The Infonian

Healthy weight loss programs can be hard to find. Far too many mainstream diets appear to expect you to live on starvation rations, to cut out one or more of the major essential food groups, to poison your body with possibly dangerous diet pills, or to eat additive-filled meal replacements.

But you don’t have to abuse your body to lose weight. Instead, look for a healthy, balanced weight loss plan that meets the following criteria: It Should Be Based on Natural, Unprocessed Food

Firstly, a healthy diet program involves eating real food, not synthetic meal replacements, and the food should be as close to its natural state as possible. This means fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, dairy (preferably organic) and other nutrient-rich, unprocessed foods. Any kind of low calorie diet will help you to lose weight, but if you want to remain healthy too, it’s essential to include lots of high quality fresh foods, and to eat enough. So avoid any diet plan that would require you to live on junky processed food or meal replacement drinks – that way of eating just isn’t sustainable over the long term.

It Shouldn’t Involve Diet Pills

Diet pills can sometimes help people to lose weight quickly, but their long term effects on the body are uncertain. Risking your health for short term weight loss is a bad idea, particularly if you don’t change your eating and lifestyle habits. With a healthy diet and moderate amounts of regular exercise, there’s simply no need to pop pills to lose weight, and a healthy weight loss program won’t expect you to.

It Should Include Some Exercise

You can lose weight without exercising, but if you care about your long term health, taking some exercise is essential. Exercise can help to prevent chronic health problems, and it also gives your mood and energy levels an immediate boost. In addition, exercise makes weight loss easier because you’ll burn calories during your workout, your metabolic rate will be increased for some time afterward, and you’ll build lean muscle tissue, which is more metabolically active than fat – meaning that you burn more calories even when you’re at rest. So for optimal health, ensure that your weight loss program includes at least twenty minutes of exercise three or four days a week.

You Should Eat Enough, and Often Enough

It’s essential to provide your body with enough food when you’re trying to lose weight. Avoid the temptation to skip meals or go on a crash diet, because this puts your body under stress, and will decrease your energy levels, making overeating more likely. If you get into the habit of under-eating, you’re also at risk of malnutrition and losing muscle mass. In addition to the negative effects on your health, skipping meals won’t really help with weight loss, because your body’s metabolic rate will slow. This makes fat loss more difficult, and you’ll be more likely to regain even more weight than you lost when you begin to eat normally again. So for healthy weight loss, eat at least three meals a day (many people find that four or five smaller meals works better), and don’t be tempted to skip any meals.

It Should Stress the Importance of Making Permanent Changes

Any diet plan that depends on faddy short term techniques such as cutting out whole food groups, taking diet pills or drastically reducing calories won’t help you lose weight permanently, and won’t help you to stay healthy over the long term either. For most people, plans of that type are impossible to stick with for very long, because the body eventually rebels, and forces you to eat more just to provide the energy and nutrients that it needs. Any healthy weight loss plan will put the emphasis on making permanent changes in your eating habits, and also eating adequate (but not excessive) amounts of healthy, unprocessed, nutritionally-dense foods.

If you’re in the habit of overeating, or you live on junk foods, changing to such a plan can be challenging, but it is doable, given some time and patience. And it’s definitely worth the effort, because once you’ve established healthy new habits, the weight will stay off, and you’ll be free from the yoyo cycle of weight gain and loss for ever. And you’ll feel great too!

So if you want to lose weight, keep it off, and be vibrantly healthy too, look for a health-focused weight loss plan that avoids short term gimmicks and instead encourages you to do what’s best for your body.

Author: Lea Jones

Are you having trouble finding the motivation for losing weight? Then keep reading! I know that it can be difficult to persevere with a weight loss plan once the initial enthusiasm begins to wane, but it can be done. This article gives ten weight loss motivation tips that will help you to keep going and reach your goal.

1. Reward Yourself

Take small steps towards your goal, and make sure that you give yourself some reward (not food!) at each stage along the way. Losing weight can seem like an endless task, especially if you’ve got a lot to lose, so it’s important that you enjoy a sense of achievement even before you reach your goal weight.

