Secrets for Losing Weight Fast

Weight loss is a topic that is often addressed wrong. Everywhere you go, you see the latest and greatest weight loss diet and weight loss programs. I will say this up front right now … there is no fast path to losing weight permanently. You can lose weight fast, but unless you make some changes, the weight will come back.

Now, there are many, many tips that will help you greatly in losing weight, and keeping it off. These are tips the big names don’t want you to see.

The best way to lose weight is diet and exercise. Now, before you cringe, let me explain that a little further. Despite how complex and difficult those infomercials make it sound like, losing weight is a simple formula. Expend more energy than you take in. That simple. If you burn more calories than you take in, you will 100% lose weight. You can work both sides of this equation, by both watching what you eat(no special diet foods, just be sensible), and by exercising. Now, a diet doesn’t mean eating weird foods you hate, it means just keeping yourself in check. If you are eating less calories than you are burning, then you are going in the right direction.

The second tip really ties into the first. You need to make some changes to get yourself on the right track. This does include doing regular exercise, and also of changing how/what you eat. The changes might not be drastic, and you should still enjoy what you eat, or your diet change will make you fail. What you need to do is keep an eye on your calorie intake. This may mean things like changing from regular soda to diet soda. If you change your eating, but are calling it a diet in the bad sense, then you will eventually go back to eating the old way and all the work of weight loss will be lost. So, examine your daily diet, see what changes you can make to lower your calorie intake, and create a new diet that you can live with.

The next thing you need to do is set some goals that are realistic. While you may want to shoot for supermodel thin, and you’ll get there in the end if that is really your goal, you need to set some smaller, more realistic goals. You might decide you want to lose 2 pounds a week, and go from there. There is a psychological reason here too. Most people give up on losing weight when they don’t achieve what they want to. By setting smaller goals, it will enable you to reach those goals and give you more strength to finish the battle of losing weight.

This tip is one that every single person losing weight needs to listen to. Don’t compare yourself to others. This is the second biggest reason why people quit losing weight. You look at others, and you feel like you’ll never reach those goals. The best thing is to take some pictures before you start, and compare yourself to those, so you can see where all the hard work is paying off. To this end, figure out what your ideal weight should be, and make that your end goal.

Now you have your starting point, your end point, and your goals along the way. The next tip is to be sure you’re checking your goals correctly. Be sure to weigh yourself at the same time of day, everyday. Your weight varies throughout the day, especially after meals. You absolutely need to weigh yourself at the same time so you have numbers to compare. Don’t forget that while everyday might not be the best progress, look over your progress over the course of a few days to get a trend.

As you can see, there are many things to keep in mind when losing weight, but remember the main thing: expend more energy than you take in. Do that, and you’re losing weight at some level. Combined with exercise, and you lose weight faster. You don’t need anything from those infomercials to do it, just your own will power to lose weight permanently.

Weight loss is a problem that most of us have dealt with at least once whether it was someone in the family trying to lose some weight or yourself, it is a pressing problem that takes a lot of determination and patience. Many of us fail at strict diets and/or other practices of losing weight such as exercising or pills because our routine or our present state of health may not permit it.

How Does Weight Loss By Hypnosis Work?

Hypnosis works at the subconscious level, inducing in your mind positive thoughts and patterns that will help you with the present problem, in this case weight loss through your own mind and body. Hypnosis for self improvement is usually is done through a therapist who will monitor you and your progress through the sessions.

Weight loss by hypnosis may have to be achieved through several sessions depending on how open you are to the therapy but it can also be practiced at home with the help of CDs and DVDs. When using the weight loss by hypnosis therapy, you will be able to lose as much weight as you desire, not overnight but gradually in a healthy fashion and you will be in control the entire time of your body and mind.

When using weight loss by hypnosis, a pattern is induced in your unconsciousness where your appetite can be controlled and/or some of your favorite foods that cause you to gain you will be associated with factors or feeling that you dislike like nausea and every time you reach for that particular type of food you will experience this feeling and thus, you will control your cravings.

