal, yoghurt and poached or scrambled eggs. The old rule of eating breakfast like a King, lunch like a Prince and supper like a pauper still applies.

4. Eat more dairy and calcium

Dairy actually helps the body to eliminate fat more easily, as shown by research by the NationalDairyCouncil.org: “We conclude that dairy-rich diets markedly augment weight loss by targeting the fat compartment during energy restriction.”

5. Exercise more

Not only does exercise burn more energy, but also you continue to burn extra calories for 24 hours after exercising. Also, each time you exercise, you get fitter, which means that you can exercise more the next time. The fitter you are, the more energy and fat you can burn off during exercise.

6. Be more active

As well as exercising at set times, get more active generally. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk more when you can, leave the car at home, get off the bus sooner. Find fun activities to do with the family, play in the park, go skiing, swim etc. Just be more active in your day to day life.

It is essential to make every effort to lose weight and get fit. Visceral fat, the fat that surrounds the internal organs, is the most dangerous form of fat. It leads to various diseases, including heart disease, as well as cancers and other internal diseases. So many people say that they have tried everything to lose weight. Almost all of them are living in denial. About 80% of people asked to keep a food diary actually lie in their journal, omitting snacks, chocolate, calories laden drinks. The key to losing weight is to be truthful to yourself, do it for you and your family, stick to the plan, never give up. Consider weight loss a battle that you must win. Fight for your life, do not let lethargy, greed and obesity kill you.

Source: MotleyHealth.com – Learn How to Lose Weight and Get Fit

How to Get a Beach Fit Body

If you wish to lose weight and slim your belly, then follow these rules. Please note that “spot reduction”, that is reduction of fat from one body part, is not possible. So knowing how to lose belly fat is actually knowing how to lose weight, as the only way to lose belly fat is to reduce your overall fat content. Whether you are very overweight, or if you just have a stubborn layer of fat left to shift before you can display a set of six pack abs, these tips should solve your problems.

Before we continue, please note that performing hundreds of abdominal exercises everyday does not help to reduce fat. Crunches and sit ups alone, although intensive on the stomach, will not shift fat – and building bigger abdominals could actually make your stomach look bigger if it is still covered in a layer of fat.

Why are we focussing on belly fat? Two reasons – to show off our abs, and also to be healthy. Modern thought concerning weight issues is that simply measuring body mass index does not provide a good indicator of health. Size of waist circumference is a better measure of health. Even a small amount of fat carried in the abdominal region is unhealthy.

We have broken the process of losing belly fat down into five simple rules:

First Rule of Weight Loss: Get Fit

The most important change you must make if you wish to lose you belly fat and get a flat stomach is to start working out. But simply jogging a few miles twice a week, or playing some tennis at the weekend, will not shift stubborn belly fat. The best way to lose weight is a combination of intensive interval training and resistance training, ideally in the form of compound weight training.

You do not need to join a gym to start getting fit, as we can provide several home exercise routines, as well as weight training routines. However, for motivation and support, being a member of a gym can help.

One of the best ways to get some intensive interval training is in a martial arts class. Kickboxing, karate, judo, and kung-fu are all excellent choices. Also new popular methods include spinning, kick-boxercise as well as more traditional step aerobics. You need to be working in the fat burning zone, so invest in a heart rate monitor, and learn how to use it!

For weight training we recommend a beginners training workout, which is designed to burn fat and tone muscles for a lean and slender look.

You should aim to do two intensive weight training sessions and two intensive circuit training sessions each week. Always plan a good rest day at the weekend, plus have a day of “active rest”, which means moderate light activity, such as swimming or walking on the other day. Read our abs exercise tips to get you going, also learning how the celebrities get fit can give you inspiration, and we have workouts and diet tips from some of our favourite celebs to help you.

Second Rule of Weight Loss – Sugar, Saturated Fat and Belly Fat

After exercising, the most important rule for losing belly fat is to stop eating junk food. Although, some nutritionists say that junk food can be eaten in moderation, it often leads to excess with little effort. Do not take the risk. From now on junk food in any form should not be allowed into your home. So no more takeaways, no more double whoppers with cheese, no more cookies, sweets, candy, soda or other sugar laden snacks. It is also important to cut back on processed meats – so say no to hot dogs, sausages, salami and other forms of processed meat. These meats are high in saturated fats.

Third Rule of Weight Loss – Eat The Right Carbohydrates

Not all carbs are equal. Refined flours and the foods that they create, such as white bread, pasta, donuts, cakes and biscuits should be avoided. They can cause bloatedness, poor digestion, and lead to accumulation of fat. “Good carbs”, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, should be eaten instead. A diet that takes most of its carbs from fruits and vegetables, as opposed to flours, is healthier. Slow release carbs are also beneficial, such as oats, brown rice, some pulses and sweet potato. Ideally granary or wholemeal bread should be eaten instead of white bread, and biscuits and cakes should be avoided. Consuming too much carbohydrate can bump up your insulin level, which can slow down your metabolism. Your body cannot metabolize too much carbohydrate at once because the body doesn’t need so much energy at once. The excess sugar will just turn into belly fat.

Much research has shown that adopting the Atkins Nutritional Approach, i.e. a high fat/protein diet, is the way ahead. Avoiding carbohydrates increases fat burning metabolism (lipolysis), which helps to reduce stomach fat.

Third Rule of Weight Loss – Binge Eating

Try not to binge on food in the evening. Often people eat out of boredom, frustration or stress. And when at home, binge eating is very easy to do. The main problem with binge eating in the evening is that there is not much activity done afterwards. Going to bed straight after eating causes high sugar levels in the blood stream and no energy is spent after that. As a result the excess sugar turns into fat. So, DO NOT BINGE!

Also, try to consume your last meal around 2-3 hours before your bedtime. If you are hungry during late nights, consume a small meal rather than binge.

Fifth Rule of Weight Loss – Drink Less Alcohol, or Go On The Wagon

Decrease alcohol consumption, or better still, give up drinking altogether. There is a good reason why a beer belly is called a beer belly! There are two reasons to give up alcohol. Firstly, alcoholic drinks contain a lot of calories, especially those that are sweetened. Beer is stacked with carbohydrates and sugars. If you are in the habit of having a few drinks in the evening, these calories really add up, and the fat is generally accumulated around the waist. The other reason is a metabolic one. When you consume alcohol, your body stops burning fat and sugars while using the alcohol for energy. Alcohol is a source of energy. This means that if you spend an evening drinking, you will not be in a state off lipolysis (fat burning) or glucosis (sugar/carbohydrate burning) and any food eaten will be stored as fat. Only once all the alcohol has been utilised will you start to burn fat again.

Losing belly fat and getting a flat stomach is a long term goal for most people, so persevere, stick to the plan and don’t give up. In addition to these tips, look to enhance your fitness training by following specific routines and schedules. Organising your weekly routine makes it much easier for you to follow your schedule. After a while it will become second nature for you to get out and exercise. If you do not have to think about what you are going to do, then that saves precious time. At first keep a diary, write up your training goals and progress in an exercise log, and just do it!

Weight training routines are generally broken down into repetitions (often shortened to reps) and sets. A set describes one exercise done repeatedly for a specific number of repetitions (or until muscular failure) and repetitions are simply the number of times the weight is lifted through its full movement.

Basic Weight Training Techniques for Women