Weight loss articles

Natural weight loss help

Natural weight loss is simply a way to lose weight without the benefit of a drug or medical procedure.  It is by far the best way to lose weight if done correctly.  Here are a few important things about natural weight loss to help you along the way.

First of all, understand that even though herbals are being touted as aiding in natural weight loss, their efficacy has not been proven to help very much in achieving weight loss.  More likely, you’ll lose weight in your wallet rather than your waistline.

Natural weight loss occurs when we take in fewer calories than we require and also exercise to burn additional calories.  Figure your daily caloric requirements using one of the many, many online calorie calculators available.  From that point, if you decrease and/or burn around 500 calories per day, the weight loss will be around one pound per week.  If you can add to that exercise and help burn an additional 500 per day, you’ll lose around two pounds per week.  This is a nice, steady weight loss that will be lasting.

Increasing your fiber intake is a great natural weight loss helper.  The daily suggested intake of fiber is 25 grams.  To avoid gastrointestinal upset, gradually add fiber to your diet to eventually reach 25 grams per day.  Start reading food labels to understand how much fiber is in various products.  Whole grains, fruits and vegetables all contain fiber.  If you need help in reaching the 25 grams per day, consider using a fiber supplement powder.  Most fiber powders can be simply added to your morning coffee or tea and there is literally no change in flavor or texture of your beverage.

Eating five small meals a day rather than three large meals is a great help in natural weight loss.  By doing this, a few principles are addressed.  First of all, metabolism is naturally increased by eating frequently.  Secondly, if you satisfy your hunger throughout the day in small quantities, you are far less likely to over eat at any particular meal.

Eat less!  Simple, but very true.  We eat enormous portions in this country.  Merely cutting back how much we put on our plates is a great help to lose weight naturally.  Vegetables are a great way to fill that empty spot on the plate when we choose the smaller portion.

Avoid overly processed foods and empty calorie items such as soda.  Potato chips, sodas, sweets, and fried foods do nothing more than add calories to our diets and take the place of more healthful items that do have nutritional value.

Exercise is a necessity in natural weight loss.  For weight maintenance, one should aim for three to four thirty minute cardio work-outs per week.  In order to lose weight, one may have to increase this to five times per week and possibly forty minutes per work-out.

Natural weight loss will not only help you lose weight, but it will keep the weight from coming back.  Choose your food wisely, get plenty of exercise and you’ll see the results… the natural way!

weight loss diet tip

Everybody has a fantastic weight loss diet tip these days.  Here are the best tips for weight loss.

TIP #1:  Treat your calorie intake as you would your savings account.  Let’s say you commit to an 1800 calorie intake per day to promote weight loss.  This means that you have 1800 calories to spend throughout the day.  Read food labels to determine calories and then deduct that amount from your “calorie bucks” as you go through the day.  You’ll be surprised how easy it is to turn down that little Oreo that costs you around 80 calories.

TIP #2:  Consider exercise earning calorie bucks.  When you’ve been on the treadmill for 15 minutes and you’ve burned around 150 calories, motivate yourself to stay on another 15 minutes by thinking in terms of earning calories.  If you love that glass of wine in the evening, this is an excellent motivator to keep on running!

TIP #3:  Add fiber to your diet.  Most of us do not get the RDA of 25 grams of fiber in our diets.  Fiber is a natural weight loss aid.  When you choose from the carbohydrate department, choose whole grains, fruits and vegetables.  An apple is an excellent source of fiber as are legumes such as lima beans and kidney beans.

TIP #4:  Learn proper portion sizes.  Most people do not realize what a half a cup of ice-cream looks like; therefore, when they dish up what they believe to be a 350 calorie serving, more than likely they’ve dished at least a cup and the calories are now 700.  Not understanding portion sizes will sabotage your weight loss diet efforts.  Again, food labels are your source here.  Use measuring cups and count out things like crackers to see just how much you should really be eating.  For portion sizes that are measured in ounces, a good rule of thumb is that a fist is about the size of a serving of meat.

TIP #5:  Do not cut too many calories.  Slow, steady weight loss is the key to lasting results.  Cutting too many calories will aid in weight loss at first, but you’ll regret it in the long run when the pounds creep back on your waistline.

TIP #6:  Allow yourself some of things that you love but shouldn’t eat all the time.  A weight loss diet doesn’t have to be miserable.  Make a list of your top five tempting foods and allow yourself one of these things once or twice a week.  If you completely deny yourself foods you love, you run the risk of binging in the future.  A small piece of chocolate now is much better than a box of it later.

TIP #7:  Do not remove entire food groups from your diet.  Though you may lose weight from this tip, it only serves as a gimmick to cutting back calories.  Five hundred calories of carbohydrate is the same as five hundred calories of protein.  Period!  The body breaks down both of these into glucose and disperses it throughout the body.  If the calories are in excess of what your body needed, they will both be stored as fat.  Eliminating the carbohydrates will only serve to deny you important nutrients such as fiber which is beneficial to weight loss.

Now, for the tip to work, you need to put it into action in order for it to benefit your weight loss diet.  Hopefully, this article on weight loss diet tips has been helpful.