Helpful Tips

Weight loss by hypnosis can be achieved at home as well through the help of CDs and DVDs, where the same therapies are performed but without the therapist. If you are not comfortable performing hypnosis by yourself, you can take a few sessions with a therapist until you learn all there is to know and can conduct your own hypnosis therapies.

There are no side effects known to have derived from weight loss by hypnosis but you may not be able to see results as soon as you may like them if you don’t continue your sessions regularly and/or don’t practice the right way when performing it by yourself at home. So keep it up with the sessions and the results will be lasting for many years to come. Enjoy your new found effective weight loss plan!

Eating muscle building foods does help you get the edge and build muscles much faster than just eating normal foods. Muscle building foods that is refereed here is not some engineered freak food, it just carefully selected natural foods that contain high in protein that can help you accelerate your muscle building process. Building muscle is not as simple as just hopping into the gym, lift a few weights and you will get results. It requires much more than that. Number one, you need an excellent workout plan and then, you need a solid diet. Just imagine you are a homebuilder, even with the best tools and blue print, you cannot build if you do not have enough cement.

You get results from your workout when you rest, not when you are working out. During your workout, you are tearing your muscle in microscopic scale, and your muscles will recover and grow bigger when you feed them with muscle building foods like protein. You cannot get big muscles by just eating bread and beans. You need foods that contain complete amino acid profiles.

You have to include these power muscle building foods in all your meals. Consuming them bit by bit, spread throughout the day can increase the absorption rate of these foods in you body. Eating a large portion at once will not work because your body cannot absorb all the nutrients at once. Here are mini lists of muscle building foods that can help you build lean muscle that is rock solid in no time!

Muscle Building Foods 1

Beef is an all time favorite in a body builders diet. Roughly, 100 grams of beef contains 30 grams of high quality protein. These proteins are high BV protein, which means that, if you consume 100 grams of steak, 30 grams of protein will be absorbed by the body and utilized for protein synthesis. The steak, which contains the highest protein, is the Silverside lean. This is a good choice of steak because it also contains very low fat, 5 grams of fat only. There are many ways you can cook beef. The best way to do it is to roast it because this way of cooking uses very little oil. For a quick meal you can also buy beef strips and stir fry it with vegetables, onions and chili using olive oil.

Muscle Building Foods 2

Famous body building food number two is the all time favorite, eggs! Eggs are such a power food for building muscles because it the eggs whites contain no fat and although the egg yolk is high in cholesterol, it provides Omega 3, which is good fats. Eggs are also a source of protein, which contains a complete amino acid profile. Eggs are very easy to get, dirt cheap and convenient to bring around. One egg contains 6 grams of protein, 3 grams in the yolk and 3 grams in the white. There are tons of ways to cook eggs. The best way to cook eggs for dieting is to cook in hard boil or half boil, then eat it with a bit of soy sauce, this is good method of cooking because it contains low fat. To kick out of the boredom, make scrambled eggs with olive oil and chili.

Muscle Building Foods 3

Another fantastic lean source of protein is poultry. Chicken and turkey is a very good source of protein, low in fat, cheap and easily attainable. Although some parts of the chicken are high in fat, like the thigh, it is ok to eat it if you take the skin. 100 grams of chicken can give you 30 grams of high quality protein. The good thing about poultry is that it taste really good in sandwiches, salads, roast as well as stir fried.

Muscle Building Foods 4

When your parents say, eat your fish, they are right. Fish is also a powerful muscle building food because it is low in fat, high in protein and high in omega 3. Although fish is slightly more expensive that the other sources, having fish twice a week is good enough. The fishes that are high in protein are lobster, haddock, mullet and saithe. If you want convenience, go for tuna fish. Tuna fish is also very high in protein; a can of tuna can easily supply you with 30 grams of protein. Tuna have become a more desirable choice because it can be use with sandwiches, salads and other dishes. Tuna comes in handy cans than be ripped open. Some even comes in airtight packet so that you can carry it around.

Muscle Building Foods 5

Do not forget about milk and soy! This stuff is good stuff. Although they may appear as liquid, they are a good source of protein and when taken with meat, they compliment the amino acids supplied by the meat. 100 grams of tofu made from soy contains 8 grams of protein. One glass of low fat milk contains roughly 8 grams of protein. You have to be careful not to over do the milk because milk does contain lots of fat. Choose the low fat or the pasteurized version.

