Secondly there may be issues with mindset that can stop a person from making the lifestyle changes that are necessary to accommodate their new diet or the ability to say no when friends say oh go on it‘s no big deal.

Losing weight doesn’t have to be a major upheaval. It is in fact by far easier to lose weight gradually over time than to try to change your daily habits over night.

If your goal is to lose 2 pounds a week you can still enjoy a varied diet and won’t have to become a gym rat at the same time. In order to maintain a 2 pound per week loss, which is easier than you think, we will have to look at 3 factors: improving diet, exercise habits, and detoxifying your system.

Healthy diet
The basics apply here more than you think, especially in the beginning. Make sure that you are eating plenty of fruits and vegetables and that you aim to drink 6 to 8 glasses of water a day, and more if you can. Avoid sugary snacks and swap them for fruit, vegetables, and/or high fiber snacks instead. Do not drink fruit juice instead of water, as the sugar content will pile on the pounds quickly.

Try to cook your meats and fish in a nonstick frying pan, cooking oils won’t be needed and if you insist on eating chips and fries than oven bake or grill them for a healthier meal.

Finally try to eat smaller meals more often through out the day as this will keep the body burning fat as it no longer needs to store fat and sugars from previous meals. Eating more regularly helps to keep your metabolism up and and reduces cravings too.

Exercise
Some of us cringe at the thought of exercise but any form of exercise is sufficient providing you do it at least 3 times a week or more. You don’t need to become a gym rat to stay fit but you do need to get up and move about for 30 minuets at least 3 times a week so that your heart is pumping faster than it is at it’s normal resting rate. Even if it means a brisk walk to the store and back this can be enough to shed the pounds over the months ahead. In fact walking is one of the best exercises you can do as it burns the most actual fat from your body and not just carbs. Essentially, that is all there is to it.

You don’t need to go mad with the diet and exercise plans you just need to be able to stick to them. Obviously you will need to curb your fatty snacks like chips and chocolate but you will find that if you fill your day with eating the right foods, not just salads and fruit either, then you will never feel hungry enough to snack in the first place. For more information on such a diet check out www.HowTo-LoseWeightQuickly.com

Something we do or do not do has caused us to be where we are now. We must admit we have consciously or unconsciously developed behaviors that support our “heavy” life style. Usually the additions or omissions are not health based choices. We can have it all. We can be healthy and slim if we change a few eating and living patterns we have acquired over the years. Let’s look back to when we were slimmer. Were we more active? Did we eat out less? Remembering our past can give us ideas on how to direct our future. Taking one step at a time we can alter our behaviors. It is usually too overwhelming to try to change everything at once. If we walked a half hour to and from bus stops when we were thinner we need to put that walking back into our day. Take out the donut and coffee in the morning. Replace with a low fat, smart carbs or real food snacks. Every few days add in a bit more activity and take out a high cal food and replace with the whole grain or wholesome version. This may not help our jeans button for the Fri. party but it will help them button in a month or two. There will also be changes you can’t see on the outside. You will be taking steps to lower risks from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and hypertension. Dr.’s are warning us that our lifestyles are bringing these maladies to us at an earlier and earlier age. Let’s reverse that as well.

When will this weight go away? When did this weight come? It probably came an ounce here, a pound there until you couldn’t hide it anymore. Be realistic and set a time loss goal that allows you to incorporate your new thin thinking behaviors into your everyday life. As healthy behaviors replace the weight gaining behaviors less thought will go into losing and more into living.

Try these easy steps to a thinner healthier you.

1, Never go hungry! Do not skip meals. Better yet, add three small meals (not junk food) mid morning, mid afternoon and early evening. Eating too close to retiring does not give the body time to use the calories and they will be put into storage; hip and thigh storage.

2, Always start your engine with good fuel. A morning started with healthy nutrients will kick start your metabolism and keep you energized all day. Morning foods break your sleep time fast but do not need to be “breakfast” food. Enjoy any healthy foods and avoid fats, sugars and sodium in excess.

