|
Below, you'll find extensive information on leading
green tea weight loss articles and products to help you on your way
to success.
Lose Weight For The Summer
By Anne Collins
Being
overweight in the summer heat is no fun. And exposing a fat stomach or
fat thighs isn't exactly pleasant when everyone else around you is
wearing gnat-sized beachwear and drizzling oil onto wasp-like abdomens.
In fact, for people carrying excess weight, summer can be an unpleasant
trial involving countless opportunities for embarassment and
discomfort. So let's take a look at how you can reduce some of your fat
and make next summer a happier experience. But first, a warning.
Summer Weight Loss Trap
One guaranteed way to fail is to look for a "short cut" loss method or diet. You know what I mean: the type of
program that promises "a fast effortless way to reduce weight". In my
experience, none of these diets or pills actually work, and the medical
evidence is quite clear: the maximum rate of sustainable fat loss is
between 1 and 2 pounds per week, perhaps a little more if you are
obese. Besides, if a brilliant scientist did manage to concoct a
formula for rapid effortless reduction, overnight he would be more famous than Einstein.
He certainly wouldn't be peddling his program in 30-second TV
infommercials or mail-order advertisements. So for the sake of your
sanity as well as your financial health, don't waste time on loss methods that make extravagant claims. If you don't
believe this, think of any of your overweight friends who favor the
short-term "lose 20 pounds in two weeks" type of approach, and ask
yourself why they are still overweight.
Three Month Summer Diet Plan
You can't lose much in a week or two. You need about three months to make a
significant impact on your body shape. Remember, the human body is
interested in survival, not cosmetic appearances, and since rapid loss is a prima facie symptom of disease not good health, the
only guaranteed way to improve your body shape is to adopt a gradual
approach of healthy eating and increased exercise. In three months, you
can lose about 26 pounds - more than enough for most overweight people
to experience noticeable health improvements as well as a much leaner
body. And by reducing your gradually in this manner, you have far less chance of regain, so if necessary you can continue losing more with less danger of incurring a loss plateau or other obstacle.
You Need A Motive
No one likes to change their habits. So if you want to change your
eating and exercise habits, you need a strong motive - something to
keep you dieting and exercising when boredom sets in. Whatever motive
you choose, it must be something more powerful than the urge to eat
tasty high calorie foods in front of the TV!
A Good Motive For Summer Weight Loss
Anything that commits you in advance to achieving your loss goal, makes a great motive. So be bold. Book an
expensive beach holiday, or buy some gorgeous clothes to fit the body
you want to have at the end of your diet program. Both these actions
require you to succeed, and therefore provide constant motivation along
the way.
Men And Celebrities Have Better Motivation
In my experience, both with private clients as well as dieters who belong to my loss forum, men and celebrities exhibit the strongest
motivation. Men, I suspect, because typically they have a narrower
range of daily tasks and responsibilities than women. Celebrities,
because typically they have a powerful commercial motivation to
maintain their physical appearance. I offer loss help to a number of celebrity figures, some of whom are
regulars on my forum, and I am always impressed with their ability to
make short-term sacrifices to further their longer term goals. I guess
that's why they achieve so much.
Be Positive About Short Term Sacrifices
Whether you're trying to lose for the summer, save money or pass exams, an important piece
of the motivational jigsaw is your ability to be positive about making
short term sacrifices. The choice is fairly simple: you can focus on
the "deprivation" involved in giving up certain foods, or you can focus
on the benefits you will get by not eating these foods. Sadly, many
dieters focus on feeling deprived. After a while they see their diet as
a burden, a bore, an evil necessity. This is why so many of them quit.
They can't "see" the benefits that loss will bring them. If you want to improve your body shape
for the summer, you must avoid this trap and appreciate the longer term
benefits you will receive by making short-term adjustments to your
lifestyle.
The Good News About Improving Your Diet
Many of our tastes, food cravings, and general attitudes to food are strongly influenced by what we
eat
and drink. I know countless mothers with families who have reported
astonishing changes in their personal and family eating habits after
less than three weeks of improved eating. Point is, the average modern
diet is loaded with sugar, fat and sodium, all of which condition us to
want more of these items. But if you can break out of this dependence
on junk-ingredients for even 2-3 weeks, you'll notice a huge difference
in your tastes. Which brings me to healthy eating.
