Healthy Weight Loss

Did you know that more than sixty percent of Americans are overweight and more than thirty percent are obese? Just look around you when you’re out & about and you’ll see proof of these numbers in action. There needs to be something done about this staggering statistic.

Are you ready to lose weight for good and do it the healthy way? I know you're answer to this "yes", otherwise you wouldn't be reading this article! But there's a problem. The problem is that there are so many “fad” diets out there that you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. More than likely you’ve probably tried a few of them yourself, maybe by a friend’s recommendation or a pushy sales person, and have seen results only to gain all the weight back and sometimes more once you stopped the diet or “magic pill” or whatever the case may be.

With all of the new information and products it's extremely easy to get overwhelmed. Well now you can vanish frustration! Here are 6 simple yet extremely effective tips that you can start implementing today. Although we tend to forget about them, they are the fundamentals.

Drink Plenty of Water - The human body is made up of more than 50% water. 65% on average if you’re a man and 55% on average if you’re a woman. When you’re hungry drink a glass of water and wait about 15 min to see if the hunger pangs subside. Most often they will. If they don’t subside completely that’s ok but you will eat less at your meal. A hunger pang can often be your body's way of telling you it's thirsty because you're dehydrated. Use your urine as an indicator rather than counting the number of glasses, if it's clear or light yellow you're good.

Eat More Protein & Fiber – These two macro nutrients will fill you up faster and keep you feeling full longer. Fiber will help regulate your digestive system and make you more regular. Protein burns for a longer period of time as energy and therefore requires more calories to digest and won’t spike your blood sugar.

Eat More "Real Food" - The source of your calories is much more important than the amount. Nutrigenomics is the study of how the foods we eat communicate with the cells in our body. For example, 100 calories of potato chips will cause a completely different reaction within your body than 100 calories of vegetables. Try to eat less packaged food and more fresh fruits & veggies.

Drink Green Tea – Green Tea is a natural metabolism booster. Moving your tea cup from the table to your mouth is all it takes to burn fat and fire up your metabolism. It also has an extremely high antioxidant count which has numerous benefits, from fighting free radical damage to your cells from stress to helping prevent cancer. Replacing your coffee with green tea is great idea.

Strength Train - A good weight loss program should consist of both cardio and strength training but too many people rely only on cardio. It's what happens after the workout that make a tremendous difference because you will actually burn more calories during a cardio workout than a strength training workout. Strength training will allow you to burn maximum calories for 8 to 10 hours after you've finished but after a cardio workout you'll only burn for 3 to 5 hours. Muscle is energy expensive. What this means is that fat does not require as many calories to maintain as muscle does. If gaining muscle isn't necessarily one of your goals, don't worry. That’s a common misconception about strength training. There are different repetitions that are to be done for bulking up and for toning up. As well as many other factors like eating lots of food and having high levels of testosterone. So grab your bands or free weights and get to work. If you can't find the time to get to the gym or the money for a personal trainer, at home workout programs are extremely popular and effective if you choose the right one. There are a few very effective programs on the market to choose from. The best one would be a program that has a variety of different workouts like the highly popular and best-selling px90.  Or, if you’d rather have a female trainer in your videos, Chalene Johnson has in incredibly effective program called ”Chalean Extreme”. This will keep your body guessing and working harder therefore yielding better results. It will also keep things fresh and interesting.

Supplement Your Health – Unless you’re eating 10-15 servings of fruits & vegetable per day, are never stressed, sleep for 9 hours uninterrupted every night, go to bed at sundown and awake at sunrise, live in warm climate year round and get at least 15 minutes of sun exposure on your face, neck & arms everyday, never ingest or inhale any environmental toxin like smoke, exhaust, carpet cleaners, paint, bug repellants, etc. and only eat locally grown, whole, organic foods, then you need to take supplements. A Supplement should not be a replacement. Our daily diets have gaps and they're designed to help fill those gaps. The basic essentials are a high quality Multi-Vitamin, Mercury Free/Purified Omega 3 Fish Oil – good for joints, and cardiovascular health, your body & brain require fat to function, the more good fat you have the less bad fat you will hold on to, and Calcium & Magnesium (Cal-Mag) – strengthens bones & teeth and is vital for proper nerve & muscle function.  A high quality nutrition shake is a great way to replace a meal while also getting the aforementioned nutrients that your body needs to allow you to lose weight fast and keep it off.