Weight Loss Tips

Sustainable Weight Loss

By Weight-Watcher on June 25, 2010 in Diet

Is sustainable weight loss possible?

Chances are, you’ve heard the same statistic over and over again. And if it’s true that 95% of diets end in failure, it’s reasonable to conclude that trying to lose weight is not worth the effort. Nobody is going to tell you that it is easy to achieve weight loss that lasts. But it is possible. Let’s begin to explore exactly how to win the weight-loss battle.

Make Wise Food Choices

Our food world is complicated. We are surrounded by tasty, affordable food choices. We are constantly reminded of food by the media, much benefit from regular physical activity that they wouldn’t dream of a day without it. Regular physical activity has three important elements. The first is that the activity has to fit into your life, whether in a set block of time or in little nooks and crannies throughout the day. You can squeeze in a bit of activity by taking the stairs at work, parking farther away from the store on errands, taking a ten-minute walk at lunchtime, or walking the dog at the end of the day. These activities may sound too small to make a difference. But if you take a daily ten-minute walk at lunchtime for a year and change nothing else about your eating or activity, you can lose more than five pounds! Imagine the result if you incorporated a number of these simple activities into your daily routine. These positive changes are the key to sustainable weight loss.

Make Positive Lifestyle Changes

Making positive changes to your lifestyle also means taking personal responsibility for your weight. All of us have the ability to harness our internal power to make wise choices for healthy, livable, sustainable weight loss.

Lifestyle change requires focus. Both the Weight Watchers LTM Database and NWCR participants maintain a consistent focus on their weight management strategies. This does not mean that they are overly rigid with their diet or take exercise to extremes. Rather, they have learned the skill of flexible restraint and have developed habits, routines, and approaches that support their ability to sustain weight loss.

Create a Supportive Atmosphere

A supportive atmosphere is important for losing weight and keeping it off. Eating can be a highly social event, whether during family meals, meals with friends, or in times of celebration or sorrow. The fact is that food is one of the great pleasures of life. Sharing weight goals with others helps enlist their support. It is generally much better to let people who care about you know that you are trying to control your weight. They can be of great help. Researchers showed that metabolism goes back to expected levels with sustained weight loss, confirming that metabolism and the number of calories burned during a day is related to weight and amount of muscle but not to weight loss.

The Bottom Line

There are clearly plenty of people who have achieved sustainable weight loss. What sets them apart is not who they are but the fact that they have learned the basic components of a comprehensive weightless method and have incorporated them into their daily lives. They make wise food choices, are physically active, have a healthy lifestyle with a positive mindset, and are in a supportive environment. The longer the weight loss is sustained, the easier it becomes. Success breeds success, so set yourself up for success by choosing realistic goals that are important to you and believing that you can achieve them. The method you use to lose weight—both for taking the weight off and for keeping it off—makes a difference in how successful you will be. You are not destined to regain weight once you’ve lost it. It is important to recognize the kernel of truth in the myth of sustainable weight loss. Sustainable weight loss doesn’t automatically happen. You need to put your mind to it and arm yourself with the right tools. But it’s time to avoid being trapped by the myth that sustainable weight loss is impossible.

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Weight-loss-myths

By Weight-Watcher on June 25, 2010 in Weight Loss

Myths and Weight Loss

Myths are a part of every society and culture. They help explain common experiences that are mysterious, frightening, or difficult to understand. Ancient civilizations used myths to explain aspects of the world that they could not comprehend. Joseph Campbell, author of the book The Power of Myth, explains that we need myths to survive and to explain and understand our existence.

Weight Loss Myths are powerful. They can inspire us to great heights. But they can also become traps when they mask the full truth. If you go beyond the kernel of truth that forms the basis of the myth and believe that every aspect of the myth is true, you can become paralyzed into inaction because the myth seemingly explains everything.

Many popular weight-loss methods can be attractive and persuasive. Who hasn’t tried at least a few of the latest and greatest weight loss plans? These methods are appealing because they are based on a believable myth, a convincing scientific explanation, and a fantastic promise: the pitch is that if you buy into the myth, you will lose weight quickly. Perhaps you believed the myth that simply by cutting back on fat you could lose weight permanently. Maybe you believed the myth that cutting out most carbohydrates would magically melt away your extra fat and pounds. Perhaps you subscribed to the common myth that if you simply began exercising more, your weight would come off. We wish we could tell you that these myths were true. While each has some kernels of truth, they’re missing quite a bit as well. That’s the point of this book; we’ll fill you in on the whole story. Myths have the power to keep you riding the weight-loss roller coaster or prevent you from trying again. That is why it is so important to pull out the kernel of truth and discard the rest. Until you separate the truth from the myth, you won’t achieve your goal of sustainable weight loss. Stop in your local bookstore, browse online, or watch one of television’s morning shows and you will quickly see that weight-loss myths are abundant. One popular myth states that carrying a few extra pounds around doesn’t really have an impact on your health. The myth has a kernel of truth: carrying around a few extra pounds is not as risky as carrying around a lot of extra pounds. But the whole truth is that even gaining small amounts of weight as the years go by carries a health risk.

Today, an even more widespread but fading myth is that a low-carbohydrate diet magically melts away pounds and is answer to weight loss. Once again, there is an element of truth to this myth. Many people eat overly large portions of carbohydrates like pasta and bread, as well as too many foods with added sugars and highly processed flour. This type of eating can contribute to weight gain in very significant ways. Furthermore, carbohydrate foods supply a majority of our calories. So cutting back on empty calories from added sugar and highly processed flour can help you lose weight as long as you don’t fill your diet with low-carbohydrate, calorie-rich foods.

