Submitted by: J Samuel

Whilst it is important to ensure that you re not overweight and equally important to lead a healthy lifestyle, you certainly don t want to get into bad weight loss habits, so deciphering the good advice from the bad is important.

The first thing you should do before starting any form of weight loss programme is to consult your doctor about the method of weight loss you are interested in. Your doctor can give you helpful advice and also perhaps give you a medical check to ensure that any programme you do start doesn t have a negative impact on your health.

The following top-ten methods listed in this article are not suggested methods, instead this article aims to provide you with the information at hand to decide which methods are right for you and which method you should avoid. Weight is a very personal subject and some of the techniques listed in this article are for those people who are classed as morbidly obese and are not necessarily suitable for those who are just a little overweight. Again, getting a professional medical assessment is critical to your long term health and weight loss success.

Discover our top ten ways to loose weight:

1) Start to Exercise More

When you think about how you can loose weight, you generally think of two methods, the first is dieting and the second is exercising. Starting an exercise regime can be daunting for anyone who hasn t been interested in doing sport much. When you re overweight it can be even harder to motivate yourself to start.

Joining a gym can be a good method to motivate you to train, as the cost of the gym membership going out of your bank account on a monthly basis can hurt the wallet if you are simply wasting the money! This can be motivation enough to pack your gym bag. Another reason to join a gym is that they are a good place to get professional advice on exercising. Most mainstream gyms have Personal Trainers who can help and advice you and also design a fitness programme that meets your needs. Generally these fitness programmes are then assessed every few months to check on your progress.

The trick to keeping up any exercise routine is to set yourself realistic goals or challenges so that you will always having something to work towards, also it is important to keep the exercise fun. When training and fitness becomes a chore it is very easy for your subconscious to come up with any number of reasons not to exercise. As soon as you start skipping exercise sessions it becomes much easier not to stick to your plan.

2) Weight Loss Medication

The thought that you can take a pill to help you loose weight sounds fantastic in principle seemingly providing you with a magical solution to your weight problems. However for many people who decide to use weight loss medication the risks and potential side effects can outweigh the benefits.

Without discussing the merits or disadvantages of particular brands it is important to consider that there could be side effects from taking these medications so doing so should only be carried out once medical advice is sort. Although this form of medication is freely available to buy from the Internet it is advisable to only take these medicines if they have been specifically prescribed by a doctor to treat your obesity condition as not only could you waste money on unnecessary medication you could be seriously risking your health.

3) Go on a Diet

The thought of going on a diet horrifies some people, but there normally comes a point when a person decides enough is enough they have to loose weight, therefore they must go on a diet! The question then becomes what diet to choose? There are hundreds if not thousands of different diet plans out on the market some much healthier than others, and some down right dangerous to your health.

No matter what diet you choose to go on there are some fundamental principles that you could consider when trying to loose weight by dieting. Firstly, calories in is offset by calories out. What this means is the fundamental thing controlling your weight is the number of calories that you consume though eating and the number of calories you use by either exercising or going about your daily life.

Typically a woman should consume 2,000 calories a day and a man 2,500 (although these are average figures). By reducing your calorie intake below these figures should, in theory allow you to loose weight. However, there is a something else to consider and that is your metabolism. Basically if you drastically reduce your calorie intake then your body can go into something called starvation mode which effectively slows down weight loss as your body tries to hold on to its fat stores. For someone who is trying to loose weight this obviously defeats to purpose. So the solution is to only reduce your calorie intake enough so that you loose a little weight, for example 1 pound per week is a sensible target which is achievable without starving yourself and more importantly is allows you to subtly change your diet to compensate for this, making it much easier in the long term to maintain the weight loss.

Nutrition is also an important thing to consider when picking a diet. You should aim to eat a healthy, nutritious diet which ultimately is well balanced. A well balanced diet is basically a diet that includes food from the five main food groups (but reducing Fat and Sugar), which are:

Meat, Fish and Alternatives (Eggs, Beans, Pulses)

Bread, Cereals and Potatoes

Fruit and Vegetables

Milk and Diary Produce

Fat and Sugar

Any diet that is rich in fruit or vegetables is likely to be a healthy one. You don t have to skip eating foods with fat and sugar totally. However you should be looking to reduce your intake in this area as we generally eat way too much from this particular food group.