3, Eat smaller meals. By down sizing your plate you can fill it and eat it clean while you are in fact eating less but not being emotionally deprived by looking at skimpy servings on a large plate. Frequent meals provide a steady fuel supply and never let the munchies hit as hunger is no longer taking control. The end result is a slow steady calorie burn, the kind that makes a withdrawl not a deposit to your body’s storage areas.

4’ Choose the amount of weight you want to lose. Match your desired loss and the level of calorie reduction needed to get there. Your Dr’ can help with this as you decide on your new level of food consumption. Give yourself time to adjust. Expect to slip up and praise yourself if you don’t. Remember fresh foods, low fat choices, whole grains and your desire to be healthy and thin.

5’ Drink lots of water. Water aids in the fat burning process and keeps cells hydrated.

6’ Avoid excesses. Sugars and salt need to be restricted to healthful levels.

7’ Watch your fat intake. Avoid trans fats, use olive, peanut, or canola oils. Trim meat. Include heart healthy omega 3’s.

8’ Exercise. Leave the car and walk if you can. Park at the wrong end of the lot, clime stairs, walk fido, play with your kids and keep moving. Join a gym; get an exercise buddy. Be consistent, realistic and patient and you will be successful!

First, avoid the alcohol. The cocktails served at holiday parties can be full of calories, and when we drink we have a decreased will power when it comes to holiday foods. They also stimulate our appetites and will cause us to eat more than we normally would at a party. Having one drink to celebrate a special occasion is fine as long as we don’t over do it every time we go out to celebrate the season.

Another great tip to help stick to your plan over the holiday season is to show up after you have already eaten a full meal, this will reduce the amount of snacking you do at the party.

Use the holidays to get outside when the weather allows. Playing in the snow, climbing the hill for sledding, and snow ball fights are great for getting your heart pumping and burning off the calories from those candy canes.

If the weather outside isn’t cold or snowy, head to the mall for a little gift shopping. Make a number of laps around the mall and take the stairs instead of the escalators. Keep this in mind at parties as well, get up and move around as much as possible. Christmas caroling is another great activity that gets you out moving around and you can also spread some holiday cheer.

Lastly, avoid gifts of food. Of course you can’t tell people what to buy for you but if you find yourself with a lot of chocolates and brownies, share the love, take these things into work or with unopened items donate them to a local food bank. Even though these tips don’t sound like much they will help you stay slim even as you are surrounded by goodies through out the holidays.

Think about that statement for a minute: why is that important in your “journey?”

Because if you think that just eating less and exercising you will lose 100 pounds in the next week…I am sorry to say, you are probably in for disappointment! It’s just not reasonable to think that you are going to lose a bunch of weight, and keep it off, in such a short amount of time.

Now, if you were to take the philosophy of “One Pound at a Time,” as what is suggested within these pages, you are going to have a much easier time adjusting to your new diet/nutrition/exercise program, and you will be more likely to succeed AND CONTINUE TO SUCCEED!

Why Do You Wish To Lose Weight?

Because your spouse wants you to?

Because your kids want you to?

Because your doctor tells you to?

Because your friends tell you to?

I suggest you write down your own reasons for wanting to lose weight. Here are some ideas:

- I want to lose weight because I want to gain a healthy respect for my body

- I want to lose weight because I want to live longer for my family

- I want to lose weight because I want to enjoy life more by doing the things that my weight restricts me from doing

- I want to lose weight because I want to feel great about my myself and my appearance

- I want to lose weight because I want to travel and enjoy all that life has to offer me

- I want to lose weight to have the strength and energy I need to enjoy life like having the energy to chase my children

- I want to lose weight so that I can be an active participant in my own life and not just a spectator
Other Reasons Why You May Want To Lose Weight

No doubt a big reason why you want to lose weight is linked to your physical appearance. This scratches far below the surface than just wanting to lose weight to fit into something or simply hating the way your thighs look.

Excess weight can impact on self esteem. No one wants to be obese because it has so many negative connotations in our society.

Because we believe we are not attractive and appealing to others can make us rethink our own self worth and value. This can lead to social and emotional problems and distort the way we perceive ourselves as well as how we interact with others.

