The Keys To Safe Weight Loss

The keys to safe weight loss are all more or less direct common sense:

Consult with a physician to see if you have any unforeseen medical issues, increase your physical activity gradually, while trimming back on the sweets that you eat, and work on controlling portion size in your meals.

We'll break these down so that you have a step by step program to improve your health.

First, consult with a doctor. Your doctor will check a lot of traits about your body – the percentage of fat, your blood pressure, your cholesterol and stressor levels, and point out any cases where your body isn't up to the physical rigors of certain sorts of exercise just yet. If you injure yourself, your weight loss isn't a safe program.

Second, increase your activity levels…and do it gradually. Park farther away from the door at the grocery store. Walk to more places. When you carry groceries in bags, take a moment or two to lift the bags over your head to get your shoulders some exercise. Try running a block at a light jog – you should be able to breathe freely with your mouth without getting short of breath.

As you get slightly fitter, increase the amount of work you do, physically. The trick is to convince your body that this exercise is normal, that it's going to continue indefinitely, and that it had better get used to it. You don't need to run a marathon, or anything, but you do need to regularly boost your heart rate, and at least twice a week, start doing something that leaves you sweaty and gasping for breath.

As you acclimate to more exercise, it's time to start moderating your calories. The first thing in calorie moderation is to cut back on the sweets. Substitute fresh fruit for baked goods. Swap to drinking water from sodas (even diet sodas can trick your body into converting other carbohydrates into fats), and then slowly reduce the portion sizes of your meals, while dialing up the flavors.

Safe weight loss takes time and dedication – and in spite of what the advertisements say on the television, you won't convert yourself into a trim athlete in most cases. You'll lose pants sizes and dress sizes, but your basic body type is set by your genetics, and only somewhat treatable with diet and exercise. Don't let that discourage you – there are plenty of things that losing weight can do for you, health wise, if you can do it safely.

Healthy Tips For Quick Weight Loss

There are many tips out there for someone looking to find some quick weight loss tricks. There are advertisements everywhere for diet pills, and the latest in fad diets. However, you must understand that they each have their potential dangers. The diet pills are highly addictive and, other than potential weight loss, do your body no good. The fad diets are often promoted as the next medical weight loss miracle. Well, overused or abused, this miracle can result in damaging your overall health.

One of the easiest and fastest diet tricks is right under your nose. Water! Simply by drinking a couple of glasses of water before meals you can significantly reduce your appetite. Water acts as a filler thereby reducing your hunger, as well as reducing the capacity of your stomach. Try doing this before meals and it won't be long before you see your weight drop. In the mood for a snack? Have a glass of water instead, and watch the urge (probably, carbohydrate craving) go away. Drinking water also comes with the side benefit of helping to flush your kidneys. This healthy diet tip is enhanced if the water is cold, and can result in the burning of an additional sixty calories per day.

This next tip is essentially also right under your nose. You hear it all the time; eat smaller meals more often. It has been proven over and over again that eating smaller meals five or six times a day will result in your feeling fuller, and eating less. These smaller, more frequent meals will also go a long way to eliminating the urge to snack. Still can't resist a snack? Try a pickle; it's only one calorie and makes a great low cal snack. Eating this way is very helpful to someone who desires quick weight loss because it allows for the controlling of their caloric intake.

Another healthy tip to add to your overall diet plan is the drinking of at least five cups of green tea daily. Studies have shown that the antioxidant catechins found in green tea will aid in the fat burning process of your body. This is a simple step that will help you to burn off an additional eight calories per day. This is just about equal to skipping one can of soda at one meal each day. Not much? Maybe not on the surface, but over an extended period, say a year, you will save around three thousand calories.

There is no magic solution to slimming down, but the use of common sense to eat carefully, and an honest effort to get some regular exercise will prove to be the real keys to weight control and keeping fit. If you are looking to develop your own quick weight loss program, try implementing some of the above tips.

Copyright ©2007 Carl DiNello