4) Gastric Bands

A gastric band is a bariatric surgical procedure where a band is placed around the top of the stomach making it smaller in size so that the stomach fills up with food quicker than it would under normal circumstances. Gastric band (or Lap Band) surgery is a fairly drastic procedure best suited to those who are classed as obese on the BMI scale. Whilst there are potential complications and risks associated to any surgery the benefits can include a great deal of weight loss in some situations a person can loose up to 60% of their body weight.

For those who are obese and have constantly struggled with their weight loss then gastric band surgery can help. As bariatric surgery is not necessarily the preferred method for all individuals this method should be fully discussed with a professional to get a firm understanding of both the benefits and risks of undertaking gastric band surgery.

5) Gastric Balloons

A gastric balloon is a silicone balloon that is placed inside a person s stomach and filled with saline. This balloon then makes a person feel as though they are full up, making them less inclined to eat, forcing a person to eat smaller portions.

The gastric balloon is inserted into a person s stomach using a fairly simple procedure- basically passing the balloon through the mouth, down the throat and into the stomach. The balloon is then filled and left to float freely in the stomach.

6) Eat Less & Drink More Water

Probably the simplest way to loose weight is to just eat less then you normally eat. Perhaps this means reducing portion size or making slight changes to your diet, such as not having second helpings of your favourite desert, but eating less on a regular basis will help you loose weight.

Substituting certain foods with other foods can help reduce calories and help you to loose weight. For example if you have a ham sandwich with full fat mayonnaise for lunch, substituting the ham for turkey, and full fat mayonnaise for low-fat mayonnaise can save you a lot of calories, whilst not really compromising the taste of your lunch!

7) Go for a walk

If you hate dieting and also hate the thought of having to go to the gym then you could consider going for a walk on a regular basis. Depending how much you weight and how fast you walk, you could burn off around 100 calories per mile that you walk. This may not sound like much but an hour a days walking could help you burn an additional 700 calories a week or the equivalent of a normal sized meal!

8) Hypnosis

Hypnosis is a state of concentration and relaxation where a patient enters an enhanced state of awareness allowing a hypnotherapist to suggest ideas and lifestyle changes to the patient. Basically hypnosis aims to re-programme patterns of behaviour within the mind.

Basically hypnosis can help you loose weight by allowing you to develop a new self image whilst also teaching you to be more relaxed about your weight loss (stress can lead to comfort eating).

You can find a hypnotherapist who can treat you directly or you can even find hypnotherapy CD s and programmes online that are much cheaper than visiting a consultant.

9) Psychological Triggers

As fully committed to a diet or exercise plan that you are, sometimes your mind can get the better of you. It s natural to think that when you re on a diet you are somehow depriving yourself and making a sacrifice. These psychological sacrifices can be difficult to maintain on a constant basis. Perhaps you ve had a bad day and your will power is wavering. Therefore it is a good idea to implement some psychological techniques to help you make positive diet and exercise choices. There following tips can help you loose weight whilst bolstering your weight loss intentions:

Use smaller plates- putting your food onto a smaller plate tricks your brain into thinking you re eating a bigger portion

Don t feeling like exercising? Tell yourself to change into your gym clothes first and then decided. Sometimes once you re changed you feel much more ready to exercise.

Don t cut out everything you love from your diet. Love chocolate? Try eating a couple of pieces once or twice a week as a treat instead of a bar a night! You ll soon come to appreciate the smaller piece more and you ll feel better if you start to loose some weight!

Remember there are many ways you can loose weight and by using psychological techniques this gives you another method to employ from your weight-loss arsenal.

10) Get a Tummy Tuck

For some people it can be almost impossible to loose excess weight in certain areas. For those who have already lost a great deal or weight or have had a baby it is possible to have a lot of loose skin around the abdomen area. This loose skin can be difficult to shift through traditional dieting or exercising. In these instances the cosmetic surgery procedure called abdominoplasty or tummy tuck could be used.

A tummy tuck is a cosmetic surgery procedure that is implemented to help make the abdomen area much firmer. When excess skin and fat from the abdomen area is removed this tightens the muscle of the abdominal wall.

As with all cosmetic surgery treatments a consultation with a profession is the best way of understanding what the procedure involves, what the risks are and how the surgery can benefit you.

About the Author: Julie Samuel is an euthastic mountain bike rider, she is a strong advocate for healthly living and exercise, even if it means undertaking a weight loss procedure such as a

tummy tuck

.

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