There you go, five choices of muscle building foods to fill up your menu. Make sure you include protein in all your meals, spread them out evenly in a day. Try to shot for 2.0 to 2.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight for positive nitrogen balance. This will give you optimum results along with intense weight training.

So many people are engaged into some form of a weight loss program these days. A great figure has become one of the best assets a person can have. Aside from that, it is a well known fact that obesity brings a lot of sickness with it. These reasons make the weight loss industry earn millions of dollars.

Because people are dying to be in perfect shape, the gym business is doing very well. Also, weight loss products and supplements are fast becoming to become a multi million dollar industry. There are even some who tried expensive surgeries just to sculpt their bodies. People are really desperate in making themselves look good that’s why they don’t mind paying much. In fact, they could be paying too much for something that they can avail of for a lower price.

You could actually apply some cheaper, yet effective, weight loss tips. We’re very lucky today that we live in a very scientific world. So much has been researched on how to effectively lose weight. Unlike years before when weight loss programs were mere speculations, you can be sure that right now, the weight loss tips available are scientifically founded.

If you try to search the internet, you’ll sure to end up with hundreds of results on how to achieve a better figure. You’ll even get some advise from fellow readers on how they have maintained their weight. You won’t have to remain vague when it comes to losing wait when you have a lot of outlets to turn to for some great weight loss tips.

Basically, the main components of any weight loss program is to have a healthy diet and exercise regularly. You vary the gravity of these depending on your desired results. For example, if you need to shed off several more pounds, you may have to eat considerably less and do much more exercises.

For starters, reduce your fat intake. Begin by eating less junk foods and chocolate. You could also minimize drinking beer or soda. It is important to be able to gradually adjust your body to eat less. Crash dieting is not advisable since it might just shock your body.

Follow a balanced diet. Try eating more fruits and vegetables. You may have to get yourselves one of those weight loss supplements to make sure that your body is still getting enough nutrients. It would be better to consult professional on what kind of diet you should follow, so as not to run the risk of malnutrition.

Of course, you could just conveniently search the internet for diet plans. Just try to search for a plan that fits you. There is no diet that is perfect for everybody. For example, if you suffer from a deficiency of some kind of vitamin, you would choose a diet that does not reduce intake of this vitamin. Some people might also need a high-fiber or low-salt diet. It depends on your current health state.

Taking your dog out for a walk would also do your body good. Simple stretching exercises could come a long way.
Exercises are also great excuses for not eating. Instead of driving your car around the next block to get a few groceries, you can take a walk instead to the grocery store. In that way, you can’t go through the drive in fast food you’ll pass in the next corner.

Basically, all you need is a lot of self control. I know, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It really is difficult to control one’s appetite especially during parties where lots of delicious are available for free.

It’s also not so easy to exercise regularly. But if you want good results, you have to work on it. Exercising may seem to be a hassle on the first few weeks, but once you get the hang of it, it’ll become a habit. Then, you’ll find exercising to be one of the daily routines that you just can’t live without.

Pills may give you a thinner body in a shorter period, but once you stop taking them, you’ll return to your old habits, thus making yourself fat again. I am aware of the much pressure placed on the not so thin people, but you shouldn’t compromise your general health just to get an attractive figure. To effectively reduce weight, you don’t need drastic results, you need a change of lifestyle.

Just like most of the women I know, I want to lose weight. The desire is quite common among my friends and me that we decided to do something about it together. Instead of standing back and thinking about how much I want to lose wieght, I decided to enlist some help.

Using the buddy system is a great approach to diet and exercise. My friend and I used to meet for lunch or for happy hour. Now that I want to lose weight like the rest of the crew, we are now meeting for brisk walks and trips to the local gym. There are plenty of options out there and I didn’t know about them until I decided that I want to lose wieght.

Having a good support system is crucial to our success. We work together to make sure that we keep a healthy pace during our walks. I know that when I want to lose weight that I have to keep my heart rate up for at least 20 minutes. When I walk alone I tend to stroll and lose the necessary stride.

