HEALTHY LIVING RESULTS

A common mistake most people make is that of trying to lose a lot of weight at once. They think that fast weight loss is possible, thanks to the hyped and empty promises most fad diets make. However, the truth is that even if you are able to lose weight too fast, your body would put back all those ‘lost pounds’ on you as soon as you quit dieting. Remember that if your aim is to get rid of fat once and for all, you should lose weight slowly but steadily!

Truth is, weight loss is not about following this or that fad; weight loss can be achieved only by making certain drastic changes in your lifestyle as well as committing yourself to following a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life!

That said, it is not possible to get rid of your old habits too fast, as it usually takes one at least 21 days to make or break a habit! Start making small but significant changes in your lifestyle, and don’t stray! Over time you would be successful in replacing all your bad habits one by one with good and healthy habits. However it won’t happen in a day!

Here is an example. Most diets would either restrict your junk food intake severely or ask you to discard them altogether! However, if you have been eating junk foods for months, or worse, if those foods have formed integral parts of your diet, it won’t be easy for you to get rid of them so easily!

Once again you can start off by getting rid of one junk food at a time. Alternatively, you can make it a point to keep yourself away from junk foods except on certain ‘cheat days’ when you would be free to indulge yourself the way you want! As your taste buds become more and more accustomed to healthy and natural foods, you would lose your junk food cravings altogether!

The same concept of ’slow and steady weight loss’ applies to exercises too! If you have never exercised before, it is natural for you to panic in fear if someone says that you should run 10 miles per day or do weight lifting for hours in order to lose weight!

But how does the prospect of running only one mile or lifting weights for just five minutes per day sound? I am sure you would be able to cope that much. Over time, as your body grows accustomed to your new active lifestyle, you would be able to increase the intensity of these exercises easily!

To conclude, you needn’t be afraid of either dieting or exercising. Remember that while the journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step at a time, it is important for you to take that ONE step right NOW!

When it comes to weight loss almost all experts would unanimously agree that there is no better method to achieve your goal than following a diet. However, they don’t seem to be focusing much on the workouts! I am sure you have heard of several fad diets but do you ever get to hear the words ‘fad workouts’ or ‘fad exercises’? I haven’t heard of one in the past four years I spent in researching weight loss!

Take note that while dieting is important, building a strong muscular body is equally necessary, something which diets cannot offer you. In this article I will tell you how a strong body could help you burn more fat than what you are burning now!

As a matter of fact, a strong body is one which is built upon strong lean muscles groups. I am not sure if you already know about it, but the more muscles you have, the faster you are able to burn fat and lose weight. Plus muscles also make weight maintenance easy for you.

Here is an example. Most of the conventional dieting programs would restrict your carbohydrate intake to a very low level. With no carbs around, your body would burn your muscles for the purpose of energy production. The more muscles you lose, the more difficult you would find it to keep the fat way. Eventually your metabolic rate would be so low that you won’t be able to lose weight no matter how hard you diet!

However, this problem won’t occur if you have a muscular body. People with strong and well-built bodies usually find it easier to maintain their lost weight and keep the fat from returning when they start eating normally. This is because muscles help them burn fat even when they are not dieting! That is the advantage of building strong lean muscles. And only intense workouts could help you acquire lean muscle mass within a short period of time!

The other day I was advising a friend on how to start the workout regimen on a step-by-step basis. Here is roughly what I told him:

1. First off, there are two types of workouts: one which helps you lose weight by shedding your fat deposits, and another which builds strong lean muscles for you! For optimal results, you would want to achieve both goals and as such, you shouldn’t focus on any one type of workout!

For the purpose of losing fat, you can start lifting light weights but make sure that you do a few repetitions of this workout every day! The purpose of this exercise program is to boost your body’s metabolism to such a high level that you would be burning fat like crazy!

2. For the intention of building a strong muscular body, chin-ups, ab crunches, squats and dead-lifts are pretty good. The purpose of these workouts is to make your body so strong that you could lift almost four or five times the amount of weight you are currently lifting!

