Hoodia Gordonii has actually been around for quite some time, but was only recently discovered to be an appetite suppressant. According to many reports, including some from well known media, it can make you feel full faster and stay full longer because of it’s apparent ability to stave off hunger.

The Bushmen of the Kalahari deserts have been eating Hoodia for quite some time now, and have been familiar with its thirst and hunger quenching abilities. That’s why, when using hoodia it is important to have adequate hydration on top of a healthy diet. Even though hoodia is natural and may be able to work on its own to help safely curb your appetite, it is essential that you incorporate it into a healthy lifestyle. Allowing it to starve you is not healthy, so remember that.

Speaking with your doctor is essential in assuring you do not get in over your head. As with any weight loss product, your doctor should know what you are taking and how you plan to use Hoodia in your life. While it is not known to cause any unpleasant side effects, it’s not for certain how it will react with any prescription medications you could be taking. For safety reasons, let your physician know you plan on taking Hoodia and they may be able to help devise a diet and exercise plan that will work with the supplement to ensure maximum weight loss potential.

Although this supplement is being toted by many as the newest weight loss miracle, do not let the hype get to you. It is unrealistic to expect a diet pill to do all the work for you and put simply, it will not.

Diet pills like Hoodia Gordonii, Phentermine, Bontril, Adipex, or others, can help you reach your weight loss goals by supressing your appetite, but that’s only part of the solution to keeping the weight off forever. If you want to lose weight and maintain your health, you have to be willing to change your eating habits and exercise.

Eat foods daily that are good for you like :

-Fruits and vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables.
-Lean chicken.
-Fish like Haddock, Cod, or Salmon, that is low in fat and has Omega-3 fatty acids that are good for your heart.
-Replace peanut butter with almond butter or cashew butter.
-Replace white bread with multigrain, rye, or spelt bread.
-Stay away from sugar. Use honey instead. Stay away from artifical sweetners.
-If you must eat deserts, eat low sugar yogurt or plain yogurt mixed with fresh fruit. Or go to a specialty bakery or health food store and buy desserts made without sugar and without preservatives.
-Stay away from caffeine that is in coffee and tea as much as possible. If you suffer from fatique, headaches, or anxiety all the time, this may be part of the reason. Try decafeinated brands instead.
-Reduce your salt consumption. Use No Salt or Half Salt products instead.
-Eat nuts without oil added to them, like pure almonds, cashews and so on, but not that much. They do have a high calorie content.
-Stay away from packaged products, including TV dinners, that are loaded with chemicals and sodium.

*Note: If you are allergic to any of the above, check with your physician for advice.

Exercise :

-Walk at least 20 minutes straight, 3-5 times per week.
-Lift light weights if you can and your doctor approves. A good gym is the best for this because they can put you on a good workout schedule. Strengthening your muscles will help you burn fat faster and will make you feel better.
-Start out slow and build from there.

You’ll succeed and lose the weight you want over time if you follow some or all of these guidelines. Depending on how much you are overweight now, most doctors advise losing no more than 4 pounds a month. You should be able to do that easily.

If you are prone to eating binges, or you have a sweet tooth, or you find that cutting down on how much you eat is too tough, you should consider an appetite suppressant like Hoodia Gordonii or similar, at least for the first few months you’re trying to lose weight. Only taking what is suggested on the bottle or even less at first to see how it affects you. Ask your doctor for guidance if needed.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you can accomplish when you set your mind to it and realize you are not on a diet, but you’re changing your lifestyle for the better.

So how do you burn fat 24 hrs a day? Here are some simple steps to lose fat 24 hrs a day.

• Build muscles. Muscles are active cells and they are great calorie burners. The more muscles you pack on, the more body fat you will burn because the calories you have eaten will be burned for energy by your muscles.

• Do your cardio exercises in the morning before breakfast. Make sure that your cardio exercises raise your heart rate sufficiently to burn more fat. The exercises must be intensive and will leave you puffing, panting and sweating. This is to make sure that you will continue to burn calories hours after you stopped your cardio exercises.

