How to Stay Focused and Follow Through With a Natural Weight Loss Plan
Numerous effective, safe, natural weight loss systems are around that give sound diet and exercise advice and perhaps also give recommendations on natural weight loss aids. All of the good programs (and for that matter, even some of the bad ones) have their share of supporters and successful weight loss stories. But if there are good weight loss systems out there, what causes so many people to fail in their attempts to lose weight? How is it that some people get dramatic success in losing weight, yet the majority of others using the plan just can’t seem to make it work?
The main difference is whether or not the person follows-through on the program. It doesn’t matter how effective a weight loss program may be if you don’t follow-through on it for the long-term. Many who begin a natural weight loss plan will begin with high levels of motivation, but most lose focus quickly and cannot stay motivated for more than a couple of weeks and can’t seem to stick to the plan.
So what happens? Why does someone who has finally convinced him or herself that now is the time and they are going to do whatever it takes to lose weight and nothing is going to get in the way of accomplishing their weight loss goals, lose their motivation so quickly?
Actually, a lot of things can happen. Temptations arise. Other people can interfere. They run out of time and/or energy to eat right and exercise. Or, maybe they simply lose sight of the reasons they decided to try to lose weight in the first place.
One key to staying focused is to frequently think about your weight loss goals and what losing weight will mean to you. Most people don’t just decide they want to lose weight. There’s almost always some underlying motivation to try lose weight. Maybe it’s because they’re worried about their health. Maybe it’s because they can’t find clothes they like that fit them. Maybe it’s because they want to find a romantic partner and think that it will be easier if they look better. Perhaps they have grown tired of the fat jokes and people talking about their weight problems. There are probably as many reasons for wanting to lose weight as there are people who want to lose weight. The more clear you can get as to your real motivating factors to lose weight, the greater your chances are to stay motivated, floow-through, and be successful.
By focusing on the reason you want to lose weight on a consistent basis, you will tend to stay more motivated. I recommend writing down your underlying reason(s) for wanting to lose weight, but writing it in a way that it will boost your motivation. The most effective way for most people is to write yourself a negative to avoid and the associated positive to go after. For example, if you would like to wear nice clothes, but you have a lot of difficulty finding clothes you want to wear in your size, you could write something along the lines of, “I am highly motivated to do the things necessary to lose my excess weight so that I will not be restricted to wearing large-size clothing.”. I am thrilled to be getting my weight to where I can wear stylish, sexy clothes!”
Once you have your written motivation statement(s), place it someplace you’ll see it several times per day. Make sure to stop an read it each time you see it and really take the time to think about what you are reading – don’t just read the words, FEEL them!
As was discussed earlier, there are a lot of things that can get you off-track from your weight loss program, and there are many techniques for dealing with each of these influences. By figuring out what really motivates you to lose weight, and then making sure to remind yourself of your motivating factor(s) frequently, you’ll be better equipped to handle ALL of the interfering factors that might tend to prevent you from following-through. Natural weight loss is within your reach if you can get your mind working with you to achieve your goals!
A Synergistic Approach for Natural Weight Loss Success
While it is tempting to believe that a magic pill or potion is all that you need to achieve natural weight loss, the hard truth is that losing weight is just not that simple in most cases. For the vast majority of people, a combination of exercise, changes in eating habits, and perhaps the use of appropriate natural weight loss aids will be needed in order to lose weight long-term.
There are many natural weight loss products available and additional ones come out all the time. Each promises to be nearly miraculous in it’s effects and people buy the latest and greatest weight loss aid with eager anticipation, hoping that it will finally be the answer to their weight problems. They want to believe that a pill, or a patch, or a tea, etc.. will be all they need to lose weight and that diet and exercise won’t be necessary (because dieting and exercising are difficult). Even though deep down they probably know that the latest weight loss miracle being hyped is no better than all the things they’ve tried before, they want to believe it will work, and so they buy it, only to be disappointed again.
Now this is not to say that natural weight loss aids are all completely worthless. The truth is, a lot of weight loss aids actually have the effects that their prooters claim. For example, hoodia gordonii (at least the real stuff) does seem to be a very effective appetite suppressant. So, if the main reason that you have trouble losing weight is because you have out of control hunger that makes you eat excssively, hoodia may be a big help. The problem is that most people are not overeating out of actual hunger. They may eat out of boredom, out of habit, out of a need to satisfy a craving, or out of a need to soothe some emotional issue they are dealing with, but they don’t eat out of hunger. Hoodia is not going to help you if you aren’t eating out of hunger.