There is also an appeal in the sense of competition among the group. Of the four of us, I think that I want to lose weight the most. However, I know that we are in a subtle competition that occasionally rears its ugly head in a good kind of way. Soon we will be having weigh-ins and maybe even prizes but for now losing the pounds is enough.

Meeting with friends over some cocktails is also really fun and on occasion I think that we should indulge in a night out on the town. I want to lose wieght so bad that I will probably offer to be designated driver during the special night out. This will save a lot of calories.

There are other things to consider when working towards a goal like this. I want to lose weight so bad that I am thinking about supplementing my diet and exercise with supplements to help things along. This can be the extra boost that will make the process easier.

The supplements come in many forms and choosing a certain brand might be a little difficult. I want to lose wieght enough to do some serious homework and explore my options. After all, we do have a subtle competition going. I know that the other ladies are already taking supplements.

The weight loss industry is a booming industry worth billions of dollars annually. It therefore should be no surprise that we are constantly being bombarded with new ‘miracle’ products and weight loss programs that will shed the pounds quickly and without much effort. Navigating the plethora of dieting information to distinguish between fact and fiction can be difficult, but it is certainly not impossible.

A good starting place to discover the truth is actually to uncover the fiction. Once we know what isn’t true, we can concentrate on genuine information that supports weight loss.

Here are four of the most common weight loss myths:

Skipping Meals Will Help You Lose Weight

The idea behind this is that if you eat less food, you will automatically lose weight. While on the surface this sounds like it should work, it doesn’t take into account the body’s metabolic response to what it sees as starvation. It slows right down to give you the best chance of survival. This means that you burn fewer calories. The truth of the matter is, eating more often but smaller healthy meals raises the metabolic rate and aids weight loss.

You Can Eat What You Want As Long As You Exercise

You have to do an awful lot of exercise to burn off a chocolate bar. The value of exercise is not so much that it burns calories (although that certainly helps), it is that it raises the metabolic rate so that you burn more calories faster all through the day. If you need to lose weight, you cannot eat what you want. You do need to exercise discipline while you shed those extra pounds.

Diet Pills Will Make You Slim

Diet pills do not make you slim. Most diet pills are designed to suppress hunger and it is not eating as much that helps you lose weight. However, diet pills do not control the calories or fat content of the food you do eat, so you might eat less food but still the wrong food. Furthermore, pharmaceutical diet pills have unwanted side effects that can have long term affects on your health. Some natural diet pills such as hoodia gordonii have the advantage of suppressing appetite without side effects, so if you must go down this path, they are the preferred option. Nevertheless, simply eating less will not guarantee weight loss unless the food you are eating is healthy and calorie controlled so that you can lose weight and maintain good health.

Calorie Restriction Is The Best Way To Lose Weight

The Calorie Restriction Diet is a controversial diet founded on the belief that severe calorie restriction slows the aging process. Many people believe that substantial calorie reduction will reduce metabolic stress and in so doing, increase life span. Calorie counting on its own is not good dietary practice. While it is true that counting calories can be very helpful in managing energy intake, the quality of those calories is very important. The nutritional impact of the food eaten is very important and will affect all aspects of health, including weight stabilization.

Now that we have looked at some very common fallacies, let’s take a look at some important weight loss facts. These facts can make a huge difference to your ability to achieve your weight loss goals and then maintaining your new weight in a healthy manner.

Weight Loss Takes Time

Genuine, healthy, permanent weight loss takes time. It is a gradual process and it is not going to happen overnight. Extreme weight loss diets that promise quick results do not promote good health and even if the person does lose weight quickly, more often than not, they gain more back than they lost. This manner of dieting actually causes weight gain in the long term.

Weight Loss Requires A Lifestyle Change

The first thing that has to change if you want to lose weight is your diet; not only what you eat, but how much you eat. A lot of people take in more calories every day than they actually use. If this continues over time, a person can gain a lot of weight and yet not appear to be overeating. Effectively, to lose weight you have to burn more calories than you eat. To be healthy in the process, these calories have to have a high nutritional value. Exercise should also be included in this lifestyle change. Exercise will burn calories while you are engaged in it, but more than this, it will raise your metabolic rate so that you burn more calories throughout the day.