2. Dress well.

When your larger sized clothes become too loose, get rid of them. Many people have a wardrobe full of clothes of different sizes, but if you hang onto your ‘fat clothes’, you’re sending your subconscious mind the message that you are expecting to gain the weight back. Also, don’t wait until you’re at your goal weight before you purchase some really nice new clothes – try to get at least one new piece of clothing that you really like with every dress size that you drop. You don’t have to spend a lot if money is an issue, but just a few new (or new to you) well-fitting, flattering pieces of clothing can really boost your confidence and inspire you to continue.

3. Focus on how you feel.

Stay focused on how good your body feels as you start to lose weight. Many overweight people generally feel a bit tired and uncomfortable in their bodies, and as you lose the pounds, you’ll feel better and better (that’s assuming that you’re using a healthy diet and exercise plan). If you focus on these improvements in your day to day quality of life, you’ll feel motivated to stay the course and enjoy even more energy and a greater sense of well-being as time goes on. Remember that there’s more to weight loss than just numbers on the scale or smaller dress sizes; it’s also about increasing your sense of physical and mental vitality.

4. Exercise. Make an effort to take a bit of exercise on most days. This might involve dredging up some willpower in the beginning, but after you’ve made it a habit, you’ll find that the great boost to your mood that exercise provides will give you a strong motivation to continue. Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore, and you don’t have to wear yourself out – choose an activity that you enjoy, and just do 10 or 15 minutes each time to start with.

5. Use personally meaningful incentives. For example, if looking good is important to you, you might find it helpful to hang one or more items of clothing in your ideal size, somewhere where you’ll see it often (although for others, this could be a depressing reminder of where they currently are). But if you like clothes, this can be a good incentive to continue.

6. Focus on your health. A lot of people are motivated to lose weight primarily because they want to look thinner, but it’s also worth considering the long and short-term health implications of being overweight, and the benefits (such as reduced risk of diseases such as heart problems, joint problems, some types of cancer, etc.,) that you’ll gain if you slim down. You’ll also have lots more energy, and may feel better mentally too.

7. Boost your confidence. In some cases, losing weight can help a person to feel more confident. If your confidence is being negatively affected by your weight, you may find it motivating to think about how much more at ease you’ll be in social situations once the excess is lost, and think about enjoying all the positive attention you’ll receive. You can also feel better about yourself right now by focusing on those aspects of your body, your life and yourself that you love just as they are. This is important, as many people overeat to mask feeling bad about themselves, so some positive self-talk can make it less likely that they’ll turn to food to feel better.

8. Try keeping a food diary. This is a very effective way to become aware of your eating habits, and it’s a great tool for motivation, as you’re less likely to overeat or eat mindlessly – and the more often you eat well, the easier it’ll be to continue.

9. Get some support. There are so many people who are in the same boat, and it can really help a lot to have somebody to talk to at those times when you just feel like giving up on the whole thing. There are several options here – you could join a formal support group, get together in an informal group with some friends, or join some of the many online weight loss forums and other communities.

10. Enjoy your food. Forget about ‘going on a diet’, and instead find a way of eating that you actually enjoy, and can stick with over the long term. Also, make sure you allow yourself some of your favorite foods as treats. Any weight loss plan that’s overly strict is very de-motivating. It’s certainly important to establish healthy eating habits, but you shouldn’t charge headlong into some extreme regime that no normal person could stick with for more than a few days at a time. You’ll be much less likely to over-indulge or binge if you’re enjoying what you’re eating on a day to day basis.

So, if you feel discouraged with your weight loss journey at times, don’t beat yourself up – this is normal, and happens to most people. Just be nice to yourself, and keep the above points in mind, and you’ll find it easier to maintain your motivation for losing weight, making the whole process much more straightforward.

Author: Lea Jones

In recent years, weight training has gone from the hobby of chisel-jawed Austrian celebrities to the staple form of exercise for people of all cultures and backgrounds. Its popularity is often a source of mystery for non-believers, who often see it as an excuse for vanity and massaging one’s own ego. Whilst this may be true for a certain percentage of the population (admittedly, in my time, I’ve seen my share of bicep flexing and posturing in front of the local gym’s more reflective surfaces) there are many health, fitness, and mental benefits associated with weight training. 1) The first and most obvious benefit is the increase in size and tone of the body’s musculature. By making small tears in the muscle fibers, the resistance-based movements trick the body into over-compensating when making its repairs so that in future it can more easily cope with the weight. This size increase will be accompanied by a strength gain also, which can be useful in day-to-day life (see: moving furniture).