Other natural weight loss aids may work by increasing the metabolic effects of diet and exercise. It kind of stands to reason that if you fail to incorporate diet and exercise the effects of these products will be pretty minor.
Some natural weight loss aids block the absorption of fat by the digestive tract and thereby lower the calories you absorb from each meal. While this does tend to help with weight loss, unless you stop eating everything except fat (which is not a good idea), you still are taking in other calories that, in excess, will be converted to fat AFTER they are absorbed from the digestive tract. For optimum results, again we see that a good eating plan and exercise are necessary.
At this point, you may have guessed that one of the primary points I am trying to make is that lsting natural weight loss, absolutely requires a healthy eating plan and regular exercise. No weight loss aid, natural or otherwise will by itself make you lose weight and keep it off. In fact, the ads for weight loss aids will usually state this very thing, even though it is in microscopic print at the bottom of the ad.
What it comes down to is that natural weight loss is built on a foundation of sensible diet and exercise. With a good diet and exercise program in place, you may get additional benefits from using one or more of the natural weight loss products on the market. But do your research to find a product that serves your particular needs. In other words, if you’re not overeating out of hunger, don’t buy an appetite suppressant. If you’re already minimizing your fat intake, don’t waste your money on a fat blocker.
Now, once you have your weight loss plan in place with your diet, exercise program, and whatever natural weight loss aids you choose to use, there’s one little thing that needs to happen for you to successfully lose weight. You have to stick to the program! If there’s one thing that renders the vast majority of natural weight loss efforts ineffective, it’s a lack of follow-through.
It has been my experience that very few people stick to a natural weight loss program consistently for more than two weeks at a time. Of course, some people may intermittently follow a weight loss program for months or years, but they get sidetracked over and over again and really are not consistent for more than one or two weeks in a row, so they never get any momentum and achieve their goals.
A new study that tested the relative effectiveness of several popular diet plans revealed a fascinating finding. The overall success rates of most of the currently popular diet programs were about the same. The success or failure of any given diet had little to do with what the approach was. In other words, low carb, low fat, calorie restriction, eating for blood type, etc., really didn’t matter. The thing that actually mattered was if the person consistently followed the program! To sum it up, it doesn’t matter so much what you do to lose weight (within reason), as much as it matters that you do it consistenty long-term!
To be able to stick to your natural weight loss program, it is critical that you take charge of your thoughts and emotions. A lot of different ways exist to get control over your own mind, and different ways have varying degrees of effectiveness from one person to the next. You can get a lot of help in this area with products from Anthony Robbins, Dr. Phil, and others, as well as through technologies like hypnosis, the Sedona Method and Emotional Freedom Technique. You may need to try several methods to find what works well for you.
Regardless of the approach you use, the true key to effective natural weight loss really has very little relationship to the hottest weight loss aid on the market, or the most recent diet book being promoted. The real secret is to choose a reasonable approach that includes diet, exercise (choose an exercise you are physically capable of doing – starting with advanced kickboxing if you’ve been a couch potato your whole life is not going to work!), and possibly one or more weight loss aids and then make that program a part of your daily life forever. And the way to make that happen is to take control of your mind and get your brain working with you rather than against you. Good luck!
The Best Natural Weight Loss Supplements
Hundreds and thousands of individuals shed weight problems by natural way without the fear of any side effects. By drawing the power of natural herbals and supplements, you can also lose your weight considerably.
Natural weight loss by means of herbals and supplements is often effective as well as safe, if you make use of it avidly. By natural weight loss, you not only loose unhealthy and needless weight, but also ensure to safeguard your body
during the process.
Natural weight loss supplement is very effective in the process of reducing the calorie consumption and thereby increases the chances to reduce substantial weight. Before you visit to your closest pharmacy for any natural weight loss
supplements, consider a few guidelines while selecting weight loss supplements.
For instance:
• Read the Constituents Thoroughly: A few natural weight loss supplements contain constituents such as ephedra alias ephedrine that links to several
illnesses and side- effects. Sometimes, it may cause seizures, stokes, and heart attacks.
• Watch out For Addiction: Natural weight loss supplements that include amphetamine may trigger withdrawal symptoms, while you decide to stop the
medicines. Sometimes, you may develop addiction of these pills making it unable to discontinue these medications. The long-term usage of any weight loss pills results in the development of various side effects.�Natural Way to Cut Down Your Weight
If you are confused to decide the best natural weight loss supplement, look at the below cited medications:
• Hoodia: You can consider this diet capsule to get rid of your obesity problems naturally. Recently, researchers have found that supplements in Hoodia features high potential to reduce an individual’s weight significantly. It has the capacity to restrain your appetite by up to 2000 calories each day. It has all the organic and natural constituents and is the outcome of a research lasting three decades by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)in South Africa.
