Smart Tips to Lose Weight Effectively

Here are some tips that will help you start a smart diet and fitness program.

You have nothing to lose...of course besides the extra pounds!

1. Start exercising! Everybody knows that you need both physical exercise and a balanced diet to lose weight. Start with some light exercise. Later, when you get used to your training routine, it will be easier to make changes in your diet.

2. Make big plans!  Rather than choosing a three times a week fitness workout, set yourself the target of training every day. Even if you are not able to do it, you will still succeed in doing at least three workouts a week, and that is not bad.

3. Let music motivate you! Listen to music when you train. If you workout or jog every day, you should get your player with you. Training will be much more fun!

4. Choose a simple diet! Do that and you will not be tempted to overeat. Give up eating out and experience the joy of home cooking. Use all natural and nutrient-rich tasty ingredients.

5. Keep a journal! Write down everything you eat and drink, your calories and the exercises you do every day. It is your journal, so do not lie to yourself! This will help you keep your diet on track and see exactly how much you have progressed.

6. Weekend alert! You control your diet during the entire week, but forget everything on weekends. Think that the extra calories gained on weekend are enough to make your diet plans of the week pointless.

7. Order first! When you eat out, be the first to order. It's very easy to let yourself influenced by others. If your friends decide to eat a tone of ice cream or fast food, you will probably do the same. Raise the bar and order a salad or grilled fish. Maybe others will follow your example.

8. Overcome overeating mistakes! We all have setbacks along the way. Even those who have achieved great dieting success have met with failure on the road. Learn to overcome those mistakes and move on from them. Do not get discouraged! You may have had a bad day when it comes to your dietary goals and plans. Do not let this defeat your desires to become a healthier you.

9. Weigh yourself often! Electronic scales are ideal to measure your weight accurately. Weigh yourself twice a week to see your progress. If you are on track this is great, but if you haven’t lost weight it is a sign to exercise more or change your diet accordingly.

10. Sleep well, Lose weight! Sleep at least 8 hours a night. Sleep less and the result can be that you will eat much more the following day. Tired people eat more because the body tries to gain more energy through high sugar foods to compensate for the lack of sleep. Also, don’t go to bed hungry, but do not eat before bedtime.

11. Do not be tempted! Balanced natural diets advise you not to give up foods that you love because that will make you lust and eventually will fail. And this is true. Nevertheless, make an effort to stay away from junk food. It is not so hard, just do it!

Follow these simple steps and you will see how easy it can be!

For more information on Smart Diet, check out My Review of Isabel De Los Rios' "Diet Solution Program"

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Home Cooking Rocks!

Studies continue to report that fewer and fewer people are cooking at home, which makes me sad. The truth is that many Americans spend more time in traffic these days than in the kitchen.

We are eating in our cars, in front of the TV, but we are not sitting down as families. I was once overweight and I know it is not easy to break old habits.

We are more sedentary than we have ever been, and we are fatter than we have ever been.

Many people say they barely have time to exercise, let alone fix dinner. The world is fast-paced today but your nutrition does not have to follow suit.

People consume 50% more calories, fat and sodium when they eat out than when they cook at home. Restaurant customers often miss out on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and other vitamin-rich "powerhouse foods”. And overeating, which is harder to avoid at restaurants, will lead to obesity.

The basic truth is that the more you eat in, the more you can control and the healthier your plate is going to be.

Clearly, we are much more interested in and knowledgeable about food these days, as reflected in the increasing popularity of cooking shows, magazines, and cookbooks; yet we seem to be cooking at home less and less... Why?

I think all the emphasis on chef-inspired food porn has skewed the reality of what home cooking is all about and may have scared people away from the kitchen.

However, home cooking recipes taste so much better, are full of nutrients and you are in charge of every ingredient used. It is quicker to prepare dishes than you might think! It is also healthier and more economical, which can be especially important these days.

Yes, it is not all sexy… It takes some planning and prioritizing so you’re don’t get caught in that vicious cycle of asking yourself at the end of a long day, “What’s for dinner?”

Basic home cooking is about shopping only once or twice a week, planning, cooking extra, creative use of leftovers, having a reasonably well stocked pantry, and easy do-ahead dishes.

It is also deeply satisfying to be able to nourish yourself and those you love with tasty simple home cooking.

