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Weight Loss 12/10/2006 3:55:18 PM
Losing weight can feel like an endless fight to force workouts while doing without our favorite foods, it may seem as if there's nothing painless about it. Losing weight can feel like an endless fight to force workouts while doing without our favorite foods, it may seem as if there's nothing painless about it.
The truth is that, while eating healthier and slipping in exercise takes some work, it doesn't require superhuman effort. Making just a few simple changes in you life can make a huge impact on your success to losing weight.
Exercise:
The trick to enjoying a workout is to "never call it working out. Exercise is key to maintaining your weight loss and believe it or not it is more important than diet. If you're just beginning to loss weight, it's important to start slowly.
Begin exercise slowly and make your way slowly to a full hour. An hour or an hour and a half every day is a lot of time. It takes discipline. This has got to be the highest priority because it's your health. And once you see the end results you’ll, look and feel like a new person.
One way to make exercise a daily habit is to integrate your workout into your regular life. People think they have to strap on running shoes and run a marathon to call it exercise. Think of it as physical activity into your daily lifestyle.
Structured physical activity is also important. Walking, yoga, lifting weights, biking, running, and swimming - could all be a morning exercise choice.
If you're really trying to lose weight and keep it off, work toward a goal of 60 to 90 minutes of exercise most days of the week. But that's a lot to ask someone who's just starting out, says Thompson. If that's you, try it in 10-minute chunks of time at first — several times a day, several days a week.
Nutrition:
Although some people try to lose weight by cutting down on the number of meals they eat, which really isn't a good strategy. Skipping meals often just means that you'll be starving later and wind up overeating. Starting the day with breakfast can help prevent overeating.
You need to find the right eating plan that’s right for you. To find a program to help you achieve weight loss success, it needs to match your individual needs. Take inventory of your diet personality to determine the kind of program ideally suited to you. Make sure the program of your choice is one that you can live with indefinitely and includes physical fitness, motivation, and support and addresses the pitfalls in your present diet.
Stop thinking "diet" and start thinking healthy. Make small changes in your lifestyle that you can sustain over time. Small changes can add up to big results if they become new, healthier habits. Eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Switch to low-fat products, take the stairs, eat breakfast — simple suggestions that can help you lose weight and improve your health. There is room for occasional treats in a healthy diet. A sustainable diet allows small portions of your favorite foods to avoid cravings, feelings of deprivation, and/or out-of-control bingeing.
It makes no sense to set unrealistic goals that become history soon after the fact. The primary reason diets and lofty resolutions don't work is that they are not sustainable over time. Deprivation or exhaustion gets the better of us and before long, the towel gets thrown in and the well-meaning attempt to lose weight is history. To lose those love handles, you need to eat fewer calories and burn more through physical activity. Reduce your calories by 500 per day. Walking is a great exercise.
Dietary Supplements
Dietary supplements are substances you eat or drink. They can be vitamins, minerals, herbs or other plants, amino acids (the individual building blocks of protein), or parts of these substances. They can be in pill, capsule, tablet, or liquid form. They supplement, or add to, the diet and should not be considered a substitute for food.
Dietary supplements are widely available in health food stores, grocery stores, pharmacies, and by mail. Common dietary supplements include vitamins and minerals (such as vitamin C or a multivitamin), botanicals (herbs and plant products, such as St. John's wort), and substances that come from a natural source (such as glucosamine).
People have used dietary supplements for thousands of years. Vitamins and minerals are substances your body needs for normal growth and functioning.
Losing weight is easy if you eat healthy and get regular physical activity. Gaining weight is even easier, especially in our world of sedentary lifestyles and easy access to high-calorie foods.
The choice is yours. If you are going to be successful, it takes a commitment to improved health and wellness. It also requires constant vigilance to stay motivated. Enlist the support of a buddy and stay focused on making lifestyle changes that become part of the new you. No excuses.
