The Slim Habit Blog

Healthy weight loss is a major topic of discussion and with good reason. During the past 20 years, the number of people classified as overweight or obese has more than tripled. These frightening statistics show how important it is that people are educated on healthy weight loss.

The media is full of advertisements for crash diets and meal substitutes. However, experts say that the key to healthy weight loss is eating the right foods and taking regular exercise. Moreover, many suggest that crash diets can actually lead to weight gain in the long run. Healthy weight loss is about lifestyle changes. This means making a permanent change to the way you eat and exercise. Many people find rigid diet plans difficult to stick to leading to a yo-yo effect on their weight – constantly losing it and then putting it back on. Healthy weight loss needn’t be like this.

The main principles of healthy weight loss are:

* Eat a balanced diet: Ensure your diet includes all the major food groups and concentrate on eating fewer foods high in fat, sugar and salt. You should also increase your uptake of fruit, vegetables and healthy grains. By filling your plate up with lots of vegetables, you’ll find you still feel full but lose weight!

* Exercise, exercise, exercise! This doesn’t have to mean running or joining a gym. Walking for thirty minutes 3 times a week will help make you fitter and can lead to healthy weight loss. Find something you enjoy and you’ll be more likely to stick to it. Swimming, cycling, horse-riding, walking and keep-fit classes are some examples of great weight loss exercises.

* Drink more water! Many people mistake thirst for hunger, and increasing your uptake of water can help prevent this. Water is great as it helps flush out the toxins in your body and keeps your skin hydrated. Drinking 8 glasses of water a day can help towards achieving healthy weight loss.

* Changing the way you think about food. Many people eat for the wrong reasons, and this is why they gain weight. When you eat, think about your reasons, are you really hungry? Many people find they reach for ‘comfort foods’ when they are stressed, tired or bored. By becoming more aware of these patterns you can help break the cycle, and instead of reaching for chocolate try going for a walk or something else to distract yourself.

* Speak to a professional! If you feel you need to lose a large amount of weight or are unsure about the right plan for you, contact your doctor. Your weight is affected by more than just food, many health conditions can lead to a change in weight. Therefore, it is worth getting checked out and taking their advice on the best eating and exercise plan for you.

* Be patient! Healthy weight loss is not achieved overnight and should be a gradual process. Stick with your new changes and you shou ld notice a gradual but permanent change in the way you look and feel.

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Losing weight is something everyone aims at doing nowadays. Not only the obese, but also slim people work at losing weight so that they can maintain their trim figure. Though weight loss is easy for the slim, the obese prefer, and need some means of rapid weight loss to lose weight quickly, without doing any harm to their body.

The first thing to do for rapid weight loss is to aim at increasing your body metabolism. The metabolic rate of the body determines the rate at which your body burns caloreis while doing some activity or exercise. It is possible to increase the body metabolism by eating a good breakfast in the morning.

Don’t skip breakfast to lose weight

Many people tend to skip breakfast to lose weight; however by doing this you only slow down your body metabolism and thus reduce weight loss. Eating more meals, say 5 small meals per day also helps in inducing rapid weight loss in the body. Some foods are also helpful in increasing the body metabolic weight like salmon, eggs and tuna.

The next step to rapid weight loss is to check out your diet. Calculate the total number of caloreis you consume a day. This is done because to lose weight, you actually need to go on a negative calorie diet where you consume less caloreis than you burn. So when you increase your body metabolism, and reduce your calorie consumption, you find it possible to induce rapid weight loss.

Regular exercise for rapid weight loss

It is generally better to reduce your calorie consumption by 500 calories. However in the process, ensure that you don’t deprive your body of its necessary minerals and vitamins. There is no point in losing weight, and making your body weak in the process. To help you ensure that your body gets its required amount of vitamins and minerals you may consider taking some good weight loss supplements on a daily basis.

Besides paying attention to your diet, it is important that you adopt a regular exercise routine for rapid weight loss. If you have not been doing much exercise recently, it is not advised to start with strenuous exercises like running or weight lifting. The best exercise option would be to start with walking for about 20 – 30 minutes, and then gracefully increasing.