This can become a vicious cycle within itself where we eat because of how we feel to medicate the pain yet often end up feeling worse along with gaining even more weight. The cycle continues.
Take your time and think of something that is truly worthy of you and you will stick with it like glue. While doctors, your family, and/or your friends may tell you that you need to lose weight, the one person that is the most important in your decision to follow through is YOU. YOU must want to lose the weight for yourself – FIRST!

Choosing to lose weight and maintaining your weight loss is going to require a life-change. A change that you must be 100% committed to, because without that dedication, you are already set up to fail.

One way to help you in your Journey is to think about your Journey in very small steps.

One of your very first few steps is making the commitment to succeeding, truly believing you can succeed, and picturing yourself having already succeeded. That is a key component.

So, are you committed to the Journey? Are you ready for a New You? Is that a “YES”?

GREAT! You are well on your way to being successful!

One of the first challenges you will face is discovering how you are going to lose weight. There are thousands upon thousands of places both online and offline that claim to have the “magic” formula to weight loss.

Please realize that weight loss does not just happen overnight.

It will take time, commitment, and effort on your part.
The good thing is that you are off to a great start with having made that commitment on the previous page!

On the following pages are some of the tips and techniques to start your Journey. These are some realistic ideas to help you succeed, as well as resources you can use to help you find or create the best plan for you.

Your plan will need to include a mixture of both diet changes and exercise. While you can lose some weight with only doing one or the other, to be successful you need a good combination of both!

The reason is that once you start losing weight with your diet change, you should include exercise to help tone up your new body.

Don’t worry though … it can be done, and it doesn’t have to be painful…and everything you will ever need is right here in this site!

You have seen all the ads … all promising to help you lose weight instantly.

While some may work, many don’t. Sure, you can lose weight quick and many times you will, BUT…what they don’t tell you is that many times that rapid weight loss is water weight. AND IT WILL RETURN!

So, what we have to do is set realistic and achievable goals.

Remember our “One Pound at A Time” philosophy mentioned in the beginning?

That is our immediate goal. Start with ONE POUND! Then another, and another, etc. Pretty soon, you will be reaching your goals and starting to feel and see the changes happening.

Once you have been successful with your smaller, short-term goals, start setting a little bit longer-term goal. “Today is Monday, July 9th. I will lose 5 pounds by July 31st.” That is not only reasonable, but achievable!

Think of this: if you set a goal of 5 pounds each month, that is a total of 60 POUNDS in a year.

Stick to your goals the best you can. If you find that your goals are not becoming a reality, scale them back. Make them achievable, because that is a key ingredient to your successful Journey!

Scales – Get Rid Of Them!

How many times have you stepped on the scale and been depressed? A bunch!

JUST GET RID OF THE SCALES!

The best way to tell if you are losing weight: are your pants falling down more?! Do you feel better?

Seriously, all the scales do is give you a number and can be very deceptive.
Here is an example: suppose you are dieting and exercising and in your exercise routine, you are starting to build more muscle.

You are feeling better so you step on the scale and OH NO!!! You have gained weight! Well, guess what? Muscle weighs more than fat!!

If you didn’t know that, now you do. But what if you didn’t know that? You would assume that all your work is wasted and you may quit.

So, LOSE THE SCALES! They wont help you to achieve your goals.

Find out if weight gain has an emotional effect on you. Some brief questions.

- Are you conscious of your physical appearance when you are out in public?

- Are you comfortable with looking at yourself in the mirror or do you avoid it?

- Are you concerned with what others think of your body?

- Do you feel that the only way you can truly be happy is to change the physical things you don’t like about yourself?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then it’s possible that your weight has an emotional influence over you. Your appearance shouldn’t keep you unhappy. Your appearance really should be the icing on the cake to the person you are within.

You have the power to do something about it. You can either continue to live with it or do something about it.

The fact that you are here says a lot about you and proves that you are willing to take action. I congratulate you for that and know you will find answers here. Just remember this book aims to re-educate you and unlearn all of the bad habits you may have picked up over the years. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. You are about to experience some life changing truths so just stay with it and absorb as much as you can.

