Top Reasons Why You Are Overweight

By Ken Black

Weight loss is one of the most important obsessions in American society today. People are constantly searching for a new way to lose weight as fast as possible. Whether you want to fit into that gorgeous dress for your date on Friday night, or you want to get in shape for the upcoming golf season, there are a number of ways that you can lose weight safely and effectively.

But, the problem these days is that most people take diets and weight loss too seriously. Being too serious about anything can lead to disappointment and frustration when things do not work out exactly as you planned. So, if you want to shed some pounds, have a plan indeed, but don't punish yourself if you fail and need to start again.

To help you, here is a light hearted look at some of the common reasons why you might be overweight.

Starting from the least to most important:

#10. Your Grandmother keeps making you cookies and you feel guilty if you don't eat them.

#9. Your spouse makes fun of you when you eat Tofu, so you eat Twinkies instead.

#8. Your co-workers keep saying you look great, so why spoil it!

#7. Tried Hypnosis, but when you go for a walk you have to stop at every fire hydrant.

#6. Your Gym shorts don't fit anymore.

#5. Too embarrassed to admit you don't know what the word Nautilus means.

#4. Exercise makes you lose your breath - better to relax and smoke instead.

#3. Can't get off the couch – too hooked on Deal or No Deal.

#2. Wife threatened to leave you if you didn't lose 20 pounds.

And the number one reason why you are overweight is ...

#1. You're in training to get on NBCs - The Biggest Loser TV Show !

But, seriously, if you need to lose weight, make it fun and not a life sentence. It's not that hard if you take it one small step at a time. Here are a few tips to get you started:

-Eat lots of smaller meals throughout the day. If your usual day revolves around three meals, you should try to change this to five smaller meals during the day. This will help you to take in fewer calories during the day at any given time and will help to stimulate your metabolism and burn off the calories you actually consume.

-Exercise for at least twenty minutes 5 out of seven days a week or more. But, make it fun – go for a walk, go skating, play some golf, go cycling, swimming, jogging, or whatever you enjoy. The more you do this, the more calories you will burn and the better your chances of success.

-Cut your carbohydrate consumption as much as possible. Eat more proteins instead (eggs, milk, lean meat, chicken and so on) and you'll have more sustained energy throughout the day, will feel better and you will lose more inches over time.

More importantly, talk with your doctor about your, hopefully, healthy weight loss goals and ideas and get their approval first before embarking on any exercise or diet program. Before you know it, you will start feeling more energetic, positive and more alive than ever before.

Ken Black is the founder of Weight Loss Discovery, a website all about Healthy Weight Loss.

Losing Belly Fat - Fact and Fiction

By D.G. Gordon

You may not like this, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Somewhere, sometime, you have probably been lied to about the effectiveness of spot-training when it comes to fat loss, and to losing belly fat in particular. If you’re currently under the impression that crunches and sit-ups will aid you in losing belly fat, you are a ‘victim’ of this persistent fabrication.

Unfortunately, losing belly fat (and hip fat, and thigh fat) is not quite that easy.

Crunches, sit-ups, and others like these are resistance exercises. They build the muscle underneath the belly fat, but won’t lead to actually losing the belly fat and make that firmer muscle visible. This does not mean that such resistance training is useless; building up the muscle underneath the belly fat helps to boost your metabolism. Losing the belly fat itself, though, requires aerobic exercise.

Because of the mechanics of fat loss, you may eventually begin losing belly fat if you were willing to consistently do crunches for 35 minutes straight, 5 days a week, but otherwise you are better off sticking to less excruciatingly painful aerobic exercise and performing it for 30 – 45 minute periods.

Why? Because the way fat loss works is that:

You can not choose where to reduce the fat on your body. Where the fat burns from first (as a result of exercise) is determined by your genetics. The first place the fat is going to deposit is genetically determined, and it will also be the last place you will lose it. Losing belly fat means you must get involved in exercise, while also exercising your patience.

During exercise the first thing burned for energy is glycogen (carbohydrate stores). Fat begins to burn only after these stores are depleted, which begins roughly 15 – 20 minutes into an aerobic workout of adequate intensity. This is why the process of losing belly fat, or burning fat from anywhere, must include consistent and persistent aerobic activity.

If you’re a female, you may notice your particular trouble spots as being in the thighs, hips, and arms. If you’re a male, you’re most likely having problems in the areas of the belly and the ‘love handles’ (sides of the waist). Belly fat is very common in males, especially at a certain age, and even if they have quick metabolism and an ectomorph frame.

So, now that you know that doing only 1 type of exercise for 10 minutes a day and eating whatever you like is not going to help you in losing belly fat, are you willing to do what it does take?

If so, losing belly fat can be achieved through:

- A schedule of aerobic exercise at least 3 days a week, in at least 30 minute installments;

- A schedule of weight training at least 2 days a week, in at least 20 minute installments;

- A reduced-calorie diet that includes adequate amounts of complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, and unsaturated fats;

- Consuming about 15 – 20% fewer calories than you do right now to maintain your present weight;

- Devising a written plan that keeps you from veering off course or losing interest in losing your belly fat altogether like the vast majority do.