Cooking does not have to be a chore. Remember you do not have to make a gourmet meal every night.

It is all about creating simple meals that comfort, nourish, and please, not trying to impress with overcomplicated dishes full of expensive ingredients that you use only once. Cooking dinner does not have to leave you feeling depleted.  Simple meals are just as well balanced and will be appreciated. This saves you energy and time.

If you keep things simple and learn some basics, it can actually be a very pleasant transition out of your workday.

You can turn it into quality time spent with your children if you let them help you. Of course, they will need to be supervised, however it can be a time where you can talk and enjoy each other's company. It will be a time that your children will remember forever, and possibly even pass down to their children. Another advantage is that children who frequently eat dinner at home with their family eat more fruits and vegetables and get better grades in school.

So, if you use cooking a family dinner as family time, you will know that your family's nutrition requirements are being looked after.

Here are a few excellent books that I use in my everyday home cooking adventure: The Paleo Recipe Book, Secret Restaurant Recipes at Home and The Diet Solution Program.

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What is Overweight?

Doctors use BMI (Body Mass Index) to assess weight.

A BMI of 18.5 to 25 is healthy.

If you have a BMI of more than 25, you are overweight.
Over 30 is obese.
Over 40 is morbidly obese.

To calculate your own BMI, you will need to know your weight in kilos and your height in meters then follow the example below. 

1. Multiply your height by itself, eg 1.7x1.7= 2.89.
2. Divide your weight (eg 80kg) by this figure.
3. 80 ÷ 2.89= 27.7
     27.7 is the BMI.

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A Healthy Diet is a Balanced Diet

           There are many different types of diets, like the Atkins diet, the Zone diet, the South Beach diet and many more. It is important to remember that a diet that limits portions to a very small size or that excludes certain foods entirely to promote weight loss may not be effective over the long term.

It is much easier to maintain a diet that takes into account the foods that you like and dislike and also include combinations of foods with enough calories and nutrients for good health.

When planning your diet it is important that you consider what calorie level is appropriate for you. Is the diet nutritionally balanced? Will this diet be practical and easy to follow? Will the diet be maintainable for the rest of your life? The below information will show you what to look out for in a diet.

A diet program must be responsible and safe; therefore, I consider a balanced diet the key to a healthy lifestyle and a great physique.

To obtain all the nutrients that our bodies require, we have to eat the right mix of foods. This means eating a variety of foods from different food groups that together contain all the vitamins, minerals and fuel, in the form of the proteins, carbohydrates and fats, our bodies’ needs.

A balanced and healthy diet will include:

1. Adequate protein. Adequate protein is important because it prevents muscle tissue from breaking down and repairs all body tissues such as skin and teeth. To get adequate protein in your diet, make sure you eat 2-3 servings from the Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts Group on the Food Guide Pyramid every day. These foods are all good sources of protein. The average woman 25 years of age and older should get 50 grams of protein each day, and the average man 25 years of age and older should get 65 grams of protein each day.

2. Adequate carbohydrates. At least 100 grams of carbohydrates per day are needed to prevent fatigue and dangerous fluid imbalances. To make sure you get enough carbohydrates, eat 6 to11 servings from the Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta Group on the Food Guide Pyramid every day.

3. Adequate vitamins and minerals. Eating a wide variety of foods from all the food groups on the Food Guide Pyramid will help you get the vitamins and minerals you need. If you eat less than 1,200 calories per day, you may benefit from taking a daily vitamin and mineral supplement.

4. A daily fiber intake of 25 to 35 grams. Adequate fiber helps with proper bowel function. If you were to eat 1 cup of bran cereal, 1/2 cup of carrots, 1/2 cup of kidney beans, a medium-sized pear, and a medium-sized apple together in 1 day, you would get about 30 grams of fiber.

5. No more than 30 percent of calories, on average, from fat per day, with less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat (such as fat from meat, butter, and eggs). Limiting fat to these levels reduces your risk for heart disease and may help you lose weight. In addition, you should limit the amount of cholesterol in your diet. Cholesterol is a fat-like substance found in animal products such as meat and eggs. Your diet should include no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day (one egg contains about 215 milligrams of cholesterol, and 3.5 ounces of cooked hamburger contain 100 milligrams of cholesterol).