You Do Not Necessarily Have To Eat Less

To lose weight, you may not have to eat less food. Many people are overweight, not because they eat too much, but because they eat food high in calories. A person who eats a large heaped plate of salad will consume fewer calories than a person who eats a small bucket of chips. A person who drinks water with their meals will consume fewer calories than someone who drinks a sugary soda. There is also substantial evidence that diet sodas can prevent weight loss and contribute to weight gain, not because of calories but because of the effect of chemicals. This means that calories are not the only consideration in choosing foods. Nutritional value and health benefits need to be primary considerations in order to get the best long term health and weight loss results.

You Should Eat Regularly

It is important to eat regularly for two reasons. Firstly, hunger is the number one enemy of weight loss so it is important to avoid more than mild hunger. If you get too hungry, you can be tempted to just grab anything and totally blow your daily goals. When we fail, it is easy for discouragement to set in which can cause us to give up altogether. Secondly, eating a number of small regular meals throughout the day will increase your metabolic rate so that you burn more calories.

If you avoid the fiction and stick to the facts, then your weight loss journey has every likelihood of success. It is hard to lose weight in our modern world with its fast-paced stressful lifestyle and fast food fixes. That is why we really have to reject this lifestyle to be successful. More than anything, if you want to lose weight you need to change the way you live, not just the amount of food you eat.

It’s coming. The signs are already everywhere and you just know the inevitable. With the market brimming with calorie- laden processed foodstuffs combined with the sedentary lifestyle of today, more and more people are facing the problem of getting fat. Not just plain fat- obese.

Obesity can’t all be that bad if it’s just the mocking and the inability to do most normal things like running and climbing a long length of stairs… then again, with obesity comes high blood pressure, heart diseases, respiratory problems, diabetes and arthritis among other ailments. If you want to live long enough to enjoy your golden years, gear up for another version of the Battle of the Bulge.

Obesity does not choose its victims. It can sink in as early as the age of six and decreases life expectancy by an average of 7- 20%, not to forget that the pollution and stress will make those numbers rise even higher. Factors to obesity include age, gender, genetics, stress, lifestyle and of course, food.

Most weight loss programs target the elimination of unnecessary calories or those calories beyond a person’s required basal metabolism- that’s the amount of calories needed to keep a person’s basic bodily functions up and running normally. However, with the fads and trends of “Kate Moss” models, some programs go as far as starvation and gastric bypasses.

These are not recommended for a lot of reasons but let’s enumerate some for good measure:
1) Quick weight loss tactics only mean quick weight loss- not permanent, not long- term and not healthy.
2) Complications can and will arise from drastic measures beginning with the lack of nutrients. Besides, obese people usually don’t do well under the knife unless the doctors say so.
3) Do you really want liposuction? Or cutting off a part of your stomach or intestine?

Some programs focus on removing the sources of fat from a person’s diet. The Eat More, Weigh Less does just that by encouraging fruits, vegetables, whole grains and little meat without any caloric restrictions whatsoever as long as the fat content falls below 10% of what you eat. The Pritkin diet also goes along these lines. But before choosing any of these diets, one must consider that fat- the unsaturated kind- is also essential to our body. Some critics have said that these diets are not for everyone, especially those who have high- fat bodies, as the diet will only lead to an inadequacy in fatty acids.
The Atkins diet promotes protein since Dr. Robert Atkins believes that carbohydrates are the main causes of obesity. The diet would allot a person meals consisting of 36% protein, 8% carbohydrates, 53% fat or for maintenance 24% protein, 40% fat, 31% carbohydrates. Another popular diet called the South Beach diet also makes meat a hero by advocating foodstuffs that are high in protein, high in fiber, low in carbohydrates and low in animal fats. Although the South Beach diet was developed for those with a high risk of getting diabetes or heart diseases, the aforementioned diet does not balance the basic food groups.

Then there’s the McDougall Project for Maximum Weight Loss, which is basically a vegan diet. Think greens and yellows as these should make up 1/3 of what you eat.

