Page 1 of 2

Most of us know what we should be doing to acheve our goals but we lack the motivation or willpower to stick at it. If you are like me, when you start on a loose weight or get fit plan, you jump in at the deep end and over do everything. Sure, sometimes you last from one to three weeks, by then the initial motivation has gone and that's when we give up. The first mistake we made was going at everything too fast. If you have to change your eating habits, don't make drastic changes at the beginning. Start by only making a few changes to your eating habits and as you go along keep making more small changes to your diet, do it all slowly. It is the same with exercising. Start at the shallow end, not the deep end. I'm sure you have experienced some soreness, 24 to 48 hours after you have done a workout. Why were you sore? Because you over did it (as usual). Remember the story "The Hare And The Tortoise"? Well, the same moral applies here: Slow and steady wins the race.

It takes a long time to change old habits. It's HARD work, and you can't expect all the results you want at once. But please, you must give yourself time for the benefits of regular exercising and healthy eating to start to take effect. After all, it has probably taken you years to get "out of shape", so you can't expect to get "in shape" in a matter of weeks or even months. But I can make you one promise. If you stick to a good routine of healthy eating and regular exercise, you will see some good results in as little as three months.

EXERCISING

Remember there is no such thing as "spot reducing." If you want to loose fat you must do aerobic types of activities that burn the fat stores from all over your body. But in addition to burning up fat you should be building up and toning muscle tissue. Muscles are an important factor in weight loss. Muscle tissue is an active tissue which metabolizes almost 90 percent of the calories we consume. In addition, muscle tissue continues to burn calories even after you've stoped exercising.

Fat, on the other hand, is an inactive tissue. It burns few calories, in other words, the more fat you burn up through aerobic exercise and the more muscles you develop through repeated movements of isolated muscle groups, the more you will metabolized (burn up) the calories you consume.

Most diets are actually counter-productive. They slow down your metabolism and reduce muscle tissue. When you go off the diet (I've never known anyone who could stick to one) it's mainly fat you're putting on, not muscle, so you're worse off than when you started.

A great bonus of exercise is that it reduces your appetite. When your blood-sugar level drops, you feel hungry. If you exercise regularly, your blood-sugar level remains stable and there will be less insulin in your blood because your muscles use proportionately more fat than sugar as fuel. Insulin is what causes the blood-sugar level to drop precipitously, thereby making you feel hungry.

A proper exercise program must include:

Aerobics--for cardiovascular fitness and to burn calories.
Weight Training--to promote muscle tone and strength, and to burn calories.
Stretching--for increased flexibility.

You should exercise at least three times a week, but you will lose weight much faster by doing your exercises four or five times a week. Forty-five to sixty minutes a day is ideal but twenty minutes is better than nothing. Never weight train using the same muscles two days in a row. You need to give yourself 48 hours for your muscles to repair and rebuild themselves.

If you have not been able to resist your favorite dessert or extra piece of bread, don't feel guilty. Everybody needs to binge now and then and being guilty about it will only make you more anxious and more apt to continue on a binge. Instead, to cover your binge, just work out more strenuously the next day and you'll burn off the extra calories.

Never go for rapid weight loss. Your body will rebel sooner or later and you'll just put the kilos back on--faster. Instead, cut down a little on the amount you eat (say, 500 calories a day) especially salt, fat and sugar, and increase your exercising. With this method your weight loss will be slow, but slow and steady.....you know the rest. You will be losing fat, increasing muscle and developing a metabolism that, in time, will allow you to eat more without gaining weight.

BASIC EATING ADVICE

1. Eat only when you are really hungry. (I don't mean starve yourself. Just be sure you are hungry.)
2. Enjoy your food when you eat it. Never rush a meal.
3. Don't eat absent-mindedly, or out of boredom.
4. Chew well so that the digestive enzymes can begin their work before the food reaches the stomach.

WATER

Drink more water, but you must continue to avoid salt, since salt will cause you to retain fluid. Water is the best natural diuretic there is. It will flush out your system, improve your skin and overall health. Six to eight glasses daily is what you should aim for.

SUGAR

Take sugar off your grocery list, brown sugar too. Besides being devoid of nutrients, sugar also causes tooth decay, obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Alcohol is extremely high in sugar. If you have problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease, you shouldn't drink any alcohol.
If you need a sweetener, use honey, pure maple syrup and apple juice are healthy replacements for sugar.