Drink eight glasses of water per day

However if you are an active person, you will have to intensify your workout and perhaps do more of strength training and cardio exercises to induce rapid weight loss. An import point to remember with rapid weight loss is to ensure that you drink as much water as possible.

It is with water that your body stays hydrated, your metabolism regular and you tend to feel full. This way, you don’t have ego eat too much, too often. Drink at least eight glasses of water per day for rapid weight loss.

So remember that rapid weight loss is possible with the right ethnics and techniques that ensure that you not only lose weight, but lose it safely and effectively.

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The reason many people start running is because they want to lose weight fast. Running is an excellent cardiovascular activity because you can burn as much as 300 calories when you run for 30 minutes. A simple formula to calculate how much calories you burn after your running session is to multiply your distance in kilometer with your weight in kilogram with 1.04. For example if you weight 80 kilograms and you run 2 kilometers, then your calories burned are:

80kg x 2km x 1.04 = 166.4 calories burned

So if you wish to burn more calories, then increase your running distance. If your running for weight loss is increased by another kilometer to 3 kilometer then your calories burned would be a whopping 249.6.

However, running alone does not help you lose weight if you do not burn enough calories or more than whatever you consume. So it is of utmost importance that you watch your diet and your calorie intake for the day. By running everyday does not grant you the license to eat whatever you want. Eat all you want and you are no longer running for weight loss. Get a healthy diet. Get a combination of high fat foods and high calorie foods but do not overeat. A small portion per meal is good and eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Before you start running for weight loss, it is best that you visit your physician prior to your running program. This is very important if you are having health problems, overweight or you are a beginner. If you are a beginner it is best that you start off with brisk walking for 30 minutes for the first week. Then if you think that your body is ready, you can start with you running program but start slowly. It is not advisable for you to start fast and far. Start with a running and walk program. You know, run a little then walk.

At any point of time when you are running your body begins to endure pain, it is advisable that you stop running and just walk. If your body is in pain, then listen to your body and stop running. Remember that you are running for weight loss, not running for pain.

To help increase your metabolism when you are running for weight loss, you should drink a lot of water. Drink a glass of warm water before running and drink plenty of water after running and for the rest of the day. Drinking a glass of warm water before running will help your body to burn more calories.

Doing regular running will help you burn more calories and more body fat. You are not going to lose weight just by running for one day. You have to run regularly and persistently. In a week you run for 6 days and 1 day for you to take a break or do some weight lifting. To boost your metabolism and burn your calories even after you stop running, you should do 40 minutes of running. The effect is said to last for a minimum of 19 hours after you have stopped running.

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When people give up the booze, it’s quite common for them to have a very good, long hard look at their lives and in particular their weight. Success begets success. If you’ve managed something as major as kicking the booze habit, then anything is possible. You can now move on and translate your success into losing weight…why not! What you need to do now is to find the best way to lose weight.

Once you have given up alcohol you are going to find it much easier to lose weight. Why? because drinking alcohol doesn’t make you fat, but it prevents you from burning your stored energy. If you’re trying to lose weight, it’s this energy that’s been stored as fat that you need to get rid of.

Whenever you have an alcoholic drink, the body doesn’t know what to do with the energy in the alcohol because it’s not carbohydrate and cannot be stored. Because it can’t store it, it converts it into acetate. This acetate stays in the blood stream and is used in preference to your stored energy. The more you drink the less need your body has to use the energy stored as fat. The fatter you are likely to become.

Okay, having got rid of something that was preventing you lose weight, you can now start to get down to getting rid of the excess energy that has been stored as fat.

Please remember that the best way to do this is not to go on a diet, but to do what you have just done with alcohol. You get rid of the bad habits that have made you fat. First you need to recognize what these bad habits are. This means sharpening your awareness. Next you need to learn new habits, slim habits. By doing this you will be able to make change. Change is the only sure way to achieve permanent weight loss. Having succeeded with the booze you can succeed in losing weight too. Life is going to be good!

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So you’ve decided to give up the booze and you want to lose weight, start by giving yourself a pat on the back. Well done you! Just don’t celebrate with a drink! If you’ve got a weight problem giving up alcohol is a very sensible thing to do and it will help your weight loss efforts significantly. Now you need some weight loss tips.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of nonsense talked about alcohol and weight. ‘Alcohol makes you fat’ is the most common statement. It’s not true. Alcohol does not make you fat. To put it in a better way, ‘alcohol prevents you from losing weight’.