Or what about the common myth that all you need to do is go to the gym and work out to lose weight? There is a kernel of truth to the relationship between regular exercise and weight loss. But individuals who think that they can lose weight simply by increasing their exercise program and not controlling their food intake are almost always embarking on a futile journey.

We all have myths. Some are wonderful because they inspire us. Some get in the way of our progress. Myths can be busted through knowledge. The road to sustainable weight loss begins when you get rid of the weight-loss myths standing in your way and learn how to make the science of weight loss work for you. This book is about weight-loss truths. Our goal is to tell you the whole truth about how you can lose weight for good. In doing so, we can help you base your weight-loss efforts on solid principles that work and that are based on years of experience and hundreds of scientific studies, many of which were performed at the Rippe Lifestyle Institute (RLI) or with people following the Weight Watchers program.

Together, we’ve had the opportunity to learn from countless people about what works when it comes to sustainable weight loss. We know that with the right method, long-term weight loss is possible.

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20 Tips for Lose Weight

By Weight-Watcher on June 15, 2010 in Exercise

Aching to lose weight and don’t mow how to start..? You’ve come to the right place. Here are 20 tips to help get you through one of life’s most oft repeated struggles – the Fight Against Fat.

1. Have you tried to give up sugar and haven’t succeeded? Instead of forbidding yourself certain foods – just eat less of them. If you must have sugar in your tea, cut it down from two spoons to one.

2. Ever notice how if you eat when you’re ravenous, you tend to overeat? So try eating more regularly, even if it means more frequently. Eat an average of 6 small meals a day, instead of 2 or 3 large ones, where you stuff yourself.

3. Be conscious about what you eat. Keep a food diary and note down everything you eat. You may be shocked at the results.

4. Eat or snack only on the dinner table, not on the couch in front of your television. Once you make a policy out of this, you’ll cut down on snacks tremendously. Don’t get too comfortable while eating. Its always better to eat on the go. Always sit straight on the chair.

5. Make rules yourself. If you experience cravings, give yourself ten minutes before you attack the refrigerator. In most cases, the craving would just die down and you’d walk away.

6. Drink a lot of water. This reduces hunger pangs and gives you more energy.

7. When you decide to finally attack your weight problem, you want it gone by the weekend. But realize that is lust not a realistic approach. If you want it off permanently, you’ve got to take it slow. It may even take up to a year to get to your desired weight – that’s fine, because you’ve got more of a chance of maintaining it.

8. Join an aerobics class. It’s more disciplined and it’s always better to work out in a group.

9. Slay busy. Don’t lust sit around wasting time, Chances are your mind will wander to that delicious chocolate cake Partake in activities that are not conducive to eating. Join a singing class, take up oil painting or gardening – cultivate a hobby.

10. If you have to snack, by this. Put your hand in the packet of wafers and take out a fistful. Finish off whatever you get your hands on-and that’s it.

11. Don’t stack up on fattening yummy foods. Its easiest to control food intake if you just don’t have it around, If you feel-like chocolate cake, buy a pastry so it doesn’t hang out in the refrigerator all week till you polish it off. Similarly, don’t keep tubs of ice cream in the freezer. But a cup or two and eat it when the mood strikes.

12. When you reach for the refrigerator, stop and question yourself. Are you just bored or are you really hungry? In most of the causes the answer will be the former,

13. Stick little post-it notes on the refrigerator saying, Stop Or Reach for a glass of water.

14. Buy clothes a size smaller and work towards fitting into them.

15. Don’t beat yourself up or lose heart just because you’ve slipped up a few times. You need to keep a positive outlook and keep encouraging yourself.

16. Visualize how you will look without those extra kilograms.

17. Take up yoga.

18. Find new and different ways to measure how far you’ve come. Don’t just stick to the weighing scale. Scout around in your cupboard and by on old clothes that are big for you’re excellent motivation.

19. Find a partner to work out with or to support you. Enlist the help of a friend and go for activities that don’t involve snacking. Take up tennis go cycling don’t past meet friends over lunch or dinner.

20. Get motivated. No one is going to have to do it all by yourself, and if the motivation doesn’t come from within you, no amount of friends and family pushing you to lose weight is going to help.

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Weight Loss Tips

By Weight-Watcher on June 09, 2010 in Weight Loss

You cannot lose weight without burning up more calories than you eat; you gain weight only when you eat more than you burn. Obviously, then, an effective weight loss program is one which has you eat fewer calories than you burn. Contrary to what many people think, regular exercise usually diminishes the appetite rather than increasing it.

Weight loss is not easy, and it is often not fun, although it can be. One pound ofbody fat contains about 3,500 calories, a substantial amount when compared to the calories in most foods, or even in most full meals; unfortunately, it is also substantial when compared to the number of calories utilized during exercise. Permanent weight loss takes time. For best long-term results, it is recommended that only one or two pounds be lost per week. Most of us would like to lose weightfaster, but are rarely able to lose it even at the recommended rate.

Fat becomes more of a problem with increasing age because of decreasing activity and a decreasing metabolic rate. Women store more fat than men do. The recommended “ideal” fat for women is 19 percent of body weight. For men it is 12 percent. There are two kinds of fat: essential and storage.

Essential fat is stored in the bone marrow, brain, spinal cord, and major organs, and should not be lost. Women normally have about 12 percent essential fat, while men have only 3 percent. Storage fat serves as protection for the vital organs. It is extra fat that protects too many of us far better than necessary. It is the fat thatweight loss programs attempt to reduce. The desired amount of storage fat for both sexes is about 7 to 8 percent.