Healthy weight loss

Weight loss is always a hot topic, but healthy weight loss is not usually a part of the conversation.  We are inundated with information regarding the latest and greatest diet trend and the best new weight loss pill.  Not so long ago, fat was the bad guy, now carbs are public enemy numero uno.  Weight loss pills are being transformed into the more trendy “herbal” weight loss products.  The fact is that no matter what the latest trend, healthy weight loss never really goes out of style.  Healthy weight loss methods are tried and true and clinically proven unlike the vast majority of the trends.  Here are the basics.

First and foremost, you must understand one very basic idea.  What we put into our bodies must come out in order to maintain weight.  If weight loss is our goal, we either put less calories in or increase (via exercise) the amount of calories burned.  The best method is to do a little of both.

Understanding the above is crucial to healthy weight loss.  The next step is to determine how many calories you require and what amount to deduct.  To determine caloric needs, there are a number of online calorie calculators.  The most accurate ones allow you to input age, sex, height, weight, and activity level.

Now, determine how many calories you will cut for healthy weight loss.  Drastic calorie reductions will produce quick short-term results, but in the end, the weight will be regained and worst of all, you’ve lowered your metabolism making it more difficult to shed those new pounds.  Think about it this way:  One pound of body fat is equivalent to around 3,500 calories.  In order to lose one pound of weight per week, you need to deduct around 500 calories per day.  For two pounds per week, deduct 1000 calories.  If you’ve determined that your caloric needs are around 1800 per day, you can see how it would be nearly impossible to safely eat 800 calories per day in order to lose weight.  The better split is to deduct 500 of your calories through reduced eating, and burn 500 through exercise.

When choosing foods on a reduced calorie diet, pretend your calories are calorie bucks.  As you go through the day eating, you are spending your calorie bucks, so spend wisely!  With all the misinformation on what to eat and what not to eat, the choices can be mind boggling.  Stop!  Remember what you learned in kindergarten about the food guide pyramid?  Guess what?  It still works and the A.D.A. has ramped it up for you.

Burning those 500 calories a day is not as hard as you may think.  Generally speaking, everyone should spend about 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week doing some form of cardio-blasting exercise.  This could be walking, running, kickboxing, swimming or even dancing!  In doing this, you are probably burning about 250 calories per day.  Extend that time a mere 15 minutes and you’ll be burning closer to 400 calories per day.  Or, ramp up your work-out.  Setting the incline on the treadmill, for instance, will raise your calories burned per work-out.  Other little tips to increase calories burned are to incorporate a little extra exercise into your daily routine.  Walk or bike to work or park as far away as possible in that super center parking lot.  Just like I told you to consider your calories “bucks,” treat the calorie burning like earning.

Following these tips for healthy weight loss will set you on the path to losing those unwanted pounds and keeping them off.

The herbal weight loss supplement has become so popular in the last decade that manufacturers are spinning out more and more products.  This leaves us, the consumers, dizzied by the choices.  Some of the more popular herbal weight loss supplements are hoodia, guarana, dandelion, cascara, St. John’s wort and green tea extract.

Hoodia gordonni is a cactus found mostly in Africa.  It has been touted as an effective appetite suppressant.  Apparently, it tricks the brain into thinking blood glucose levels are normal thus suppressing the body’s natural response to low blood sugar which is the sensation of hunger.  While this sounds promising, there have not been significant studies proving its efficacy in weight loss.

Guarana is a stimulant and diuretic that is made from the seeds of a Brazilian plant.  It contains caffeine and though it does speed up the body, thus producing a slight increase in metabolism, its side effects outweigh its efficacy as an herbal weight loss supplement.
Some potentially negative effects are high blood pressure, nausea, dizziness and anxiousness.

Dandelion is another diuretic.  Side effects are relatively harmless, though allergic reactions have been reported.  A diuretic merely increases the body’s production and excretion of urine.  The immediate result is water weight loss which is temporary at best leaving this herbal supplement ineffective for long-term weight loss.

Cascara is a laxative used in many herbal weight loss supplements.  Any laxative will help a person lose weight just like any other form of “purging.”  Just because it is marketed as an herbal weight loss supplement doesn’t make it any better.  Also, its overuse can cause depletion in vital nutrients.

St. John’s wort has been used as an herbal anti-depressant, but its efficacy as a weight loss supplement has not been proven.  In addition, the list of side-effects and potential drug interactions is so extensive that I would need to write a separate article solely on that topic.

Green tea extract is probably the most popular yet safe herbal weight loss supplement.  It has appeared in vitamins, energy drinks and even in concentrated pill form.  Overall, green tea extract appears to be somewhat effective in increasing thermogenesis which in turn increases energy expenditure.  Some studies show positive results for increased weight loss with the use of green tea extract so long as healthy eating and exercise habits are also being followed.

Thousands of dollars are spent on these herbal weight loss supplements, yet there is very little proof that any of them are effective in losing weight.  Many of the above herbal supplements can be found in a vast array of teas, juices, energy drinks, vitamins and pills and the price tag reflects the demand for the product.  A few products containing hoodia that I’ve seen are being sold for close to $50.00 for a one month supply.  I’m beginning to think that the only weight loss one can expect is more evident in our wallets.

Ultimately, there is no more promise in the herbal weight loss supplement than there is in any “miracle in a bottle.”  A few may offer a bit of assistance when trying to lose weight, but the herbal supplement will not work when used without a healthy weight loss plan.