The reality is that alcohol contains no carbohydrates (except for exceptionally sweet drinks). Having no carbohydrates, the body cannot store the energy from the alcohol you consume. Alcohol gives your body a problem. What your body does is to convert the energy (calories) from the alcohol you consume into acetate. This acetate stays in the blood stream and is not absorbed.

What does your body do? Faced with the situation of all this excess energy, your body then burns off the acetate in your system as quickly as it can. It uses acetate energy in preference, and instead of the energy you have already stored. It’s not difficult to see that if you drink a lot of alcohol your body is not going to be burning the fat, it’s going to be burning the acetate. Over time the fat builds up. This how you get fat – particularly if on top of that you are eating the wrong type of food.

Something you need to remember. If you want to lose weight don’t go on a diet. If you do, the weight you lose will come back again. What you need to do is to learn new habits, slim habits, if you are going to lose weight and keep it off.

Now that you have given up the bad habit of drinking, now you need to identify any other bad habits that make you fat and learn new slim habits. By making change you will be able to lose weight permanently. You have shown great resolve in giving up alcohol, now translate this success to losing weight. You can do it!

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If you decide to slim down it’s always a good idea to have a good think about how you are going to go about it. Gathering as many weight loss tips as you can is a good place to start. Also, have a good look at some of the medical and health news websites because they have some very interesting information which you will find useful. It might take you a bit longer, but you will be much better informed and better able to make an informed decision.

It’s not always easy to take an informed decision. It can be difficult because we are all bombarded by lots of advertisements about weight loss programs, pills and potions that promise the earth. They are all very convincing, but you do need to have a good look around.

For example there has been a report produced by the Harvard School of Public Health recently into the effectiveness of the different types of diet that are on the market. They looked at all of them over a period of two years and over 800 people were involved in the trial.

The study discovered was that it really didn’t matter which diet you went on, Atkins, low carb, low fat, Zone the results would be very much the same…and the results? They found that weight loss was slight and that the weight came back again in a relatively short period of time. There was no winner among the diets tested.

In reality what this report says is absolutely damning as far as diets are concerned, and this comes on top of the UCLA study that essentially said that diets didn’t deliver permanent weight loss. If you had come across this when you were finding out more about how to slim down, you might have been a little confused as to what you should do.

However, there is an answer. If you want to lose weight permanently you have to get rid of the habits that make you fat and learn new habits, slim habits. These slim habits are the key to a slim, diet free life.

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Is there such a thing as a secret of permanent weight loss? It’s not so much a secret, more an unrecognized truth. Today we spend billions of dollars on diets, weight loss pills, potions and plans, but the obesity problem that the world has never seems to get any better – in fact it is getting worse. What does it all mean?

The reality is that diets provide a sop for those who think that they need to do something about their weight. A few months of denial will get them back on the straight and narrow. Soon all the weight will be gone. It is very rarely the case.

Unfortunately, diets actually help you to put on weight. How? Because each time you finish a diet you put the weight back on again. The failure rate of diets in terms of permanent weight loss is in excess of 95%. It’s an astonishing figure. Despite this, people keep buying diets. No wonder, because there is little else. Pills deliver the same short-term weight loss as diets. You can’t keep taking pills and you can’t keep on the same diet. It all has to come to an end. The result is always the same – the weight comes back again. It’s one never ending circle of diets.

The fact is that no matter which type of diet you choose, be it low carb or low fat or even Atkins or Zone, the results will be the same. The type of diet doesn’t matter that much. This information comes from a very recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health.

The real truth about permanent weight loss is that it only ever comes from making change. Change is the catalyst, change is the key. If you don’t make change you will never lose weight permanently. How do you make change? You learn new habits, slim habits. This enables you to get rid of the bad habits that made you overweight in the first place.

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Unfortunately it’s a fact that being overweight or obese has a very profound effect on your life. This sometimes doesn’t become apparent until your weight reaches a point where it starts to make life more difficult. The reaction of a lot of people is to go into denial. They put all the bad things associated with their weight problem to the back of their mind. They just don’t want to know – period. If they want to create a new life, they ahve to find the best way to lose weight.