6. At least 8 to 10 glasses, 8 ounces each, of water or water-based beverages, per day. You need more water if you exercise a lot.

Finally, do not be tempted to skip breakfast or any meal to lose weight!

While skipping a meal will reduce your calorie intake for that hour, it will leave you much hungrier later on.

Not only you will overeat to compensate, but you will often make bad choices to fill the gap: a cereal bar is not as healthy as a bowl of cereal or as filling, leading you to “need” something extra for lunch.

Irregular eating habits also disrupt your body's metabolism, which makes it harder to lose weight in the first place.

All these things will influence your health in a positive way. But they will work only if you apply them. The only thing that is holding you back is…you. So take action now!

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Lose Weight the Healthy Way!

            If you want to eat healthy and lose weight, you must concentrate on making health your first priority.

The truth is this: we can only lose weight if we burn more calories than we consume. To do this, we either have to eat less, exercise more or, ideally, do both.

However, pay attention!

The healthiest way to lose weight is neither crash diets nor excessive cardio exercises.

Starvation diets that severely restrict calories or the types of food can lead you to be deficient in the nutrients and vitamins that your body needs. Our bodies need food to function properly! So, do not starve, you don’t need to!

            On the other hand, a person who has not exercised for years should not rush into running the marathon. Not only you will feel demotivated, you are also far more likely to injure yourself and set your fitness levels back further. Keep in mind that excessive cardio exercises can even reduce immunity and weaken your joints.

This is why I am so fond of Craig Ballantyne's "Turbulence Training". This smart fitness program is just great because the author pays special attention to beginners. It helped me prevent the injuries overweight people usually get when they start exercise. So, thank you Mister Ballantyne!

You see, the body wants slow changes in terms of exercise and food. And, yes, small changes will make a big difference. Make small changes each and every day and you will slowly (but surely) lose those extra pounds. The key is to forget about instant results and settle in for the long run.

            There are no shortcuts to losing weight in a healthy and reasonable way. This is why the experts always talk about weight loss in terms of healthy diet and correct fitness exercises.

So, if you need to lose weight, what should you do? Nothing but two things!

First, find a smart fitness routine that fits your needs as a beginner, intermediate and more advanced fitness practitioner. I started Craig Ballantyne's "Turbulence Training” 14 months ago and still doing it. It helped me shed more then 50 pounds of excess fat and get the lean, toned and muscular body I always wanted.

Yes, I am proud of my success. And once you will begin his fitness routine, you will look good and feel good, too. Take a look at my review, so you will find out more about smart and healthy fitness.

 Second, find a healthy balanced diet plan that allows you to eat tasty foods. This diet plan must teach you not only what to eat, but also how much to eat and when to eat.

Such a diet will include adequate protein, adequate carbohydrates, adequate fiber, adequate vitamins and minerals. It will also include no more than 30 percent of calories, from fat per day and at least 8 glasses, 8 ounces each, of water or water-based beverages, per day.

I know it sounds complicated, but it’s not. Once you find the correct diet, just follow the instructions and have a food diary to keep track of what you eat.

I, personally follow The Diet Solution Program, by certified nutritionist Isabel De Los Rios. This is one diet plan that made my life much easier! Not only I can consume various quality and tasty foods, but also eat according to my metabolic type and always stay within the right caloric range.

So feel free to follow it, too!  But first, read my review!

Keep the above information in mind when pursuing your goals toward weight loss, fitness and better nutrition. Make both healthy eating and exercise a way of life!

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No Pills. No Powders. No Appetite Suppressants. No Fat Binders. No False Promises

            In the past year, Americans spent more than $17 billion on weight loss supplements. Over a thousand different manufacturers produce about 22 thousand different fat loss and diets supplements. 100 million people consume these products!

You can imagine that with so many billions at stake, the advertisers of the weight loss and supplement industry will tell you anything to get you to buy their products, which are probably not helping anyone loss any weight.

Not only that, they will lie and advertise false facts to make you believe that these diet products are safe to use and that they are all you ever needed to loss weight.

The fact that this industry is so loosely regulated allows them to go on deceiving innocent people that simply want to make their life better.

We can hear all the time about people who consumed powders, pills or other diet related products and ended up with nothing to show for it. Maybe they lost a few pounds, but surely, after a few weeks, they gained it all back. What they did not get back are the thousands of dollars they wasted on those stupid false products.