Do your cardio exercise 5-6 days a week. On top of that, because your carbohydrate store is low in the morning, your body will burn more body fat to fuel your cardio exercises.

• Eat 5-6 times a day with about 3 hrs intervals. Make the meals small consisting protein and complex carbohydrate. Complex carbs are carbs that are more difficult to digest so that they do not spike insulin quickly to be converted into body fat. So instead of eating white rice, eat brown rice. Instead of having white bread, substitute it with brown bread instead. Have plenty of fresh leafy fibrous vegetables.

The frequency of meals will tell your body that there is plenty of food and so your body need not store body fat for emergencies. On top of that, your digestive system will be constantly working to digest the food and so that means burning of calories.

• Do weight training 3 times a week with rest days in between. Do your weight workout in the evenings so that you will continue to burn fat. Workout with compound exercises such as bench presses, squats, lunges, dead lifts etc to activate more muscle fibers and so that these large muscles will carry on burning calories for many more hours into the night.

• Take slow release protein supplement before bed such as casein protein. This is to feed your body throughout the night and help your muscles to recover from the day’s activities and at the same because casein protein is slow to digest so will not turn to fat easily and thus your body will continue burning calories even when you are asleep.

So with a combination of all these activities, you will be burning body fat almost 24 hrs a day. Simple? Great. Let’s start to lose weight by burning body fat round the clock now.

There are an increasing number of people who take on the process of low carb eating believing that it will help them for their weight loss.

However, there is still an existing and hottest question when dealing with low carb eating, and that is if low carb eating a healthy way of life. So what then is the answer? Find out here.

Speaking of the low carb eating, it is a common consideration that it is not important to count calories in the low carb eating lifestyle. As such, you have the freedom to eat as much as you want and whenever you want. But despite this truth behind the low carb eating lifestyle, many experts have noted this is never a healthy way of life.

Many people are indeed metabolically resistant. So in instances like this, the proper way of reducing food intake may aid the dieters to motivate or sustain the consistent weight loss that they wish. Still, when talking about low carb eating, it is the carbohydrates that must be kept low, not the calories.

To further support the view, it is a given fact that in low carb eating lifestyle, you are definitely been eating fats and oils. As such, you rarely ever be hungry for in general, those foods that are high in fat are ever satisfying. A high fat eating coupled with a low carb eating supplements will tell your body that it is not starving just like the case of fasting, but rather your metabolism in this stage maintains a normal level. So while consuming fat is one of the prerequisites for a healthy low carb eating, it is then necessary to limit the consumption of trans-fats like margarine. Instead of that, it is recommended that you use real butter, for it is a good fat. And for your interest, good fats are found in olive oil, flax seed oil, canola oil, and oils that are greatly found in nuts.

So then, is low carb eating healthy? Well, on a low carb eating, you can definitely lose weight constantly and it can reduce your insulin levels, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and even stabilize your blood sugar, which is of course great for diabetics. And since in low carb eating, you will be taking less fruits and vegetables, it is then necessary that you take a good full-spectrum multi vitamins and fiber supplements.

It is also important to consider that the main purpose of the low carb eating is to bring your body chemistry and insulin level back into balance. And so to make this, you need to take a diet that is unbalanced in the opposite direction of the way that you have been eating for the rest of your life.

Eat less … lose weight?!? Here’s the other stuff you can do to get leaner.

1) Don’t diet to extremes. Reducing calories by 15-20% a day will almost exclusively burn fat while larger cuts in calories will burn a combo of muscle tissue and fat. Muscle drives the metabolism – calorie burning. If you’re currently eating 3000 calories, reduce to 2400-2550, but do so according to smart guidelines like those laid out in The Living Health Weight Loss Audio.

2) Graze all day. Professional athletes and models eat all day long yet keep their total calories under control. The grazing method, 5-6 small meals, elevates the metabolism. Each time you eat, the metabolism increases, and over a 6-10 week period, that increase can parlay into another 2-3 pounds of fat loss.