Usually the life that they have created has come about because they have not paid proper attention to the most important thing in their lives – themselves. Lots of delicious, high calorie food and little exercise are difficult to say ‘no’ to: the consequences of the lack of proper attention soon becomes apparent.

An overweight life is something most people don’t plan. It’s not something they want. It just happens. What is often not understood is that it changes so much. Their daily existence changes to accommodate their overweight state. It happens imperceptibly. They adopt a completely different way of dealing with life. They find ways of compensating for their shortcomings.

What’s the best way to break out? Breaking out can be difficult. A whole host of bad habits have been accumulated and these have to be recognised and new habits, slim habits learned. Yes, the way to create a new life, one that is free from diets, and one that will enable you to achieve permanent weight loss, is to make change by learning new habits.

It is enormously helpful to know what the bad habits are that have made you fat. Being aware of these habits makes identifying what you have to change much easier. It is making change that will transform your life and allow you to break free from a life which is constrained by being overweight. Once you make the essential changes to your eating and lifestyle habits by learning new habits you will be able to begin a new life and experience freedom from fat. A great thought!

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For people who are overweight or obese, permanent weight loss is something that you want more than anything else. It’s not much fun carrying around a lot of weight, is it? In your dreams you imagine what it might be like to be slim and to be able to do what everybody else does. It seems such a far off aspiration sometimes, but it is possible to achieve permanent weight loss. It is possible to get rid of all those unwanted pounds.

It’s not often that you will hear Permanent weight loss being trumpeted around by those selling diets, diet pills or diet potions. There’s a very simple reason for this. Diets don’t deliver permanent weight loss. If you want short-term weight loss, then that’s fine…but who wants that?

It’s a fact that we live in a world where instant gratification is seen as a right. Whatever you want you can have – within reason. Food has become a means of achieving this. The result is that we have over-indulged, and the evidence of our bad habits is what we carry round our middle.

Permanent weight loss is not about going on a diet, it is about making change. Most people go on a diet and never address what made them overweight in the first place. They don’t change anything. The result is that they will always be overweight – regardless how many diets they go on. In fact the more diets they go on, the more fat they will accumulate!

If you want to make successful change you need to increase your self-awareness. In other words start to notice your bad habits. These bad habits are what make you fat. Get rid of them and learn new habits, new slim habits, and permanent weight loss is possible. Once you have committed to make change you have the possibility of opening up a whole new life: a new slim life, one that is free from diets.

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If someone said weight is all in the mind, what would you say? Yes, the fact that you might be overweight or obese is all in the mind. Does that seem crazy to you? What on earth can it mean anyway? How can weight have anything to do with the mind? Surely it’s just about food and exercise? Or is it? How can the best way to lose weight have anything to do with the mind?

Foe many, many years it was common belief that the mind and the body were separate. The brain was all powerful. The body the brain’s servant, if you like. Gradually over time this myth has been dispelled as scientific knowledge has increased. We now know that the mind and body are as one. Both need each other to make our whole being function properly. Intelligence is passed to the brain and the brain passes back information.

Interestingly, people say that the body has its own intelligence. It reacts to stimulation and to what is happening to it. It has an inbuilt survival mechanism and passes information to the brain when it needs action to be taken

Here are some examples: When we don’t get enough sleep the body interprets this as an energy deficiency and releases a hormone from the stomach called ghrelin which prompts the brain to make us feel hungry.

What happens when we go on a diet is that we reduce our calorie intake too drastically, the body automatically stores all the energy it can because it believes that there might be a shortage of food. At the same time it sends a message to the brain to make us feel hungry so that we double our efforts to find food.  

If we want to lose weight, it helps if we know why things happen. Losing weight successfully and permanently is all about habits. Habits are useful because they allow us to do things without thinking too much, which leaves the brain to get on with more important things. Over time we develop bad habits. To get rid of these bad habits we have to learn new habits, slim habits. When your eating and lifestyle habits are slim habits, your brain and your body will work together, free from the distortions of bad habits, and you will be able to lose weight permanently.

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