2) Secondly, resistance exercises cause a metabolic “spike” that allows you to continue burning an above-normal amount of calories even after the exercise period has ended. For those who are unhappy with their body composition, this is a great solution to the problem of unsightly body fat.

3) Psychologically, any form of exercise is a good idea but weight training in particular is known to cause better self-confidence and esteem. Whether this is related to the size and strength gains, a release of endorphins while exercising or simply an increased feeling of well-being is undecided, but who cares! We could all use a more positive mental attitude from time to time. If you want to get an added edge in the gym you might also like to read more on training supplements like the Maximuscle Thermobol Review

4) My last argument to extol the virtues of weight training is the benefits it can provide to sports people. It’s often forgotten that full-body fitness is hugely important, even to athletes such as sprinters, who would appear only to need use of their legs to propel them forward at such a rate. This, like many assumptions, is incorrect. The truth is that upper body muscles (especially the biceps and triceps) are instrumental in creating momentum in the running motion and that without them runners would be unable to achieve such phenomenal speeds. So, next time you’re in the gym, step off the treadmill and pick up a dumbbell!

Author: Gary Bunn

But can the same response be triggered without actually putting ourselves in mortal danger? Is it possible to “flip a switch” and move our bodies into that heightened response, “ready for battle” state at will? Lots of people say that it can be done, using nothing more than the power of our own minds. According to them, all it takes is plenty of discipline and lots of practice.

Epinephrine is temporarily elevated when we exercise at very high intensity levels, which is one of the reasons an intense lifting session can feel so good. At these levels though and with normal training, it’s usually enough to make us feel good but not enough to have a significant impact on strength. But if you could control that “adrenalin rush” and bring on an intense burst of epinephrine at will-making the body’s energy reserves instantly available-it could really give you an incredible burst of strength for a maximum lift attempt.

There are a number of ways to create an adrenalin (epinephrine) rush in the body without putting yourself in mortal danger. One method is train yourself under conditions that cause your body to release epinephrine. This can mean intense training sessions that push you out of your comfort zone. The keys here are to focus on short bursts of intense training that are outside of your normal comfort zone-this is important. When we’re lifting a weight that we know our bodies can handle, the body doesn’t need to release that extra burst of epinephrine-fueled energy. It’s when we’re training in “uncharted” territory that our bodies will have the incentive to give us the boost we need.

Some say that proper breathing techniques can be taught that induce an adrenalin rush. One of these strategies says that learning to control your breathing and matching it to the intensity of your workout can facilitate an adrenalin rush in the body. The theory here is that when we “breathe normally” during an intense training session, our breathing lags behind and the cells wind up with an oxygen deficiency, putting the body somewhat behind the power curve.

Practitioners of this technique say that by matching our breathing-that means breathing hard and deep-to the intensity of our workout from the onset, we can trigger an adrenalin rush. Learning to do this properly will of course require lots of discipline and plenty of practice. You can start by ensuring that you are breathing properly in everything you do. The normal human tendency is to hold our breath when exerting ourselves-for example, doing something as simple as getting up from a chair. When walking, match your inhaling and exhaling to your step. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. The point is to learn to coordinate your breathing with your body’s motions.

Visualization is another strategy that some experts say can be used to induce an adrenalin rush. There is an entire school of thought related to visualization techniques, with much of it coming from the martial arts world. Though in any situation, the methodology is essentially the same. It’s more complex than it sounds but it boils down to visualizing a previous scenario that triggered an adrenalin rush. It’s not just thinking about it though-it entails actually reliving every aspect of the situation in your mind in an effort to induce your body to release bursts of epinephrine into the bloodstream to boost performance.

While the thought of an adrenalin rush for a max lift attempt is appealing, it’s not something that everyone can do. Like I said early on, developing the ability to bring one on requires a lot of discipline and even more practice. And though not easy, it can be done. It’s important to note though that excessive, long-term releases of epinephrine into the bloodstream will diminish its effectiveness (your body gets used to it) and could lead to health problems. Remember the saying “all things in moderation.” But if you think you’ve got what it takes, it certainly is something that you can learn to do.

Author: Mike Westerdal