But on a simpler level, the stronger your body is, the less difficult it would be for you to keep the pounds away! Plus you would feel a lot more energetic than before!

I would strongly discourage you from doing long boring cardios as they do nothing except wasting your valuable time and energy!

Note that having a good meal is as important as doing the correct workouts! I suggest a protein-rich diet. Protein is available in foods such as eggs, lean chicken meat, etc. You can even take protein supplements if you want!

Along with protein, your body also needs fat, which you could get from nuts, fish oil, etc. In order to get rid of hunger, you should include raw vegetables and fruits in your diet as well since they are rich with fiber and complex carbs.

At no point of time should you even think of eating junk foods, as they would ruin all your hard work!

When it comes to flabby arms or fatty thighs, people will often to put the blame squarely on their genes and parents. It is true that genes do affect our body weight to an extent, but they cannot make you so fat as to give your thigh an ugly and bulky look!

If you have fatty thighs, it just means that you have eaten too much of fatty foods (fatty foods = fatty thighs, makes sense eh?) and led a sedentary life. However, if you are willing to do the needful, it is possible to get rid of those fatty thighs fast! Ready? Okay let me tell you what you need to do for this purpose.

1. Be patient: While I am not trying to be a sexist here, I have found that when it comes to weight loss, women usually tend to become more impatient than men. The reality remains that just as you didn’t gain weight overnight, you also shouldn’t expect to lose the same within twenty-four hours!

Even if you don’t see the scales dropping after a week of rigorous workout and dieting, don’t give up yet and don’t panic! Weight loss takes time and it is possible that you won’t see any positive results in the first few weeks. However if you stay on track and keep doing the things others have done to lose weight successfully, you are sure to reach your goal at some point of time!

It is wrong on your part to assume that losing weight is extremely difficult, and it is equally wrong to believe that obesity is a family curse which you have to bear throughout your entire life. Remember that you have the freedom to choose the way you want to lead your life, and if you wish to become slimmer by getting rid of the extra pounds, you CAN!

2. Don’t run away from workouts: Women often shy away from workouts, partly because they are strenuous and boring, and partly because they are afraid of acquiring muscular bodies like those of the WWF wrestlers and losing their femininity. That is not true at all!

There are usually two types of weight loss workouts: one which helps you lose weight by burning your fat deposits and the other which makes you strong by build strong lean muscle mass for you. However, neither would be able to provide you a bodybuilder’s body, firstly because a female body lacks the amount of testererone needed to build that kind of body and secondly, it takes more than just workouts to become a bodybuilder (think supplements and pills).

In my opinion, working out is probably one of the best and fastest ways to lose those fatty thighs! However I don’t recommend doing long boring cardios. Cardios are good for sure, but they alone cannot help you achieve the kind of slim figure you want within a very short time.

For maximum results, you should combine cardios with intense workouts. Weight lifting is one of the best intense workouts for quick thigh fat loss. As for cardios, walking is simple, easy and effective. Besides walking, rope jumping, running, dancing, swimming, playing outdoor sports such as basketball or tennis, etc., are all equally effective in helping you acquire slimmer and sexier thighs!

Now that you know how to get rid of fatty thighs, what are you waiting for? Get started right now, and five or six months from now you would be able to show off your slim legs proudly to your friends!

Why do you want to lose weight? While I don’t know what prompted you to take the weight loss decision, the fact remains that people usually lose weight in the hope of looking and feeling good. That said, losing weight is important for non-cosmetic reasons as well! Do you know that obesity alone leads to more than three million deaths every year? It might sound crazy, but it is true.

If you are obese, you are sure to die prematurely at some point of time. If you want to live a long and healthy life, read on to find out how you can lose weight fast and easily!

1. Say goodbye to “low-calorie” and “low-fat” snacks: Snacks which come with the labels of “low-calorie” or “low-fat” would often fool you into believing that they are indeed better alternatives to the originals; however, the fact remains that the ingredients used to prepare those supposedly “healthier” alternatives are as bad as the original unhealthy foods, if not more!