Another example is the Weight Watchers Winning Points program. Based on your statistics and details, the program will allot you “points” that you can use when choosing what to eat. All you have to do is to remain within that range by taking care to select what’s right. Vegetables almost have an equivalent of 0 while fruits have 1-2 points per serving. Complex carbohydrates and fats have the highest.

What you can do to get the best program for you is get to the root of the problem and attack from that point. Be idealistic when setting goals. The weight lost per week should fall in the range of ¾- 2 lbs and not exceeding 3. It will be slow at first. Weight lost during the early stages will be mostly water fat so a doctor’s supervision is really needed if you plan on losing a lot of pounds.

The body will adapt quickly to the diet so prep up the arsenal with a combination of aerobic (running) and anaerobic (weight training) exercise. In order to maintain this, exercise for at least 15- 30 minutes in increasing increments per day.

The program should also include help for when hunger anxiety attacks and depression urges you to binge. Losing weight involves the mindset too.

Those are just some examples of diet programs, which promise weight loss. But here’s catch, what works for others may not work for you. For example, there’s such a diet that dictates what you can and can’t eat based on your blood type. One can’t guarantee same results on such general terms. Weight and build depends on a lot of factors and not just on a single basis as blood type. Word of advice: have a weight loss program tailored for you. Specialists can aid you on this one and with their supervision you will win this fight!

The first and most important step towards developing a six pack is to lose weight. The rationale behind the weight loss is that the abdominal muscles will not show unless the ideal muscle to fat ratio is reached.

The two most effective forms of exercise for losing weight are weight lifting and cardio exercises.
Weight Lifting: Lifting weights will result in a decrease in the development of fat by the body.

Lifting weights will result in an increase in muscle; the more muscle a body has the more energy it is capable of burning.

Extra energy in the body is consequently stored as fat; for this reason, building extra muscle in the body will ensure that this extra energy is utilized and prevented from turning to fat.

The most effective muscles to work on are larger muscles groups such as thighs, hamstrings, back and the chest; as these are larger muscles they will consequently burn larger amount of energy in order to sustain themselves.

Cardio exercises: One of the most common and popular forms of exercise, cardio is a great way to lose weight as it is capable of utilizing fat stores for energy and preventing excess energy form being stored as fat.
By staying in motion for an extended period of time, your body is capable of utilizing glucose stores for energy, and then moving on to utilize fat stores for energy.

Suitable cardio exercises include running, power walking, swimming, cycling, basketball, soccer, tennis or any other exercise or sport that involves continuous movement for an extended period of time.

Some of the most popular forms of cardio exercise are as follows:

1) Running: running is extremely popular as it does not require any particular equipment and can be done virtually anywhere. Running can burn a significant amount of energy, however it can cause discomfort to certain joints such as knees and ankles.

2) Cycling: Cycling can be performed outdoors (on a bicycle) or inside (on a cycling machine) and requires use of the legs in order to burn energy.

3) Swimming: Swimming is a full body exercise and the more body parts that are involved the more energy this exercise is capable of burning. Thirty minutes of an intensive stroke such as breaststroke is capable of burning more energy than thirty minutes of running. One of the benefits of swimming is that it allows for joints to be fully supported, thus preventing the joint damage that can occur through running.

4) Step Aerobics: This involves an intense workout for the legs, buttocks and hips and burns around the same amount of energy as swimming. This form of exercise is available in video or in a class; therefore it is able to be performed at home or in the gym.

5) Elliptical trainer: For those with gym access, or who are lucky enough to own one of these machines, the elliptical trainer will burn energy whilst protecting joints from injury due to impact activities.

6) Power walking: Brisk walking is an excellent form of exercise. Whilst it may not burn off as much energy as running, it will minimize the extent of damage to joints done through impact with the ground.

7) Rowing: Rowing machines are extremely simple to use and have the potential to burn as much energy as running or cycling. Vigorous rowing can significantly increase the heart rate and burn quite a lot of energy.

Rock climbing: Rock climbing is capable of burning almost as much energy as swimming. Rock climbing can be quite strenuous, and does involve the use of a large amount special equipment and technique. Whilst not for the faint hearted- it is a lot of fun, particularly when climbing with a partner.