3) Increase Protein. Carbs, protein and fat – are equal in their efficiency to be stored as body fat, but protein exerts a greater metabolic boosting effect than carbs or dietary fat. When calories drop, protein saves muscle which helps keep the metabolism elevated. Aim for 1.2 grams per pound of bodyweight daily.

4) Play with Carbs. Carbs help retain metabolic boosting muscle yet they can stimulate fat storage. Following a modified low carb diet – staggering your carbohydrate intake is one of the most effective ways to jump start your
metabolism and to burn stubborn fat fast (as outlined in Maximize Your Metabolism and the Living Health Audio Program.)

5) Go Backward. One reason fat loss comes to a halt; the body downgrades its metabolism to meet its dwindling intake of calories. The solution: dramatically increase your calorie intake once every 2-3 weeks. The one day splurge “re-sets” the metabolism by restoring thyroid levels, the calorie burning hormone that declines with dieting.

6) Skip the Late Night Carbs. Carbs eaten before bedtime are more likely to be stored as body fat so focus on lean proteins and fiber based vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and salad fixings. The lone exception: if you train late at night and your goal is to build muscle mass, you’ll need the carbs to replenish glycogen and support growth.

7) Go Fish. When calories are controlled, the inclusion of omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, trout and sardines may promote speedier fat loss. One study revealed dieters who ate fish on a daily basis lost more weight than those who ate fish just once a week (Am Journ Clin Nutr 70:817-825, 1999)
Go Spicy. Red peppers, the spicy ingredient in Mexican and Indian dishes contains Capsaicin which can increase the metabolic rate by effecting the Sympathetic Branch of the Nervous system. Spiking your chicken dishes with red might be a small benefit or you can gulp 5 to 10 encapsulated grams of Capsaicin from your local health food store. (Journal of Nutrition 116:1272-1278, 1986.)

9) Don’t Be Cardio Crazy! Radically reducing calories slows the metabolism short circuiting fat loss. Same is true with radical caloric expenditure. You know: 2 cardio sessions a day. Excess cardio slows the metabolism, promotes a loss in muscle and even can lower testosterone levels. For real results, stick to 4-6 sessions a week, 30 – 45 minutes at a clip and maintain a high level of intensity.

10) Separate Cardio From Weight Training. What happens when you do cardio first and follow it up with weight training? You don’t build as much muscle density. How about cardio after training? You risk overtraining and the negative hormonal milieu that can stifle the metabolic rate. The best scenario; hit the cardio in the morning – on an empty stomach – get in a few meals and return to the gym later in the day to build muscle density.

11) Serotonin Control. Serotonin is a brain chemical that helps controls hunger. Guess what? It can take a nose dive with dieting. ( R.J. Wurtman and J.J. Wurtman, “Brain serotonin, carbohydrate-craving, obesity, and depression.” Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 398 (1996): 35-41.) One way to prevent a drop; smaller, more frequent meals.

12) Garlic Chicken! Mother Earth’s flavor enhancer stimulates adrenaline and uncoupling proteins (UCP). Adrenaline triggers fat breakdown and UCP, located in metabolically active “brown fat”, increase calorie burning. Garlic also controls cortisol levels which can supports muscle retention while dieting. For best results use fresh raw garlic in your salads or on your other meals, but if you can’t handle raw garlic then use fresh bulbs in you cooking or give supplements a try. (Oi Y, et al., Allyl-containing sulfides in garlic increase uncoupling protein content in brown adipose tissue, and noradenaline and adrenaline secretion in rats. J Nutr 129:336-342,1999.) (Wang HX, Et al., Natural products with hypoglycemic, hypotensive, hypocholesterolemic, antiatherosclerotic and antithrombotic activities. Life Sci 65:2663-2677,1999.)

13) Sip Green Tea. Green tea contains caffeine and polyphenols called epilgallocatechin gallate which have been shown to increase calorie burning. These special calorie burning compounds help burn an extra 100 or-so calories a day, about equal to a brisk walk. In maximizing fat loss, every calorie counts. (Dullo, A.G., et al., Efficiency of a green tea extract rich in catechin polyphenols and caffeine in increasing 24-h energy expenditure and fat oxidation in humans. Am J Clin Nutr, 1999. 70(6):p.1040-5.)