• Opuntia Ficus-Indica: Another most valuable natural weight loss supplements to reduce your weight. It is also called as Barbary or Indian Fig, belongs to the cacti category grown mainly for its fruit. It is very effective in the
process of weight loss. Researchers have proved that cacti fibers are of great use, when it encounters excess fat. It holds it up instantly and creates big molecule for your body to take up. In addition, this process helps to reduce the
cholesterol level in your bloodstream.
• Shellfish: It greatly helps to reduce your weight above your expected level. It is advisable by the dieticians to consume twice in a week to get a positive outcome.
One favorable natural weight loss supplement product thats growing popular is Proactol.It’s a fat binding pill that prevents up to 28% of fat from food from being absorbed into the body. Its also 100% organic and 100″% natural. Proactol is one natural supplement passing all of the guidelines set by the FDA for dietary supplements and EU Directive and can be taken for as long as you require
to meet your weight loss and weight management goals.
Healthy Weight Loss Programs – 5 Essential Features to Look for
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 afterwards, 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.
Exercise and Weight Loss
While is is well-known that exercise is a necessity for effective weight loss, there is quite a bit of conflicting information as to what kind of exercise and how much of it will produce optimal fat burning. Experts often disagree as to what the “correct” exercise is for maximum weight loss. This disagreement is often due to a misinterpretation of research that only gives a part of the whole story. In addition, different individuals will actually benefit from different exercise programs, so universal exercise recommendations really cannot be made.
Let’s begin with what the current research on exercise physiology tells us. It is well-established that it takes approximately 30 minutes of any kind of exercise for the body to burn off its glycogen (stored sugar) reserves and begin burning fat. So, most experts recommend at least 30 minutes of exercise, and generally 60 minutes or more may be recommended to get a good amount of fat burning. Now, if you are going to be exercising for 30 to 60 minutes, or maybe more, what type of exercise would you be able to do for that length of time? It probably would have to be low to medium intensity. In other words, you’re probably not going to be able to run full speed or do any other type of high-intensity exercise for 30 to 60 minutes without a rest, unless you happen to be an elite athlete, and even then you’d be struggling. So, by default, the common recommendation for exercise to lose weight has been 30 to 60 minutes of low to medium intensity aerobic exercise. Aerobic translates to “in the presence of oxygen”, which in common language means that aerobic exercise is any type of activity that you can do without gasping for breath.
In recent years, some experts have changed their recommendations to using a more intense anaerobic (”without oxygen”) exercise program for weight loss. This would include things like intense weight lifting, and something called “interval training”. Interval training involves brief bursts of high intensity activity with periods of rest or low intensity activity in between. For instance, your could sprint at full speed for 30 to 60 seconds and once you were winded, you could walk at an easy pace for a couple of minutes until you could catch your breath, then repeat the cycle several more times.. Since this type of exercise is much more physically demanding, it is done over a much shorter overall workout period – perhaps 20 to 40 minutes (with half or more of that time being rest or low intensity activity), as compared to the 30 to 60 minutes of continuous activity as recommended for aerobic exercise. The question is, how do the two types of exercise compare in terms of their ability to promote fat burning?
The aerobic exercise promoters point to the research that was mentioned earlier that has shown that any exercise, no matter how intense requires at least 30 minutes to use up the body’s stored glycogen (the body will normally burn glycogen before it will burn fat) before fat burning can begin. So, they say, short periods of even highly intense exercise won’t burn much fat and is therefore not a good choice for promoting weight loss. But they are only seeing part of the story.
It is true that you must exercise for at least 30 minutes to begin to achieve fat burning – but that’s at the time you are exercising. Brief bursts of intense anaerobic exercise does something that even quite a lot of low to medium intensity aerobic exercise does not. Intense anaerobic exercise stimulates the production of growth hormone, which is a strong stimulator of fat burning. The thing is, the release of growth hormone triggered by intense anaerobic exercise comes 24 to 48 hours AFTER the exercise, and then it produces considerably more fat burning than is possible with all but extremely long periods of low to medium intensity aerobic exercise.
Because of this effect, most people will lose weight much more easily by doing shorter periods of more intense exercise. 20 to 40 minutes of heavy weightlifting, interval training (which could be done on foot, on a bicycle, swimming, kickboxing, etc.Any kind of activity in which there are periodic bursts of intense exertion interspersed with rest periods, or periods of low intensity activity is typically preferable in the long run for weight control than even long hours of lower intensity aerobic exercise.