When exercising, it is important to remember to set realistic expectations and to not be too hard on yourself during exercise. Refraining from doing so will ensure you have a higher chance of enjoying the exercise and will prevent you from becoming disheartened and discontinuing the exercise.

When losing weight to develop a six pack, many people will be aiming to develop and strengthen muscle simultaneously. This will have the opposite effect on weight as muscle is denser than fat and weighs more, thus this increase in muscle will negate the loss of weight through a decrease in fat.

In many cases, an individual’s weight will increase instead of decrease. This is not something to be worried about. Rather than constantly weighing yourself to determine your progress, try checking your clothing. A decrease in fat should leave your clothes feeling a little loose.

Because there is so much fast food out there that is loaded with fat, lots of sodium, and is high in calories, many people believe the only way to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight is to stay away from fast food restaurants.

Yes, it is true that a fast food meal that includes a burger, fries, and a soft drink is not healthy and has too many calories in it. But there are fast food options that are healthy and okay to have. Here’s one way to think of it. Most weight loss experts today say having 5 to 6 small meals a day is better then having 3 larger meals and that skipping meals is a bad idea because it leads to binging later on in the day. So is it better to skip lunch because you are busy and only have access to a fast food restaurant? Or should you go to that restaurant and make the healthiest choice you can? (And while it’s true that you cannot always get super healthy food at a fast food restaurant, you can almost always find a reasonably healthy choices.)

I’m not saying you have to walk into that fast food restaurant and ask them for a bowl of plain lettuce either. What are some decent choices?

• Go Mexican but don’t have the taco salad in the edible bowl. That taco salad at Taco Bell that you probably think is a healthy choice contains 860 calories and 46 grams of fat. Even without the edible bowl, the salad still has 490 calories and 25 grams of fat. Instead consider having something at Taco Bell with a soft flour or corn tortilla that is done in their “fresco style,” which means they use a salsa of tomatoes, onions, and cilantro in place of cheese and sauce on an item. Two grilled steak tacos done in their fresco style contains 340 calories and 10 grams of fat. Two of their ranchero chicken soft tacos are 340 calories and 8 grams of fat (nutrition information for Taco Bell was found at: http://www.yum.com/nutrition/documents/tb_nutrition.pdf). If you are at any fast food Mexican restaurant, look for similar choices; items with flour or corn tortillas that are not deep fried; salsa toppings instead of ones containing cheese, cheese sauces, and sour cream; low fat cheese instead of full fat cheese if you really want the cheese.

• Have a burger if you really want one, but have the regular hamburger, skipping that slice of processed American cheese. You know the fries aren’t a healthy choice, a side salad with light dressing is much better. But if you have to have fries (and once in a while is okay even when trying to lose weight because a person is much less likely to be successful on their diet if they completely forbid all their favorite food) have the smallest size available. You may have to order the kid’s meal to get a small order of fries, but that’s okay. Make your beverage water (most fast food restaurants have bottled water now which is great for people on the go) or a diet soft drink.

• Grilled chicken sandwiches are okay if you skip all the extra toppings; deep fried chicken sandwiches are bad. People have a tendency to think a chicken sandwich is healthy because chicken is healthy. But once that chicken goes for a swim in the deep fryer, it’s not so healthy. A grilled chicken sandwich from Wendy’s has 370 calories and 8 grams of fat. A deep fried chicken fillet sandwich from Wendy’s has 470 calories and 16 grams of fat. If you’re thinking their mandarin chicken salad is a better choice, it has over 500 calories and 26 grams of fat.

While eating fast food is not something any health expert will recommend having for every meal every day of the week, a person can eat at fast food restaurants some of the time still lose weight. It’s all about being informed about the calories and nutrition of the food available at restaurants and making the best choices possible.

Diets, Schmiets and Other Pfiffle

According to everybody, everybody is fat. And everybody who is somebody is saying that everybody is getting fatter.

So everybody wants everybody on a diet.

Who is kidding who? Everybody has been on a diet. Diets don’t work; unless, of course, you are selling a diet plan.