Plus many people think that it is okay to eat “low-fat” or “low-calorie” foods in large quantizes, which makes the problem worse. Having one can of high-calorie drink is no different than gulping down on three cans of ‘low-calorie’ drinks. I believe that for the sake of your health, you should learn to accept the fact that you cannot indulge your favorite junk foods anymore, neither in original nor in ‘low-calorie’ forms!

2. Say goodbye to ‘kitchen junk’: ‘Kitchen junk’ is a term I have created to refer to the stocks of junk foods in kitchen. It is easy to feel tempted to grab a packet of chips or a bowl of chocolate soup if they are at your arm’s reach! That is why it is essential that you remove all the ‘forbidden’ foods not only from your kitchen but also refrigerator, and then stock healthy and natural foods in their place!

When you are dying of hunger, would you prefer to drive to a grocery store located a few miles away in order to buy a few packets of chips, or grab some apples which are available right in your refrigerator? I think the answer is straightforward. You should keep only healthy foods in your home as it would be easier for you to maintain healthy eating habits that way!

3. Say goodbye to midnight jobs: Many of the modern jobs require you to stay up all night. However, the fact remains that you are more likely to pack on pounds if you don’t sleep soundly, not to mention that you would suffer from fatigue and weakness all the time. Several studies conducted over the past few years have all pointed to one and only fact: the more a person sleeps, the less likely he is to feel hungry and eat all the ‘wrong’ foods! Ideally you should sleep at least seven hours per day, if not more!

4. Say goodbye to lazy life: Laziness is one of the primary reasons behind the rising levels of obesity in recent years. People seem to prefer their couches and beds more than the local gym. However, if you are serious about weight loss, you cannot reach your goal unless you put in at least fifteen minutes of intense workout per day!

While it is true that it takes time and patience to lose weight, and that you have to work hard for it, that ‘hard work’ doesn’t mean starving yourself for days on end in the hope of losing a few pounds in a matter of time! You may or may not believe it, but it is possible to get rid of fat using healthy and natural means! In this article I will tell you about two such means!

Contrary to what you may be thinking, you won’t have to workout at the gym for hours like crazy; it has nothing to do with your workouts and everything with your food habits. Do you know that your food habits can make or break your health? By implementing a few simple food management tips, you would ensure that you get rid of annoying pounds easily and quickly.

1. Select healthy meals: This one is quite obvious; you cannot expect to lose weight by eating junk foods, can you? No matter how hard you diet in order to lose weight, your junk food buddies would ensure the return of the ‘lost’ weight after sometime.

If you want to see permanent weight loss results, there is no method other than replacing your unhealthy foods with their healthier counterparts. Instead of consuming processed foods and fruit juices, burgers and pastries, fried and oily foods, you should consume natural fruits and vegetables, natural fruit juice (you should extract the fruit juice at home as it ensures that no sugary preservatives are added to it), plain water, etc.

You should also stay away from soda, alcohol and soft drinks. These simple but effective modifications in your food habits would help you lose fat much more easily than otherwise!

2. Choose the right portion and time for foods: Eating the right foods is as important as making sure that you don’t overeat or don’t end up eating at wrong times. Just because apple is a natural fruit doesn’t mean that you could eat it in dozens at midnight.

Remember that one apple consists of 100 calories; if you eat too many of them at once, your body would be bombarded with excess calories which it may not need at that moment; consequently, it would store the extra calories as fat! Likewise, if you eat food at midnight, again your body won’t be able to burn all the calories gained from food since it would be inactive during that time. Do you know that you could gain pounds in sleep? If you want to avoid that scenario then don’t eat anything after 7PM!

Our weight loss industry is filled with fads which promise to magically melt all your pounds away! We have fad diets which would help you lose weight within a couple of months, diet pills you simply need to pop daily in order to get slimmer, etc. In fact, there is no dearth of “magic weight loss products”, though you will rarely hear about a product which magically boosts your metabolic rate!