14) Fat? Yes Fat! To rip up, you have to eat fewer carbs, but on occasion – say once a week – you can add a little healthy fat, 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, some red meat, walnuts or cashews. The reason? Dietary fat can make the body more effective in using and burning fat – as long as calories and carbs remain under control. (Thomas CD et al. Nutrient Balance and Energy Expenditure During the Ad Libitum Feeding of High Fat and High Carbohydrate Diets in Humans. Am J Clin Nutr 1992;55:934)

15) Thyroid Support. Irony of Ironies. When you eat less and try to dump body fat, a lot of times the metabolism adapts and burns quite a bit fewer calories. One way to get around the slowdown is with phosphates. A combo of 537 mgs of calcium phosphate, 107 mgs of potassium phosphate and 25 mgs of sodium phosphate given to strict dieters yielded a 12-19% more elevated metabolism than dieters who did not use phosphates.

16) Write It Down. This one seems simple, but it’s one of the most overlooked tips in shedding fat. Dieters who record what they eat, meal by meal, day by day, not only make better choices, but cheat less and eat fewer total calories. Writing it down “keeps you honest” and is a tool for reminding you that getting lean is a day by day process.

It is evident to all of us that overweight and obesity have increased sharply in the USA in adults and children in the last few years. Since studies show that activity of people has not changed much in the last decades, the increase in body overweight must come from a change in the food intake. Considering that about half the people in the USA consume their meals outside the home, the portion sizes become an important factor in the increase of body overweight.

The American Journal of Public Health published a study about the current sizes of portions in restaurants, fast foods, and food manufacturers. The authors compared the data with the sizes of the past 30 years, and they came up with some amazing numbers. First they noted that all the portions offered in every category exceed by far the guidelines of the USDA and the FDA. Cookies are seven times bigger than recommended, cooked pasta five times larger, muffins three times larger, and so on.

Then they discovered that portion sizes began to grow in the 1970s and have continued to grow at the same rate as body overweight. Food and fast food companies today promote larger items and use larger sizes as selling points. Widespread price competition has induced manufacturers to introduce larger items as a means to expand market share, since they discovered that profit rises when the product size is increased. In the mid ‘50s Mc Donald offered only one size of French fries: that size today is called “small”. The food industry invests billions in making their products more attractive, sexier, saltier, or sweeter and we are vulnerable to their promotions. This happens at a moment when we became more sedentary and kids spend longer hours in front of the TV or their computers.

Going to Europe or other countries we see some striking differences in the food habits. First of all there is not so much advertising about food. Most of the Italian TV ads are about basic ingredients such as olive oil, wine, and pasta, and not so much about prepackaged food or fast food chains. In addition the portion sizes are considerably smaller than in America. I recently had dinner in a steakhouse and the smallest portion available on the menu was a 10 oz filet mignon. That is about three times larger than the average size of a portion of meat in Italy.

I noticed myself many times that people moving to the USA from other countries would gain weight in few months. There is no doubt in my mind that the large amount of food we ingest today is one of the main causes for the general growth of overweight in America. This doesn’t affect only people with a weight problem, but also those who are maybe only a few pounds over and struggle to control the size of their waistline. In an environment where lifestyle and advertising pushes to eat out more and in larger quantities it is imperative that we learn how to control ourselves.

One very good way to start I learned from a trainer at the gym, and I encourage everyone to try. It is very simple: On a notepad write down everyday for a week everything that you ingest. Take note of the quantities, not only for the main meals, but even the smallest things such as drinks, candies and snacks. Then with the help of a calorie chart add up the numbers. Many people say “I don’t know how I gain weight. I don’t eat very much”. I bet they are ready for a big surprise. It is incredible how all those little things we munch during the day add up to a large number of calories.