Health Issues

A big motivation for wanting to lose the weight could also be for health reasons. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that we are living in an obese nation. We are suffering in epic proportions from diseases our ancestors 100 years ago had never even heard of.

You know the effects that carrying excess weight can have on the body even in your joints and your lower back but we often forget what impact this is having to our internal organs.

Did you know that excess abdominal fat is the most dangerous type of fat to have? This is because this is most active of them all.

The fat is packed around your intestines, your liver and heart and interferes with the way those organs work. This fat secretes chemicals and hormones that inhibit proper function of those vital organs. It is also an indicator of Type II diabetes and heart disease.

For women if your waist is more than 35 inches at the belly button and for men if is more than 40 inches than you lie within the high risk category of heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure and stroke and must lose weight.

Excess fat in the body causes the arteries in your heart to become clogged which raises your blood pressure to force the blood to your organs. Having just an extra 30 excess pounds forces your heart to work twice as hard to do the same job it did when you were just 30 pounds lighter.

Excess blood pressure damages the blood vessels in your kidneys and can cause them to fail. High blood pressure is also linked with blindness caused from burst and bleeding blood vessels in the backs of the eyes.

High blood pressure can also cause weakened blood vessels to burst and bleed on the brain causing a stroke. Blood clots can also become lodged within narrowed arteries also causing a stroke.

Diabetes causes the blood to thicken which raises the risk of blood clots forming resulting in strokes and heart attacks from your already thickened arterial walls.

So, as you can see being overweight can cause a cascade effect on our health, it affects everything. Each organ relies upon the other to work effectively to keep us well. Throw any one of those off balance and it affects everything.

The simplest solution is to just lose the weight. We seem to think that having a little less cake or cutting back on saturated fats is a death sentence but not nearly as deadly as the one that plays havoc with our bodies when we choose to eat that foods that put us there.

In a medical trial to test the long term effects of excess weight on individuals, a study of around 600 people was conducted over a 14 year period. The results revealed that participants who were ‘overweight’ had a 34% greater chance of heart failure than someone at their ideal weight. Participants who were obese had a massive 104% increase in risk of heart failure over someone at their ideal weight.

Incredible what a little extra weight can do over a period of time.

The Difference Between Being Overweight And Obese

So what is the difference between being overweight and being obese?

It is the BMI (Body Mass Index) that differentiates between the two whereby it is the weight above what is generally considered to be a healthy ideal weight for a specific height.

For example:-

For adults whose BMI is between the range of 25 and 30 are considered to be overweight

For adults whose BMI is greater than 30 are considered to obese.

You can determine your BMI be going here:

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

Sobering isn’t it? The fact that carrying even a little excess weight can have detrimental effects on our health is mind blowing and you don’t even have to be morbidly obese for that to happen.

Most medical professionals consider someone who is 5% to 15% above their ideal weight to be considered as overweight whereas people who are 20% to 30% above their ideal weight are considered to be obese, anything above 30% and you fall into the range of being morbidly obese.

So what weight should you be? Find out your ideal weight for your height by going here:

http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/body.htm

There is no motivation quite like knowing the health risks associated with excess weight. By now you will know which category you lie within and now you can lose the weight for more than just looking nice in a pair of jeans but to extend your life expectancy and increase your quality and enjoyment of life.

We are creatures of habit. We have amassed lots of habits that have been developed over the years that sometimes become subconscious.

We are not aware of the things we do until we purposely take notice of them. For instance, observing the thought that leads to the action of us reaching for the cookie. What was the thought? Were we feeling upset?, distressed?, depressed?, angry?

If you find you want to reach for the jar of cookies, catch yourself in that moment. Examine your thinking. How are you feeling? What state of mind are you in? What is your mood? Disrupt your pattern by forming a new one.

Rather than indulging your craving, count back slowly from 100. With each number you find yourself wanting the cookies less and less. This is because you are disrupting your usual pattern of behavior and consciously replacing it with a new one. You’ll find that after 100 that cookie won’t be as tempting as it was.

Emotional eating can also extend to happiness too. Childhood habits can see us overindulge for doing something good which can spill into adulthood where we treat ourselves with food for rewards. This is fine as long as it’s periodically.