I am not sure why everyone’s not focusing on looking for methods to increase their metabolic rate, since it is the only key to weight loss success. In this article I will tell you how our metabolic rate influences our body weight and how you could use this tool to get rid of fat permanently!

Do you want fast weight loss? How fast you would be able to lose weight depends solely on your metabolic rate. If you have a high metabolism, fast weight loss won’t be impossible for you. On the other hand, with a slow metabolic rate you aren’t likely to be successful in your weight loss goal. Now perhaps you are wondering how to boost your metabolic rate.

While we humans are blessed with natural metabolism which keeps us fit and healthy, it is often insufficient to help you with rapid weight loss. If you want to burn fat rapidly, you need to increase your metabolic rate to abnormal levels! There are diet pills which promise to skyrocket your metabolism in no time; however they come with several harmful side effects, not to mention that the metabolism boost you gain with their help is short-lived.

In my opinion the best technique to boost your metabolism naturally is by increasing your lean muscle mass. The more muscles you have, the higher your metabolic rate would be and the faster you would lose weight. Fortunately muscle building doesn’t cost an arm and a leg; you can do it with the help of intense workouts!

Doing intense workouts on a regular basis would help you achieve fast weight loss. These intense workouts may seem to be strenuous at first look, but unlike cardios, you need to do them only for 15-20 minutes each day. By spending as little as 20 minutes per day, you would be able to burn fat at a fast rate as well as build strong lean muscles at the same time. These lean muscles would help you burn fat even when you are not working out! So what are the best intense workouts for this purpose?

Undoubtedly, weight lifting comes to mind the moment I think of intense exercises. People wrongly believe that they need to do several low intensity reps using light weights in order to derive the maximum benefit from weight lifting. Truth to be told, the higher and shorter your reps are, and the heavier your weights, the speedier you would burn fat and lose weight. I would recommend that you do no more than 10-15 reps, but you need to make sure that the weights you use are heavier than five or six pounds!

Since you would be doing strenuous exercises, it is vital that you replenish your body by increasing your water intake. When your body remains hydrated at all times, you would find exercising much less strenuous, since water would help your body recover quickly from the strain of these workouts!

Also, water is itself a great metabolism booster as well as a powerful detoxifier that cleanses all toxins from our body. The minimum recommended water intake for a normal adult is about 8-10 glasses.

If you are like others, you have certainly made a strong New Year’s resolution to get rid of all those unwanted pounds of flab which bother you so much. This time you have promised yourself that you would really show off your new-found slim body much before the Valentine’s Day! However, January is almost about to end and your body shows no signs of getting slimmer or lighter. Is the problem is with your diet, or something else? If you are confused and don’t know the answers to these questions, this article is for you!

Making and breaking New Year’s weight loss resolutions is nothing extraordinary; in fact I have done that many times myself and finally came to the conclusion that resolutions can do little if you are not willing to get started on the job! Yes, you should treat weight loss with the same dedication with which you perform at your office!

Weight loss is not about starving for a few days, or following one fad diet for a couple of weeks and then hopping on to something more attractive! Weight loss can be accomplished only when you make a long term commitment to follow a healthier lifestyle!

Believe it or not, the first few days of your weight loss journey would probably be toughest, as you simply don’t know whether you would be successful or not or if it is the right time to start losing weight, etc. Once you push yourself hard and sail smoothly through these first few days, you would be on a roll, get rid of fat and losing weight non-stop!

What I am offering in this article is solid, practical advice which works for all; what I won’t offer is suggestion for weight loss fads, since they have neither worked for me nor anyone else I know about!

1. Drive procrastination away by setting a realistic goal: The only thing that is keeping you from starting the weight loss journey is lack of a proper goal and target. You primary task should be to set a weight loss goal, and more importantly, the goal needs to be realistic!

Instead of wishing for a body like Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston, you could set a much more meaningful and achievable goal of losing “12 pounds by the end of March”. Assuming that you would be losing two pounds of weight per week on an average, that timeframe is more than enough for you to become as slim as you wish!

