Amazing But True!

What You Need To Know About Weight Loss...

Quite likely, trying to lose weight faster than it is possible in principle makes for the most common mistake in fighting extra weight. There is also yet another mistaken belief closely related to this longing for fast weight loss. It's rapid weight loss, and it is even more dangerous.

One can reason, however, that there are plenty of express diets where one can expect to lose 20 lb within a month, 20 lb in 21 days, 11 lb in 7 days, etc. They do work, right? People on such diets may really lose up to 2 pounds a day.

Sure they may. In the first few days of fasting a person is in fact losing 2 pounds a day. Any doctor will tell you what this effect is based upon. He will also tell you that in those first few days the body's fat stores are not even tapped.

Instead, the process sustains itself with easy energy from glycogen, a carbohydrate stored in the liver and muscles. Expending glycogen and starch, one of its varieties, the body is at the same time losing water since each gram of starch is tied up to four grams of water. That's how you lose more weight in the first days of fasting.

Thus you are losing water, not fat!

You can deliberately speed up this water-losing stage using the sauna or diuretics - but why? Losing water rather than fat kind of beats the purpose.

This only creates an illusion of weight loss. Once you stop fasting and glycogen levels are replenished, the water returns, and the weight goes back up fast. What's more, the weight may well go beyond the original level you started with.

This is what they call regaining weight or returning to your original weight. Let's illustrate this process of regaining weight with an example. Suppose a certain individual had a normal weight of 170 lbs but, as a result of incorrect nutrition (overeating), gained 30 lbs within two years. He managed to lose these extra pounds, say, with an express diet and thus returned to his former weight of 170 lbs, following which he resumed his erroneous ways. How long do you think it will take him to regain the weight lost, back to 200 lbs?

Two years, you say? You wish! That would be altogether fantastic, and the job of maintaining a normal weight would be fairly easy. Just think about it: all you'd have to do would be go on an express diet for 2-3 weeks once every two years, and then you could indulge freely the rest of the time.

Unfortunately, that's not what happens in real life. After fasting or a rigid diet, the body will make a maximum effort to regain the fat lost. Thus, the weight will return to the original level fairly fast (in a matter of weeks) and may very well reach new highs.

That's what regaining weight comes down to. Once you return to your previous eating habits after a reducing diet or outright fasting, your weight will go back to the old level fairly fast and often keep rising.

It should be noted that there is also such a thing as good weight regaining. One may first lose way too much weight, going below the norm, with the weight later going back up and stabilizing at the normal level. Unfortunately, this does not happen very often, and in most cases the weight goes back up way past the normal levels.

So what are you going to do then? Try to lose weight again? Keep it in mind that repeatedly forcing your weight up and down is very stressful for the body and does plenty of harm.

So, if you first force yourself to cut your food intake drastically, and then quickly give back all of the hard-earned weight loss, and then some, why suffer at all? What's your reward for the pain and suffering, if, at the end of the day, your weight remains the same?

That's why, before embarking on any diet or fasting plan, you should really think twice. Why bother, if you are bound to gain the weight right back?

If, on the other hand, you stand firm in your decision to lose weight, you'd better first learn how to lose weight the right way and what to do following the reduction.

The biggest mistake many people make is trying to simultaneously pursue two separate goals that hardly go well together: losing weight fast and keeping it low long. Some of the countless weight loss diets currently available may help you achieve either one of these goals.

However, the problem is that diets to help you reach both of these goals at the same time simply do not exist. You can either lose weight fast or keep it low longer. Thus, while selecting a diet, you will first need to determine your true reasons. Do you need to maintain your weight low for a number of years - or, preferably, for the rest of your life, or do you simply want to show off your waistline at an upcoming friends' wedding?

Burn fat fast

Obesity presents a fairly common problem, and that's why so many of us are concerned about extra weight. However, fighting obesity is often reduced to fighting extra weight - which it totally wrong! Losing weight does not necessarily mean you are losing fat.

If someone tells you he or she had lost, say, ten pounds, does it mean that person had lost five pounds of extra fat? Not necessarily. Body weight is a total measure that consists of the mass of fat, bones, muscles, internal organs and various bodily fluids...

Why we overeat?

Is there any connection between overeating, excess weight and psychological problems? Apparently, there is.

You must have heard that problems with one of the senses are usually compensated for through increased sensitivity of other senses or organs. For example, persons that had lost their hearing may enjoy particularly acute eyesight or the sense of smell...

Why exercise is important while losing weight?

Everyone knows that bodies are made of organic cells. All organs, and even skeletal bones and teeth are made of cells. Those cells may be living or damaged (dead).

A body that contains no damaged cells may be considered to be in absolute good health. However, this hardly ever happens. Millions of cells die in a body every second, replaced by new ones. What is indicative of the body's health at any given moment is the ratio of living cells to damaged ones...

Learn how to love yourself

Whatever the reason, we are often embarrassed to express good emotions and attitudes. We may enthusiastically pet a dog, scratching it behind the ears, or play with a kitten eagerly, yet when it comes to people everything becomes more complicated. We start rationalizing as to what that person (even if he or she is a loved one) might think or how our show of love might come through to an outside observer. Won't they use our affection against us or think we are crazy?

So we think on and rationalize and then, more likely than not, decide not to express these tender, good feelings of ours...