After the shock, the realization will come that something needs to be done. First it is important to understand what a regular portion looks like. 3 oz meat: is approximately the size of a deck of cards or a bar of soap (when was the last time you saw a steak of that size?); 3 oz fish: the size of a checkbook; 1 oz cheese: the size of matchbox; one medium potato: the size of a computer mouse; 1 cup pasta: the size of two eggs.
When eating out choose the small or medium sizes instead of the large ones. Ask for half of the meal to be packed to go. Share your portion with a friend. Don’t eat the bread and butter before the meal. For your home don’t buy a lot of food, but buy single serving packages. If you snack don’t eat from the bag, but place a few chips or crackers on a dish. Cut in the amount of sauces, mayonnaise and cream cheese, and use low calories types. If you are a big eater fill yourself with a large quantity of vegetables and eventually fresh fruit.

In conclusion: Everyone that tries to keep weight under control knows how difficult it is. The first step is to be inventive in ways to reduce the sizes of the food portions.

Many people consider that a diet is represented by extreme suppression of food intake associated with a famous diet pill and intensive exercise. The truth is somewhere in the middle. If you want to achieve weight loss, then you have to reduce the calories intake, exercise plenty and add some of those diet pills to increase the efficiency of the diet. But you never want to exaggerate and most importantly, you should never stress your body too much. Stay away from those diet tips that force you to become an anorexic and do what’s right, what’s healthy.

Successful diet tips always start with the way you eat, the quantity and quality of what you eat. For many people, the weight problems start by eating too much and not necessarily healthy. Learning all about the right eating habits is essential. It ensures a smooth performance of your organism and regular burning of excessive fat. The concept of weight loss is not something that can be achieved overnight. It will take some times before noticeable results appear and you have to discipline yourself in order to maintain the positive effects of the diet. Choose a diet that is rich in fibers, vitamins and not in fats or carbohydrates. Be sure to drink a lot of water and get rid of drinks high in glucose as they contain way too much calories.

Obesity is one of the major risk factors for heart disease and cerebrovascular attacks. As more and more people suffer from this condition, scientists and medical specialists work side by side trying to find more effective methods to promote weight loss. They state categorically the importance of eating healthy and avoiding harmful food, adding physical exercise at the top of the list. As for the weight loss pill, many studies have been made and some of the research results are truly encouraging. Dietary supplements are known to act as appetite suppressants, having effects on the metabolism and preventing fatty deposits from forming. The diet pill can have different results from one individual to another. It is especially effective when associated with the right diet and regular exercise. Under no circumstances should it be taken in higher doses than prescribed and it is not recommended for those who suffer from high blood pressure or diabetes.

The reality is that there are no miraculous solutions for weight loss. It is still up to us to succeed, on our desire to be healthy and decrease the risk factors associated with obesity. In order to make informed diet choices, we need to learn about all weight loss alternatives, follow proper dietary recommendations and establish an exercise routine and stick to it. Most experts agree that losing weight quickly is not healthy as it is a step by step process and they are not wrong. It is important to start with light exercises (wiping the dust counts!), reduce your daily calories intake and choose a diet supplement that fits your needs. It takes courage and persistence to achieve weight loss and you should congratulate yourself for every step you have mastered!

Wellness – the latest buzzword to hit the health industry – is actually the best way forward. Most people who plan strict diets do it in the hope that after losing the extra kilos, they will look ravishing. But the truth is that lusterless sagging skin or loose abdominal muscles are not the result that people want. What we want is a happy, healthy, svelte figure munching an apple. But alas, that is not what we end up with very often. Therefore, after trying to lose weight for the nth time, it is now time to stop dieting forever and yet look slim.