2. Fix your bad food habits: Controlling your portions is surely important, but even more important than that is to discard all the unhealthy, junk foods from your daily meals and import healthy foods in their place! To give you an example, try to have a glass of fruit juice instead of chocolates or cookies; this would satiate your sugar cravings but without making you any fatter!

Similarly, grilled chicken meat is healthier than its fried version. Also, instead of gulping down on dozens of soda cans, try to drink eight glasses of water per day!

3. Leave the couch: I know it sounds harsh but the couch is the biggest stumbling block in your way of successful weight loss and as such, you need to start disliking it right away! Leading an active lifestyle would not only help you lose weight faster but also make you more energetic!

If your local club sponsors outdoor sports, make sure you participate in them. If the club comes with a swimming pool as well, then that is an added advantage. Whether you play tennis or swim, you would be burning fat and losing weight either way! Dancing is also not a bad idea-how about joining a dance school?

Most parents dont usually monitor their kids’ calorie intake until they develop fat bellies. It is then that they take their kids to an expert who suggests that weight loss is possible only with calorie reduction. Naturally, those parents reduce their kids’ calorie intake to such a low level that kids actually end up getting malnourished! Remember that weight loss is just another way of getting healthy, and a malnourished kid cannot lose weight! So what do you do? You need to understand your kids’ nutritional requirements and then adjust their calorie consumption limits accordingly.

If you thought that the same calorie rules apply both to you and your kids, you couldn’t be further from truth! There is a major difference between the calorie requirement of an adult and that a child; unlike an adult, a child’s calorie requirements would keep changing as he grows older!

The normal growth period of a human starts at the age of twelve and continues until the age of 21. Further, the growth of human body would be in harmony with his age and body weight. For example, during the teenage period, the body is more likely to grow taller and build strong lean muscles. Therefore the teenage period is the most vital period for any kid, and you need to make sure that your kid is getting ample nutrition during this time, as lack of proper nutrition could affect his bodily growth!

Now you might ask, how much daily calorie intake is necessary and how much is too much? That is a good question. According to experts, boys should have a minimum of 1,800 calories per day while for girls it is 1,200 calories. However, these are just genetic figures! Since the calorie requirements vary from person to person, your best bet is to have a consultation with your local doctor or nutritionist!

To be on the safe side, here are some tips:

1. Split your kids’ meals into several smaller meals. For example, if he usually has 3 meals per day, split each of these meals into two; that way, your kids would be having six smaller meals per day instead of three large. The big advantage of this eating technique is that since your kid’s body is not overloaded with a lot of calories at once, there is minimal chance to gain weight. At the same time, he gets the required nutrition too!

2. Make your kids eat only healthy and organic foods such as whole grains, raw fruits and vegetables. Take note that healthy foods are more nutritious and usually contain fewer calories than their unhealthier counterparts!

Note that while an abnormally high calorie intake may make your kid obese, an abnormally low calorie intake would affect his health negatively. At the end of the day, it is all about maintaining a BALANCE!

As more and more parents are becoming aware of the health risks associated with obesity and the ‘easy’ weight loss solutions available from the market, they are spending hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to help their kids lose weight. Usually such parents have been obese for their entire life, so they know the disadvantages and risks associated with obesity! Naturally they don’t want their kids to acquire a fat belly or flabby arms like them!

And cashing in on those concerned parents is a group of unscrupulous weight loss drug and equipment manufactures. You have probably noticed all the hype generated around weight loss pills, diet supplements, exercise videos, workout equipments, etc. Such stuff usually costs hundreds of dollars and while your kids maybe able to lose some weight with their help, the first difficulty you would face is that of persuading them to use them!

Take for example diet supplements. These supplements are often low on sugar because sugar is rich in calorie. However, since kids usually don’t like anything that is not sweet enough, they are less likely to receive any decent benefit from such supplements. They would prefer to have candies and chocolates to dietary supplements.

