How to Lose Weight and Effectively Keep it Off

Ever try one of those quick, easy, and fast diets that promises big results in a short amount of time? Notice how they work great for about a week and then your weight loss virtually stops? That's because they target the easy, fast, water weight loss that all weight loss regimens will remove in the beginning. Most of the time, these easy solutions will do nothing more than that, though, and will leave you wondering if that six, eight, or ten pounds is all you're going to lose out of the twenty or thirty you'd wanted. Many times, that weight comes right back after a while because you've quit the diet or changed your habits again.

The Internet is full of diet and weight loss programs, ideas, and lose-it-quick schemes. With over 70% of America estimated to be overweight now, it's getting harder and harder to be one of the ones that isn't too heavy. Rather than give up, it's time to change our minds about what weight loss programs should be doing for us and what we can expect. Here are the diets you shouldn't be using and why:

Starvation Diets - When you starve your body of nutrients, it immediately goes into a specific, instinctive mode wherein it stores what nutrients it does get as, you guessed it, fat. Your metabolism slows down, you lose energy, and your body starts stealing the nutrients it does need from itself, which will eventually lead to serious medical problems. This is one of the worst ways to lose weight.

Diets of the Stars - If Miss Famous can lose weight using this program, so can you! Right? Probably not. You see, these diet programs usually leave out the fact that Miss Famous had a professional chef, nutritionist, personal trainer, and probably a motivational coach or multi-million dollar movie contract to give incentive. I don't know about you, but none of those things are in my portfolio.

Low-Carb Diets - Recently all the craze, these work really well...in the beginning. Then your body starts getting starved. As soon as you leave the program (and you will, your body will insist on it), you'll immediately start gaining the weight right back. Why? Diets that remove essential nutrients from your palate are essentially starvation diets and are not good.

Low Fat Diets - These are a little more realistic, but are usually taken to extremes. Most of us do intake too much of the bad fats in our diet, but how do you know which ones are bad and which are good? Unless you're a real expert, you don't-and even they aren't always sure. Cutting some fat is fine, but these diets often go to extremes, which is bad. See numbers 3 and 1 for more on that.

Prepared Food Diets - You've seen these, even in the grocery store. They're those diets that send you prepared foods you just microwave and enjoy. This might be great if you have a $500+ per month disposable income or are interested only in the fairly limited menus they offer. Most of us, though, aren't interested in that-or won't be for long at any rate. You can usually make these same meals at home and make them healthier and cheaper too. So why buy them? There are good versions of these programs that offer recipe menus instead of actual food. Nothing really wrong there, provided you're getting all your nutritional needs.

Any attempt to lose weight, no matter what the hype says, will require some dietary changes and exercise. This doesn't mean you'll have to start running marathons and spending three hours a day in the gym pumping weights, but it does mean you'll have to do some cardio (walking, bike riding, swimming, etc.) and probably some strength training (isometrics or light weights). Amazingly, studies have shown that most overweight people are getting enough exercise, just not eating healthy enough.

Keep attainable, realistic goals and use a realistic program that you and your physician can approve of. Good luck!


By Emma Geller