Wellness is not only about losing weight, it is also about a positive mindset and transforming oneself into a holistically healthy person. This kind of a change in focus will not only result in weight loss but also give you great skin, good hair, a glowing persona and best of all, freedom from diets. Here is what the wellness and diet schedule entails:

o Understanding your food weaknesses and indulging in them two times a week.
o Maintaining a diet log book.
o Pick up a routine that you enjoy which is like an exercise: dancing, or walking the pet, floor exercises with music etc.
o Never deprive yourself. Always add new healthy habits to the current schedule, like having a yummy soup in the evening instead of tea and a scrumptious salad during lunch with olives, balsamic dressing and some greens and cheese cubes.
o Enjoy your meal. Many people who eat hurriedly always miss out on the flavors, do not feel satiated and end up compensating by overeating.
o And if all this does not convince you, count the number of times you have struggled through a diet program only to regain the weight with a few extra kilos.
o Looking at unhealthy habits and finding alternatives. For example, if you are prone to drinking too much of tea/coffee, substitute some for herbal teas which smell and taste good. If you eat too much of fried food, learn to make toasted snacks or baked snacks, and experiment with new roasted snacks.
o Do not starve or eat less. When we cut down on quantities, our emotional system retaliates, so the best option is to add healthy foods to the diet before cutting out on food suddenly.

Either they have an unhealthy lifestyle – working long hours, eating out all the time, not getting enough exercise – or they simply eat too much, often in a compulsive way.

This type of eating – eating when one isn’t hungry, for example, or eating for emotional reasons rather than physical hunger – is really a type of addiction. It should be understood as an addiction, and it often is.

For example, the group Overeaters Anonymous functions on many of the same principles as AA or other twelve step programs. Excessive eating is treated like an addiction because that’s exactly what it is.

But if that’s the case, it’s easy to see why this addiction might be harder to treat than some others. The way to deal with an addiction is to stay away from the behaviour that’s out of control – alcoholics can’t touch alcohol, for example. The idea is to not do it at all until the addiction becomes a thing of the past – in fact, for many addicts, they can never indulge in their addictive behavior again, not even once.

With food addiction, though, that’s obviously impossible. People have to eat – there’s no getting away from it. That’s why food addiction, though it’s an addiction to a non-lethal substance, may be the hardest of all to deal with. And that’s also why companies such as Slim-fast, who produce and market meal replacements for people to use while dieting to lose weight, actually do succeed in helping some people.

The idea behind meal replacements is that you don’t really eat at all for a good part of the day – instead, you have a special shake or other product that gives you all the nutrients you need, and stops you from feeling hungry. This works in two ways: first, it controls the calories you take in, because the meal replacements are quite low calorie. Second, it breaks the cycle of addictive behavior because you’re not really eating. You can get away from the behavior much as an alcoholic can (and must) get away from alcohol, and that gives you a better chance of breaking the addictive process.

Though most meal replacement plans do recommend that you eat one ‘normal’ meal per day, some people who are serious about losing weight don’t do even that. That’s precisely how Oprah Winfrey once lost a lot of weight – about fifty pounds. She said that she found it easier not to eat at all (subsisting on meal replacement shakes and bars) than to control her eating. When you know that you won’t be eating ‘real food’ at all for a while, it takes the guesswork out of it. Everything becomes very straightforward, and it’s a fact that many people have lost weight using this method of weight loss.

There are drawbacks, though. For one thing, while a weight loss program is supposed to teach you about how to eat for the rest of your life – to establish healthy habits, in other words – using meal replacements clearly doesn’t do so. Once you go back to eating real food, you might find that your problems with controlling your food intake are still there. Though you will have lost weight, you are more likely to gain it back if you haven’t learned healthy eating habits.

Also, there’s a danger that some people will keep on using the meal replacements for extended periods of time, just because it’s easier and more convenient. Thought they re designed to give you a minimum level of calories and nutrition, meal replacement bars cannot substitute for real food over an extended period.

However, if you know or suspect that your problem with food resembles an addiction or compulsion, it may be worth your while to think about using meal replacements for a while in order to lose some weight. Try to make the time you spend using them as productive as possible, though. Really come to terms with your past behaviour, and learn what it feels like to be full but not stuffed. Figuring out the answer to these and other aspects of healthy eating will help make your weight loss permanent.

Let’s compare the two kinds of workouts so you will be able to determine which exercise plan to lose weight works best for you.

An elliptical trainer workout has become very popular and actually has a few advantages over a treadmill.

It is less strenuous to the knees, joints and lower back so it is very suitable for people with injuries.