So far as exercise videos are concerned, they are of no use unless your kids concentrate on them, and studies have pointed out that kids are more into in playing video games than watching exercise videos! They could remain glued to their PSP for hours but workout videos are least likely to captivate their interest!

Then there are exercise equipments. No matter how many such types of equipment you buy for your kids, they would prefer to sit on the couch and watch TV than do their workouts! I have noticed that even professional fitness trainers often fail to bend them. If you really want them to workout, you need to be extremely patient with them.

Moreover, certain exercise equipments, if handled in the wrong way, could cause muscle and bone injures to your kids!

Now you maybe are wondering: so what is the way out? Well when it comes to weight loss for kids, there is an easy way out and you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars to help them get rid of fat!

One obvious weight loss step is dieting, but making kids diet is like forcing the mountain to bend! However, if you are lucky to find a diet program which is tailor-made for kids, you would be successful in your aim! Since kids usually don’t like too many food restrictions, try to find a weight loss program which helps people lose weight with minimal restrictions on food and lifestyle.

Okay, I would tell you the secret: FatLoss4Idiots is the perfect program for your kids. Your kids need to follow the program only for eleven days straight and they would be able to lose a minimum of nine pounds. This diet program works on a method called ‘calorie shifting’, meaning that it helps kids lose weight even if they are eating high-calorie foods (yeah, chocolates, cakes, candies, everything is allowed)!

Did I tell you that this diet program also consists of a 4-day ‘cheat-period’ when your kids could indulge themselves the way they want!

It is a fact that men usually tend to accumulate fat around their bellies and waists, while for women the usual fat accumulation areas are hips and thighs. Contrary to what you might believe, the task of weight loss is not difficult at all. In this article I will provide you a step-by-step approach which would have you start burning fat like crazy!

Over the years several weight loss solutions promising ‘quick’ and ‘easy’ weight loss have come and gone by, and almost always people have ended up getting disappointed with them and been forced to return to the old school of diet and exercise. Believe it or not, the proven ways to lose weight are simple and old, even if hard! Yes, diet and exercise may seem to be hard to most people, but you can, if you want, make things easier for you by following the two simple tips below.

1. Your diet must contain foods from all the essential nutrients: Our body needs four kinds of nutrients in order to function healthily: carbohydrates, fats, protein and fiber. A diet rich in all these four nutrients would help keep your hormones in balance. Cut down or discard any one of then, and the balance is lost and you gain weight!

People think that they need to reduce heavily on fats and carbs for the purpose of weight loss; some even tend to starve in the hopes of losing a few pounds. However, none of these beliefs are true! Like I said, a healthy diet should be rich in all the four nutrients above, and if it is lacking in any one of them, then that diet cannot be called healthy!

Here are some of the foods you may need to add to your regular diet:

Eggs, lean chicken, or beef meat or turkey, etc.: They are all rich in protein!

Whole grains, nuts, organic fruits and vegetables, etc.: They are all rich in fiber!

Potatoes, cereals, etc.: They are all rich in carbohydrates!

Olive oil, salmon and tuna fishes, etc.: They are all rich in unsaturated or ‘good’ fats.

Something else to you need to take note is the source from which you are getting the required nutrients; for example, you can get fat both from a burger as well as a tuna fish, but the difference between the two is that while the first type of fat would make you fatter, the second one would actually help with weight loss!

2. Your workouts must be compatible for weight loss: People become bored of workouts simply because they tend to indulge in long hours of boring cardio. For one, cardios are really not suitable for fast weight loss, and for other, there is no reason to spend hours upon hours on them just to lose a few pounds of fat!

What if I tell you that you can lose fat by devoting just fifteen-twenty minutes on workouts per day? Sounds crazy I know, but it is possible with interval training. With interval training, you can burn chunks of fat simply by spending five minutes daily on it.

I usually integrate weight lifting with interval training; while I spend five minutes on interval training, it is fifteen minutes for weight lifting. By spending just twenty minutes in gym per day, I am able to burn fat not only during the workout session but also when I am watching TV sitting on the couch with my kids!