Finally, the most important component is the ability to persevere through the frustration that may arise as you find that time (and patience within it) is an essential element to losing belly fat and fat in other stubborn places - the belly and hips being the most common.

The first thing to do is to take at least 1 step immediately to prove your commitment to yourself. Shopping for less fattening foods, getting a gym membership, even buying a notepad to write out specific plans are all good first steps. Procrastination breeds only more procrastination, and losing belly fat is too big a challenge to meet with puny motivation and action.

I learn from the very best - the most successful 'fat-burners' who win the battle over failure and self-hatred to lose all those unwanted pounds of body fat...

What methods do they use to completely change their lives and make themselves happy and healthy beyond their wildest dreams?

Find out their winning techniques when you sign up for a free e-course at http://www.fatlossletters.com.

Tips for Losing Weight Fast - Burn the Fat or Eat the Muscle?

By D.G. Gordon

This article is called ‘tips for losing weight fast’ because I would like to draw your attention to some points about a couple of weight-loss concepts that you may not know.

The first point is that losing weight fast can be done. Many have done it, particularly on low-carb diets like Atkins where ketosis (when your body converts fats to energy) is involved. Losing weight fast can also occur by engaging in near-starvation techniques.

The problem with such ‘losing weight fast’ techniques is that most of the weight you’re losing is muscle. This is particularly bad in the long run because greater muscle means a faster metabolism, which allows you to burn more calories while at rest. Losing weight fast without sacrificing muscle is simply not realistic.

The ketosis stage of low-carb diets appeals mightily to the ‘losing weight fast’ mentality, but has also been described as the greatest weight-loss marketing tool. This is because when you engage in it for a couple of weeks you may find yourself losing weight fast during that time, which allows you to think that you are participating in some kind of miracle diet. Despite the fact that you can’t sustain these kinds of losses, this initial weight loss stimulates positive word-of-mouth. Note as well that ketosis is only a single phase of a low-carb diet because if you engage in it for too long it can lead to serious kidney and liver damage – a considerable sacrifice to make in trying to lose weight fast when you can have sustainable weight loss and a healthy body instead.

So, the first distinction to be made is between weight loss and fat loss. If you starve yourself for a few weeks, the number on the scale will probably make you happy. What the scale is not telling you is that you are losing a great deal of muscle, which is a really bad situation for you if you seek the long-term weight loss that has to do with burning fat – and keeping it off.

What I offer to you in this article is not a recommendation to starve yourself or engage in ketosis, even though if you followed this advice you would think well of me for a couple of weeks when you got on the scale (before cursing me intensely later on when you gained it all back).

What I do offer is some tips on healthy methods you can use to lose as much fat weight as possible in as short a time as possible. Losing weight fast does little good if it’s not fat, and this is an important distinction. Losing weight for healthy fat loss means a maximum of a few pounds per week, while setting up habits that will allow you to continue to lose rather than short-term ecstasy followed by another bout of frustration and depression.

If you’re willing to commit to it, here are some tips concerning what you can do to look and feel markedly better in the next couple of months:

Whip your calorie-burning mechanism.

This means speed up your metabolism, and the best way to do that is to get your body accustomed to burning calories quickly by feeding it frequently. You will get great results with 6 small meals a day, and if you decide – for example - that you are going to take in 1800 calories a day, then you’re looking at small portions of 300 calories each meal. Note that you should not be taking in less than 1200 calories per day since you increase your risk of depleting muscle as you get lower in this range.

Don’t just eat frequently, eat well.

Obviously, if you need to lose weight quickly you know that you need to limit your amount of fat intake, particularly the saturated fats found in foods like ice cream, cookies, chocolate and fatty parts of the cow and the pig (steak, hamburgers, bacon, ham, etc). You will want to replace them with lean proteins (fish, chicken, turkey, etc), complex carbohydrates (whole grain bread, oatmeal, potatoes, green vegetables) and unsaturated fats (fish, avocados, nuts). Your carbohydrates should comprise about 50% of your diet, proteins should be around 30%, and fats should be 20% or less.

Sweat it out.

Aerobic exercise (meaning that which maintains an elevated heart rate) is crucial to fat loss, and if you need to lose the fat faster then you will need to do it more often than average. This means 6 or even 7 days of the week, for 45 minutes or so each day. The best aerobic exercises include cycling (without stopping), jogging, or using equipment like an elliptical machine, a stairclimber, a rowing machine, or a cross-country ski machine.

Burn more calories while sleeping.

The way to do this is to build more muscle, so you’re going to want to do some weight training. Doing workouts 3 or 4 days a week, 30 minutes each day will increase your lean body mass and charge your metabolism even further. This means more calories burned and more fat loss, particularly in the long term.

If you think that this sounds like too much work, I urge you to ignore these tips and try the low-carb/starvation alternatives mentioned above. You presumably won’t be too surprised when you join the millions who have adopted the ‘losing weight fast’ mindset and temporarily lightened the burden on their scales, only to return shortly to the exact place they started at.

I learn from the very best - the most successful 'fat-burners' who win the battle over failure and self-hatred to lose all those unwanted pounds of body fat...

What methods do they use to change their lives and make themselves confident and healthy beyond their wildest dreams?

Find out their winning techniques when you sign up for a free e-course at http://www.fatlossletters.com.