Diets are big business. And the bigger the muffins and trailers on the American people, the bigger the business will be.

If you have not been on a diet, you have missed the joys of deprivation, not knowing if the thing is going to work for you and final failure. Even if you loose weight, in nothing flat you went back to being fat.

If you have been on a diet, or two or three, you probably are sick of them and have no intent of going back on one again until your doctor tells you that if you don’t lose weight your are going to get all sorts of diseases, your body will fall apart and all those other things that doctors tell you.

Before that happens, you don’t have to pay for some off the wall diet plan, “medically proven” with tons of testimonials, to stop gaining weight.

Notice I said “stop gaining weight.” That is the critical first step. If you can just stop gaining weight, you can start losing weight without going on some ridiculous diet that will probably fail anyway.

Let’s look at it.

If you consume 200 calories more per day than you burn up, you will store about 6000 calories more energy than you need. That means that you will gain about 1 ½ pounds per month. That is like 18 pounds per year.

Just 200 calories is enough to do you in big time.

If you are now not gaining weight or gaining less than 1 ½ pound per month, you are golden.

If you are maintaining your weight now, all that you have to do is get rid of 200 calories per day and you will lose 1 ½ pounds per month.

So how to do that?

Elliptical exercise machines burn about 700 calories per hour. So 20 minutes per day on an elliptical exercise machine will do it.

Walking for an hour will do it.

Substituting water for two glasses of 2 glasses of your soft drink or a single beer should do it.

Trade a hamburger for two oranges and you will be surprised what happens.

It is very simple. You just have to make sure that the amount of calories you put in equals the amount of calories that you burn.

But as simple as it is, it is very difficult to do because all that calorie counting is a pain. It is all a shot in the dark, you don’t have any idea about what you are doing and it is just plain frustrating.

So how did I solve my own problem?

First I did exactly what I said above. I started walking an hour per day and moved to water from soft drinks.

Bingo. My weight started down.

Then I decided to get serious. Having been frustrated with calorie counting before, I looked for a simple way to keep track of my calories on my computer. I found this thing called the Balance Log. It turned out to be great.

Not only don’t I have to look for calories per serving in a book or on the web, I have a complete record of what is going on with my daily, weekly and monthly calorie intake and expenditure. It tells me exactly where I stand for a day and how much exercise I need to make up for those things that I ate that I should not have eaten.

Now I eat almost 2000 calories per day and lose weight. I eat more now than when I was gaining weight.

How do I do it? I found that my basic calorie burn rate is about 1620 calories per day. So as long as I don’t exceed 1620 calories intake per day, I can sit at the computer and not gain weight.

If I want to lose weight, I can walk and burn about 250 calories per hour. So since I enjoy the time away from the computer, I do walk. Sometimes I walk for an hour and sometimes I break it up into 15 or 20 minute walks. I burn about 250 calories per day walking.

But then I looked for something that would give me exercise while I watched the daily news. That would be time efficient for me since I would better use my “couch potato time”. I chose an elliptical exercise machine because it is low impact and burns over 700 calories per hour.

Now let’s add it up. I start with 1620 calories, add to it 250 for walking and 700 for an ½ hour session for the morning news and a ½ hour session for the evening news. That is a banging 2570 calories that I can eat.

Now, for my personal situation, if I eat 2000 calories per day, I lose about 12 pounds per month. I adjust my exercise schedule to my weight loss / weight gain requirements. I have my cherry pie, my beer, my wine, my ice cream and all those things that diets schmietes and other pfiffle say I can’t. And my muscles have developed.

I owe it first to the Balance Log that opened my eyes and made things easy. Once I could monitor what was happening with my body, I was stimulated and could set a goal. My goal was to eat and enjoy life and lose weight without the deprivations of a diet. That lead me to look at various exercise machines. I chose the elliptical trainer.

Balance log has a free 2 week trial version that you can use on your PDA and or computer. And it can be used for all the members of your family or company. (Each gets its own password.) If nothing else, looking at what it tells you will allow you to set up your own unique approach to maintaining your own unique body.

So forget the diets, schmiets and other pfiffle. Just step back and look at what is going in and out. It only takes as little as 200 calories a day change.