Now, you’ll notice that I said “most people”. There is an exception to the rule. People under considerable stress, either emotional or physical, or both, in their daily lives are prone to overworked adrenal glands. The adrenal glands do a lot of things in the body, but with regards to weight loss, they produce two hormones. One hormone is cortisol, which promotes fat deposition in the lower abdomen. This is typically a saggy, pendulous fat held below the waistline. The other hormone the adrenals produce is adrenaline (also called epinephrine), which actually promotes fat burning. Since the adrenals produce cortisol which causes fat deposition and adrenaline which promotes fat burning, you might assume that these two hormones cancel each other out. Unfortunately, cortisol production can be carried out by a much longer time by the adrenal glands than can the production of adrenaline, so long-term, the effects of high cortisol production (deposition of fat in the lower belly), will overcome whatever fat burning might occur from the short-term adrenaline production.
The adrenals are influenced by physical stress as well as mental stress, so for someone who is under a lot of stress in general in his or her life, high-intensity exercise will only add to the total stress and will tend to make the adrenals produce a lot of cortisol, and therefore will tend to promote lower abdomen weight gain. Yes, you read that right – excessive exercise for someone under a lot of stress can actually cause that person to deposit MORE fat around the lower belly! This can result in the frustrating situation in which one exercises more and more and harder and harder to try to get rid of that lower abdomen stomach “pooch”, but never can seem to get rid of it. Because the intense exercise is stimulating more cortisol production, that person is fighting a losing battle. Because of this effect, it is recommended that people under a lot of stress and/or who have most of their weight held in the lower abdomen stick to relatively low intensity aerobic exercise. This kind of activity is usually helpful for controlling stress and reducing the level of cortisol, thereby making it easier to get rid of the deposition of fat around the lower abdomen.
I hope that this article has given you a better concept of how to maximize your exercise routine for the best possible weight loss results.
Weight Loss Diet Natural and Safe Weight Loss Tips
Of the four dimensions of our being, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, in this article I will cover the Physical Dimension which is most important for the reduction of Kapha and the correlating reduction in weight.
Weight Loss Tips from Ayurveda:
1. Ayurvedic Diet for Weight Loss:
Obviously an anti-kapha diet is the place to start when looking to lose weight. This means eating lots of fruits, vegetables, spicy foods and whole grains.
2. Exercise for Weight Loss:
The following Ayurvedic guidelines should be followed for proper exercise with regard to weight loss:
* More Exercise the Better: Kapha’s qualities of fixed, dull, heavy, soft and cold are all negated via exercise. In other words, the more exercise you do the more you reduce Kapha and therefore fat in your body.
* Exercise Without Excessive Strain: According to Ayurveda, Kapha individuals need the most vigorous exercise, but at the same time, the exercise should never be extreme. Find a good balance between doing too little and over doing it. Breaking a nice sweat is good, but being totally breathless is probably too much.
* Be Consistent: A Kapha body type has a propensity towards weight gain so you need to make exercise a daily part of you life. The hardest part will be to get the exercise program underway. Once this is done Kapha people tend to be very determined and steady, so they will be able to adhere to it long term. Getting started though is another matter for Kapha types and usually requires shock treatment. In the spirit of shock treatment, understand that by NOT exercising and NOT losing the weight you are putting your longevity and quality of life at risk. Enough said, start today!
* Yoga for Weight Loss: Yoga offers an excellent way to include holistic exercises into your fitness program. These exercises will not just help you lose weight, but will also help your overall health and well-being.
* Post Exercise Diet: After exercises do not drink cold liquids. This period is key as you are trying to increase the metabolic fire in your cells so they burn more calories and drinking cold liquids at this time will negate this important benefit which exercise bestows.
3. Hard Physical Work to Burn Calories:
According to Ayurveda reduction of Kapha is promoted by living a physical, active lifestyle. In today’s age of technology, computers, TVs, TiVO, internet, etc, manual labor is getting more rare for people to do. So you need to consciously incorporate physical work into your life. Whether that be mowing the lawn, tending to the garden or shoveling snow, it is important to not live a sedentary live of watching TV and eating twinkies.
4. Massage Therapy to Reduce Fat:
There are many treatment modalities in Ayurveda of which massage is highly recommended. In the context of weight loss and reducing Kapha, strong massage with light oils such as mustard or flaxseed is helpful.
5. Sleep Guidelines for Weight Loss:
No napping or going to bed early. If you want to reduce Kapha and weight remember you burn more calories when you are awake and being active, than when you are happily snuggled under the blanket.
The above recommendations will surely help you with your weight loss goals and in addition to helping you get slim, they will also make you more healthy and fit.