There are ways to treat yourself other than eating. Why not get your nails or you hair done? Why not treat yourself to a nice hot bath and a facial? Why not have a healthy lunch with the boys or the girls? There are other rewarding ways to treat yourself that are not based around tempting treats. It’s just a matter of thinking a little outside the square and replacing old habits with new and healthier ones.

Boredom Eating

If you find yourself reaching for that tempting delicious high fat food because you have nothing else to do, why not call a friend for a chat? Why not take up a sport and meet up with your friends instead? Guaranteed you’ll have so much fun you won’t even be thinking about junk food.

Mistaken Hunger

It should be a healthy appetite that drives us to eat. When our energy needs replenishing because we’ve depleted our energy stores our appetite signals for us to eat. It is a simple biological reflex. We get hungry, we eat. Sometimes our hunger is more psychological than physical and thinking our body is hungry, we feed it.

If you have eaten your last meal within the past 2 hours more often than not it will be thirst which your body can sometimes interpret as hunger. If you know you have just had your last meal within a short timeframe ago, why not try drinking a glass of water then waiting 30 minutes for the brain to register it. If you are still hungry after this time period then have a light snack.

Sometimes we eat out of boredom. If you find yourself sitting around and instinctively reaching for the fridge or the pantry, catch yourself.

It’s all about replacing bad habits with good ones because that is what will make your weight loss a permanent success. It goes far deeper than losing weight for the sake of it but rather arming you with the tools to make sure you really succeed this time.

Why we need a permanent solution is because we are reprogramming ourselves and our attitude towards our food. Look at this way, it took years to form these habits and it will take a little time to break them and create newer healthier habits in its place.

Nothing is more apparent then when we eliminate all of our favorite foods at once. Our body goes into shock, tries to override our good intentions and sabotages our efforts. Another diet bites the dust simply because we weren’t aware of how we conditioned our bodies over the years.

Our bodies are marvelous pieces of machinery and will stop at nothing to preserve us at all costs. That means that if we drastically reduce our food intake our body will shut down our metabolism to force us to eat. When we do, we binge and gain back all the lost pounds we fought so hard to lose. Don’t hate your body for that, it is just doing what comes naturally.

So how do we get around this? Work in alignment with your body. Introduce changes gradually. Don’t shock your body or it will thwart your best intentions to lose weight.

Medications

There are some medications of which the side effects can be weight gain.

Medications such as some antidepressant drugs can cause you to sleep more and expend less calories making you more susceptible to weight gain. There is also a tendency to snack on more carbohydrate rich foods which also contributes to weight gain.

There are things that you can do to lessen the degree of weight gain experienced by taking these types of medications.

Try to reduce the amount of calories you consume by identifying them in your current diet.

Don’t do anything drastic just eat smaller portions and reduce the amount of carbohydrates you may be consuming, the body needs a balanced diet so don’t be tempted to eliminate carbohydrates completely from your daily eating plan.
Make sure that you get plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, lean protein and whole grains.

Incorporate more exercise into your life to counteract the effect your medication might be having on your weight.

If all else fails, consult your doctor for any alternative medication equivalents without the side effects.

If you are on a diet you are losing weight for the here and now. If on the other hand you want to lose weight on a more permanent basis this is what I would refer to as a “lifestyle change”.

Think long term and permanent change which is what you want to get out of this program as opposed to just wanting to lose weight for the moment.

Because dieting is for the short term once we depart from it we gain back the weight as we fall back into our old eating habits. This leads to “Yo-Yo Dieting” as we go from one diet to the next in the hope that this is the solution to our weight problems we have been searching for.

Just like a Yo-Yo goes up and down so does our weight with each diet we embark on.

Each diet has the same symptoms. We start out and experience quick results, hit a plateau, binge then gain back all the weight plus more.

Why do we gain all of the weight back plus extra? Our bodies have what we call a set point. Think of it as your body’s natural thermostat. It regulates your weight.

When you drop weight after starting your new diet especially on diets that restrict caloric intake, your body goes into shock. Say your starting weight prior to commencing the diet was around 170 pounds.