It also works all the parts of your body continuously giving you a total body workout. An elliptical trainer workout is great for cardio fitness and you can get a good workout in a short period of time.

A treadmill workout is still a very popular workout today. Many people buy a treadmill so the whole family can use it. A treadmill workout is perfect for beginners because the intensity in the workout is adjustable by walking, jogging or running.

Treadmill weight loss can best be achieved by exercising within your target heart range zone. Here is how to find the right target heart rate for you.

First, you need to find out what your heart rate is while exercising after five minutes. To test your heart rate place your thumb on the underside of your wrist to locate your pulse.

Count the beats for 15 seconds and multiply that number times four. That number is your heart rate.

To calculate your ideal target heart rate, subtract your age from 220. For successful treadmill weight loss exercise within 70% of your target heart range zone.

Both the elliptical trainers and treadmills help you to burn fat and are perfect exercise plans to lose weight. Exercising not only tones your muscles, but actually gives you more energy for your whole day.

You can purchase treadmills and elliptical workout trainers on the Internet as well as fitness stores. Both machines are very effective for burning fat and losing weight. Just make sure that you buy quality equipment that will last.

If you are looking to burn body fat and take off weight, these two machines can be a great help for your exercise plan to lose weight

If you’ve been working toward that comfortable ideal body weight, chances are that you’ve read the same diet and weight loss tips time and time again. In some cases, it’s because someone said it and it got repeated endlessly. In others, though, it’s because the tip really works. Here are five of the most common diet tips that really work – and why.

Tip #1:Drink a full eight ounce glass of water 20 minutes before each
meal. It’s only partly because you trick your body into thinking that it’s full. The real trick is in giving your body all the water that it needs. The usual recommendation is at least an 8 oz glasses of water a day. That’s WATER – not soft drinks, not coffee. Just pure water. Your body needs water to maintain all its systems and to flush wastes away. When you don’t take in enough water, it starts trying to conserve it by retaining water in muscle and fat tissues. Water your body as faithfully as you would a plant, and you’ll find that it starts ridding itself of excess water regularly as well. Is it just water weight? Well, yes. But that water weight is weight you don’t have to carry around with you as long as you’re taking in enough water for your body’s needs.

Tip #2:Eat your fruits and veggies raw. Aside from the fact that raw fruits and vegetables pack more nutrition per calorie, in many cases you’re actually getting LESS calories when you eat your produce raw. Especially if you generally opt for canned fruits or vegetables, there are added preservatives and flavorings that can increase calories substantially. But there’s another reason as well: your body works harder to digest raw fruits and vegetables, and that means that it uses more calories in getting all the nutrients out of it. Your body NEEDS the extra roughage present in fruit and vegetables that haven’t been cooked and processed to keep it working right.

Tip #3:Eat a balanced diet. It’s obviously more healthy, but will it help you lose weight? The answer is yes, and here’s why. When your body lacks ANY nutrient in its daily intake, it tries to make up the difference by substituting other nutrients. The result can be false messages that you’re hungry, when what your body really craves is enough of ONE particular nutrient. Eating a balanced diet provides all the nutrients your body needs in the proper proportions so that it isn’t telling you it’s starving.

Tip #4:Half an hour of moderate exercise five times a week. Your body uses the food it eats to produce energy for your daily activities. The more energy you use, the more of your food your body will use to fuel it. When you eat fewer calories than your body needs, it will turn to stored reserves to keep it going. Adding one half hour of moderate exercise to your daily routine five times a week increases your body’s consumption of energy. But there’s more. Your body is using up calories even when you’re not exercising just to maintain circulation and health in its tissues. It uses up more calories maintaining muscles than fat. As you exercise, your body is converting fat to muscle — resulting in a higher metabolic rate as it increases its activity to keep your muscles in tone.

Tip #5:Snack between meals. Our bodies were never designed for the 3-times-a-day eating schedule we’ve adopted. They work round the clock, and need energy all the time. Rather than eating all your calories in three sittings, spread them out over 5 or 6. The trick is to eat smaller meals – not add more food. You’ll keep your digestive system busy, and your body at full energy all day long.