Like so many other former overweight people, me included, you can also lose weight in a healthy way, by doing some simple things like following a smart fitness and diet plan, eating healthy but tasty foods, drinking enough water, sleeping enough and eating small meals 5 or 6 times in a day.

Your body uses food for energy, not pills!

Yes, I admit it…I am not into magic weight loss pills, powders or appetite suppressants and fat binders. I strongly believe that these are false promises. Do not waste any more time and money.

Take control over your life, today!

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Starvation Diet IS NOT a Diet!

            By definition, dieting is eating the right food, in right quantity, at the right time.
            So why starve?!

            There have always been fad diets available, such as the "no carbohydrate" diet, the "low carbohydrate diet" and let's not forget the famous "cabbage soup" diet.

It may look like you are going on a diet that will bring you the results you want, but it does not.

If you ever tried a starving diet, you probably lost some pounds quickly at first, but as time went by, it became much harder to lose the extra weight. Finally, you got to a point that you were actually starving yourself and still not losing weight at all.

Starving diets do not work because they slow down the metabolism and put the body into a starvation mode, making it impossible to lose weight in a healthy way.

I know it because five years ago, I tried such a “diet”. I felt miserable all the time and I was always hungry and tired.

Obviously, after a couple of months I stopped… meaning going back to my regular eating habits… but I had a new problem. You see, when you stop the starving diet, your metabolism is still stuck in a low calorie-burning mode and by the time it catches up, you have gained all the weight back and even a few extra pounds.

The other problem is the loss of muscle mass. As you know, muscle mass is a major part of the body that burns fat, but on a very low-calorie diet you are losing fat as well as your muscle mass. When you stop this diet, you put all the lost weight back on, but you also end up with even more fat and less muscle to burn it with.

            Bottom line, IT IS NOT HEALTHY. So if you are on such a diet, I advice you to stop immediately.

            Starving yourself will affect your health and damage your kidneys, liver and the rest of your organs. The more you starve yourself, the bigger these problems will become.

Just say NO to starvation diets!

There is an alternative that will allow you to eat very tasty foods, but in the right quantities and at the right time, so you can lose weight and be as healthy as you can be.

 It is called The Diet Solution Program, created by nutritionist Isabel De Los Rios, and I am strongly recommending it to everyone interested in living a healthy lifestyle.

Along with Craig Ballantyne's "Turbulence Training", The Diet Solution Program is responsible for my own great physical transformation in the past 14 months.

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Nutrition and Diet

As you know by now, I am a certified biomedical engineer and over the years, I developed an extensive knowledge in nutrition. I had to, because this is my line of work.

Therefore, I did a very thorough analysis regarding the diets available on the market today, once I decided to completely change my lifestyle for the better, do smart fitness and eat the right way.

It took me a while (…6 months…) to find the right training program and the nutritionally correct diet, but it was well worth searching for. Feel free to look over my reviews and see what programs I have been using to achieve my fitness, my dietary weight loss and my health goals. I am sure that you will find some valuable information there.

But let’s start with the basics!

What is nutrition? Well, by definition, nutrition is the science that studies the process by which living organisms acquire all the things that are necessary for them to live and grow. Nutrition consists of diet (what you take in) and metabolism (what happens to it after it enters your body).

             Proper nutrition means getting all the essential nutrients from your diet that are required to keep your body functioning normally. If you do not have proper nutrition, your body will lack one or more essential nutrients and will not be able to function normally.

What is diet? Your diet is, basically, what you eat. There are two very important aspects to your diet: what foods you eat and how much of them you eat.

To lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, you need to pay attention to both factors. If you eat all the right foods but they are in quantities that are too large, you will take in too many calories and will gain weight (fat). If you eat the right amount of calories but you get them from only one food group, you will lack essential nutrients, which may cause health problems.

To obtain all the nutrients that our bodies require, we have to eat the right mix of foods:  a balanced diet. This means eating a variety of foods from different food groups that together contain all the vitamins, minerals, and fuel – in the form of the carbohydrates, proteins, and fats – our bodies’ needs.

A diet program must be responsible and safe; therefore, I consider a balanced diet the key to a healthy lifestyle and a great physique.

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