You lose 5 pounds. Then you lose another 3 pounds. Suddenly your weight loss comes to grinding halt. You cut even more calories in the hopes of keeping the weight loss going but again, you lose zero pounds. By now because you have restricted your calories that your body goes into self preservation, survival mode. This is where evolution as its finest kicks in. Your body overrides you by making you sluggish and lethargic. You have the metabolism of a tortoise. You barely have enough energy to lift your own arm let alone your entire body to continue exercising.

Your body has taken over and thwarted your attempts to lose weight. You can’t work out to lose the pounds you simply don’t have the energy for and to top it off you have an increased appetite.

Your body is stimulating your appetite to make you gain back all of the weight you spent a lot of effort to lose. So not only do you eat, but you eat lots. Your body’s thermostat makes sure that your weight goes back to your original 170 pounds, in fact it doesn’t just stop there.

It makes you add a few extra pounds on top of that to store away for a rainy day. Because you put your body through trauma it thought it was starving so it literally made you store extra fat for times of famine to safeguard you against losing any more weight again.

So there you have it, you just hurt your chances of losing weight by provoking your body into defense mode and making you gain extra weight.

It’s well documented that this happens which is how the phrase got to be coined as “Yo-Yo” dieting. Your weight goes down then it comes back up again and then some.

There is a way around Yo-Yo dieting and the secret lies in not shocking your body into retaliation but rather working in alignment with it. I’ll explain more on that a little later in this book.

Fad Diets

If any of the diets you have ever tried in the past fell into any of these categories, there’s a good chance it was a fad diet.

1. Promises you will lose lots of weight in one week with little effort

2. Fails to mention disclaimers or recommend doctors consultation prior to dieting

3. Suggests you eliminate entire food groups from your eating plan such as carbohydrates or dairy or vegetables

4. Restricts you to a set eating plan without considering what your preferences are, in other words lack of flexibility setting you up to fail

5. Fails to reinforce good and health habits and lifestyle changes

6.Reduces your eating to less calories than you can healthily function on

7. Goes against sound medical information

8. Is dependent upon certain supplements, diets or products to be effective

9. Makes over the top, unrealistic claims

10. Lack of scientific proof that it works and why it does

Sound familiar? Most diets you see fall into these categories. They rely on doing something drastic just to differentiate themselves from other diets whether that be eliminating entire food groups, eating certain foods on certain days, eating only one color of food or eating only one kind of food for days at a time.

Fad diets all have the same thing in common. The solution to weight loss they offer is only ever temporary a band aid quick fix to a problem that has been years in the making. Once the diet ceases the lost weight quickly returns. When this happens it is more often than not, fluid not fat that was lost in the first place which is why it is gained back so quickly.

None of these diets are sustainable. You simply cannot survive on them. The thing that makes you weight is the difficulty of adhering to such a strict diet in the first place. You go off your food because of the lack of variety and that is what makes you lose weight, or do you?

Fad diets are extreme ways to drop pounds quickly but the results are not permanent, you more often lose fluid and muscle than fat so not only are you not losing the fat you wanted to but you are damaging your health in the process. Any diet that eliminates entire food groups is not good for you.

We have a variety of foods to eat for a reason, because we need them for our nutrients and it is only those foods that can provide them, to eliminate them means that we can become vitamin deficient. To cut out one or more food groups is setting yourself up for disaster and harmful to your overall health.

The Four Basic Food Groups:

- Grains, whole grains, cereals, breads, pasta
- Vegetables and Fruits
- Dairy , milk, cheese, yoghurt
- Meat, protein, poultry, fish, eggs

Breads, cereals and grains gives you sustained energy throughout the day as well as giving you bulk to help properly clean out your bowels protecting you against bowel cancer. In fact by just adding
35 grams of fiber per day can reduce rectal cancer by 67%.
Eating grains also protects against the risk of diabetes and insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease and lowers cholesterol levels.

In a study of 70,000 women over a 12 year period it was found that women who consumed grains as part of their daily diet weighed less than the women who consumed less grains.

Dairy, cheese and yoghurt helps strengthen bones and protect against future osteoporosis.

