A Helpful...
The truth is there is no secret formula that promotes weight loss. Anyone who has tried repeatedly to lose weight knows exactly what is required. Your input has to be less than your output, barring unusual metabolic issues. The problem isn’t that we don’t know what to do, we all understand the basic principle, the difficultly lies in doing it consistently for the rest of our lives.
Weight loss research shows that the brain wants to keep weight on your body. Likely an evolutionary trait that was successful until the industrial age, in our modern, sedentary lifestyle, it has become a problem. No matter why you want to lose weight, or how much you want to lose, there are some basics that will facilitate your success.
Lose Weight Slowly
All the research indicates that crash diets are not effective. While you may manage to lose fifteen pounds in two weeks as the commercials imply, this kind of weight loss is not sustainable. Almost everyone who tries this kind of diet regains the weight very quickly when they resume normal eating. Losing weight takes time. If you have been maintaining your current weight for a while then reducing your caloric intake by 500 calories a day will result in the loss of one pound a week.
Weight loss of one to two pounds a week is considered healthiest and most sustainable. The slow rate of loss allows you to develop better eating habits and encourages a healthier relationship with your food. Understanding proper portion size is critical to maintaining weight loss and healthy habits, and those habits will help you keep your weight off when you reach your goal.
Exercise
Current recommendations for exercise are thirty to sixty minutes, five days a week. Research shows that if you have to choose either cutting calories or increasing exercise to lose weight, cutting calories works better. Still, adding regular exercise has many additional benefits. Increased muscle mass may seem to slow your weight loss temporarily, but in reality it will help as you go along. Exercise reduces your chances of getting Type II Diabetes, improves heart health and may even help prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s. Remember, to lose weight effectively and keep it off, you are trying to make lifestyle changes.
Pills, Supplements and Wonder Drugs
There is no magic pill that will let you lose weight without effort on your part. There are some medications that can help you lose weight, under a doctor’s supervision. Any supplement or untested drug that you find at the market and claims to cause weight loss should be viewed with extreme skepticism. In fact, most of the herbal supplements that supposedly promote weight loss have never been proven successful in clinical trials, and most of them cause abdominal distress of one type or another. Some of them are downright dangerous. If you are on a weight loss program of some sort, whether it is with your doctor or a clinic, they should encourage you to supplement with a good multivitamin, beyond that, only your hard work will produce the results you want.
Weight loss is a difficult process. Long term success rates are not encouraging, but it can be done. To succeed in any weight loss goal you have, you will need to commit yourself to long term changes and life long maintenance.