Think Healthy Eating Not Weight Loss
In my experience, one of the most effective loss strategies is to focus on healthy eating. I'm not saying
you shouldn't stand on your weighing scales, just don't measure
progress exclusively by what the scales say. Be aware that it's just as
important to enjoy your food and feel good about your change of eating
habits. And any diet you hate is guaranteed to fail, no matter how much
you lose, because as soon as you achieve your goal, you will revert to your old eating habits and regain every pound lost.
The Top 10 Healthy Eating Habits
In a nutshell, a healthy diet involves (1) More home-cooked food, less
eating out. (2) More fresh fruit as snacks. (3) More fresh vegetables
as snacks and with meals. (4) More beans as sides or in stews. (5) More
dense chewy bread, less refined white breads and bread snacks. (6) More
fish, skinless chicken/turkey, less red meat. (7) Smaller servings of
red meat, larger servings of vegetables. (8) Eating low fat dairy
foods. (9) Adding less fat in the form of butter, mayo, sour cream, to
the food on your plate. This is a huge source of excessive calories.
(10) Stocking up with healthy snack foods to keep hunger at bay. If you
fill up with healthy nutritious calories, you won't want the junk foods
that hunger makes you eat. As far as management goes, hunger remains Public Enemy Number One.
Exercise Provides Wonderful Indirect Benefits
Exercise does burn extra calories and therefore does help to widen your calorie deficit. But it's direct effect on loss is typically quite small. In fact, it's not uncommon to gain when you start exercising. The real reduction benefits of exercise are indirect ones. It raises
our metabolic rate, helping us to burn calories at a slightly faster
rate, and improves our mood, which typically reduces our need for
comfort-eating. However, don't overdo your exercise workouts. I've lost
count of the number of dieters who started exercising too vigorously
and burnt out within 3 weeks. Ideally, start with 45 minutes/day of any
physical activity you can easily manage, and very gradually increase
the duration and intensity. Listen to your body at all times, and be
sure to loosen up beforehand and wind down afterwards.
See Yourself As You Want To Be
If your goal is a waistline you can proudly display in the sun, then
don't wait until it happens to "see" it. Visualize it from the moment
you start dieting. Visualize yourself walking along a beach, or lying
next to the pool with a perfectly flat stomach. Whatever your ambition
for your or body, get used to visualizing it in the greatest possible
detail. Because "seeing it" is the first step to making it come true.
As they say, one picture is worth a thousand words.
Very Overweight? Just Visualize The Benefits!
If you have a lot of to lose (100 pounds+), you may not think that losing 26
pounds in three months is particularly worthwhile. If so, ask yourself
this question. What's the alternative? No matter what method you
choose, you won't lose any faster, so it's only a question of when you start and how
long it's going to take. I can answer the last question right now.
Losing 100 pounds takes about a year - typically a little longer to
allow for disasters along the way. Fifteen months would be a more
realistic time span to reduce by this amount. This is nothing. Just visualize yourself
walking down the street 100 pounds lighter, and tell me that eating
healthily for 15 months is too high a price to pay for such a wonderful
prospect.
Your First Priority - Get Support
If you really want to lose for the summer, your first priority is to find support. Join a diet-group at work, or a fitness class, or go to loss meetings. Or join an online forum. Losing on your own is perfectly possible, providing things go well
and your scales keep saying nice things. But when difficulties arise,
as they surely will, having the support of real people can make all the
difference between success and failure. If you experience difficulty
finding support, try my own loss forum. It's great fun and very inspirational.
Anne Collins,
54, is a qualified nutritionist and full time weight management
consultant with over 24 years experience. Her clients range from top
celebrities to ordinary people of every age and shape. Her website, www.annecollins.com
attracts 9 million unique visitors per annum, and her weight loss forum
is one of the most active support centers on the Internet.
|
|