Studies have confirmed that a diet rich in calcium, magnesium and potassium which are nutrients found in dairy foods actually lowers blood pressure while reducing the risk of hypertension. It is also an important component for proper muscle and nerve function.

Fruits and Vegetables contain antioxidants which fight against free radicals that age the body. Like grains they also provide bulk for the bowel and therefore reduce the risk of contracting bowel and rectal cancer. Eating oranges and tomatoes also increases the ability to absorb iron from meat. Fruits and vegetables also contain carotenoids which reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke. Fruits and vegetables have been linked with memory improvement and slow mental decline with age.

Meats gives a natural source of Vitamin B12 that cannot be sourced from non meat products. The body can metabolise and absorb Vitamin B12 fives more from meat compared to its pill form. It is a rich source of iron which is needed to carry precious oxygen the organs and muscles and for proper neural function.

You can consume enough from your diet naturally that you shouldn’t have the need for vitamin supplements.

Dark green leafy vegetables are a great source for iron but compared with meat, weight for weight 100 grams of liver contains around 6,000 micrograms of iron compared to 325 micrograms in 100 grams of spinach. So as you can see protein is a great pure source of iron and many other vitamins and you can stay healthy by consuming around 75 grams 3 times per week.

The Recommended Daily Servings For A Balanced Diet

Grains: the recommended daily dietary amount is around 6 ounces per day

The reason why we don’t combine your fruit and vegetable intake is because you need to eat a specific amount from each.

Vegetables: 2 ½ cups per day

Fruits: 2 cups per day

Dairy: 3 cups per day

Meat and Beans: 5 ½ ounces per day

These fats tend to be the saturated fat and of the Trans fat variety. There is a link between saturated fats and cardiovascular heart disease, it is this type of fat that raises your cholesterol levels. It usually exists in diets that are high in animal fats which is why the Atkins and low carb diet models aren’t usually the best kind.

Although Atkins himself has found no increase in cholesterol levels with his way of eating, we still do not know what the long term effects this kind of eating will produce. Diets high in saturated (animal) fats have been linked to certain cancers.

If your diet is high in cholesterol, fats deposit themselves on your arterial walls restricting blood flow to your heart and to your body. Your heart then has a tougher job of pumping blood to the rest of your body which increases your blood pressure.

Your heart may also increase in size to force the blood through your arteries causing angina a condition known as enlargement of the heart. Through blood pressure increase comes kidney damage and damage to the smaller capillaries in your eyes causing eventual reduction in eyesight and possible blindness if blood pressure is not controlled.

Trans fatty acids are amongst the worst kind of fat to have in high quantities in your diet. Fats or oils that have partial hydrogenation are more than likely to be Trans fatty. This type of fat lowers the amount of healthy cholesterol (HDL – high density lipoproteins) which throws the system out of balance by increasing the amount of bad cholesterol present.
Good Fats

In their basic building block form they are simply known as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. They play several important roles in hormone production and help to aid in proper cell function.

These types of fats contain Omega-3 fatty acids, fish is a source rich in this fat. Omega-3 has been known to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke. If you want to preserve your health for the long term then you should make fish and fish oils a regular part of your diet.

If embarking on a diet low in fat the positives are that less fat consumed, less fat stored on your body. You are still able to eat many of the foods you enjoy without the restrictions of the Atkins or low carb diets. You get to have a balance in your diet. Simply restricting foods high in bad fats from your eating plan means you get to eat a wide variety of foods just avoiding the high fat versions.

Just remember, do not eliminate all fats from your diet, not all fats are bad for you. We need a certain amount of good fats in our daily diet for our bodies to function at their peak.

Be mindful this is still a diet nonetheless and you still have to exercise restraint over yourself when selecting foods. This diet is not as restrictive as those calorie counting ones yet you still may be tempted to cheat. If you are to go on this type of diet the control has to come from you rather than from a strict eating plan that does the meal plan for you.

What it comes down to as with anything in life, we have to be self governing and exercise commitment to our goals. Nobody can make you lose the weight or lose the weight for you. You have to want to lose the weight and stick to it until you do.