How To Lose Weight Fast

How To Lose Weight Fast

Overweight or obesity has become major concern in the recent times. The younger generation, although is very conscious about weight gain and is desperate to get ways to lose weight. As long as weight gain is concerned, it is crucial to keep in mind that calorie consumption should be minimal. However it is quite common among people to go into crash diets or starvation for losing weight fast. But, that is not the answer. Starvation will only cause your metabolism to slow down and as soon as you get back on the previous diet, you will gain weight very easily.

Often people get unnecessarily stressed with the question how to lose weight fast. It is quite easy to lose weight, with some changes in the lifestyle and food habits. There is no hard and fast rule that you need to lose weight in just seven days, lose weight at your own pace. What you eat is more important than how much you eat. With right food habits and lifestyle, you can drastically cut your calories count in order to achieve your weight loss goals.

First and foremost, we should look after what exactly you are eating. You are, what you eat, therefore, you have to cut on your intake on foods such as pizza, cake, cookies, candies, puddings and everything else that adds up to your calorie count. The processed and sugary foods not only makes you overweight but causes many diseases as well. There are many packaged foods that comes with the label of “low fat”, in reality they are quite high on sugar.

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Diet Plans to Lose Weight Fast

Change your diet habits to more healthy options. Add meat, fish and eggs in your diet apart from the leafy vegetables, fruits and whole grains. While meat, fish and eggs contain high amounts of protein, vegetables contain wide range of nutrients. Whole grains are the healthy source of carbohydrate and fiber. It is very important to mention, that every individual’s body type is different and thereby the diet chart that works for someone else, does not necessarily work for you. It is imperative to say, that before adopting any diet, consult with your dietician.

Besides eating healthy, one should also remember to keep the body hydrated. The fat cells in our body contains toxin. When the fat is used up, the cell releases toxins, but excess fluid intake would eventually eliminate the toxins from your body. People often use laxatives to lose weight.

Also, exercise is a daily thing that one needs to take up in order to reduce weight. Long term and healthy weight loss is impossible without exercise. Brisk walk or jogging daily is enough to keep you healthy and fit. You can also take up cardiovascular exercises or swimming or meditation for better health and perfect figure. 

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It is very important to be motivated and committed at the first place and then plan out your weight loss program. Be absolutely determined that you are willing to lose some extra calories and make every efforts to change your old habits that are responsible for weight gain.

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Six Tips to Jump Start Weight Loss in the New Year

Losing weight is at the top of many a New Year’s resolution list. In addition to maintaining a healthy diet and getting enough exercise, what else can one do to make sure those good intentions have a lasting impact throughout the year?

Below are research-based tips from investigators at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that may help jump start one’s weight loss progress in the coming year.

1. Keep moving each day. We all know that exercise is crucial to losing weight, but sometimes it’s easier said than done. The task need not be daunting; all it takes to see a weight-loss benefit is 30 to 60 minutes of aerobic activity daily. “You don’t need to be athletic. Just brisk walking or dancing to your favorite music or using an aerobic exercise machine like a stationary bike or treadmill is all you need to do – just try to do it each day,” said Anne McTiernan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Hutchinson Center’s Prevention Center. The exercise doesn’t have to be all at once. “You can break it into 10- or 15-minute sessions throughout the day to get the weight-loss benefit,” she said.

2. Keep a food journal. “By spending a little extra time to write down everything you eat and drink, you’ll be able to see where extra calories sneak in,” said postdoctoral research fellow Caitlin Mason, Ph.D., an exercise and health researcher in the Public Health Sciences Division of the Hutchinson Center. “There are lots of good online tools that can help estimate the calorie content of common foods and track your weight loss progress over time,” she said. 

3. Set realistic goals. “The biggest mistake people make when trying to lose weight is trying to lose too many pounds too fast or setting unrealistic goals,” Mason said. “For long-term success, aim for a slow, steady weight loss of about 1 to 2 pounds a week. No one wants to lose weight only to gain it all back – and often more – a few months later.

4. Set specific goals. Instead of resolving to “lose weight,” which is too general, set several smaller but more specific goals, such as eating five servings of vegetables per day, taking a 15-minute walk at lunch each day or drinking six glasses of water per day. “Adding healthy behaviors to your routine is often easier than telling yourself ‘don’t do this’ or ‘don’t eat that,’” Mason said.

5. Don’t let one slip-up derail your efforts. “Don’t throw your entire routine out the window after one bad day,” Mason said. “Instead, try to identify the specific barriers that got in your way and think through strategies to avoid such challenges in the future.” For example, to avoid the temptation of buying a candy bar while standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, make sure to eat a healthy snack, such as a handful of nuts or a piece of string cheese, before going shopping.

6. Practice yoga. Two observational studies conducted by cancer prevention researcher Alan Kristal, Dr. P.H., a member of the Hutchinson Center’s Public Health Sciences Division, have found an association between regular yoga practice and weight maintenance and weight loss. One of his studies, published in 2005, found that regular yoga practice is associated with the prevention of middle-age spread in normal-weight people and the promotion of weight loss in those who are overweight. A follow-up study published in 2009 found that regular yoga practice is associated with mindful eating, and people who eat mindfully are less likely to be obese. “These findings fit with our hypothesis that yoga increases mindfulness in eating and leads to less weight gain over time, independent of the physical activity aspect of yoga practice,” Kristal said. “Mindful eating is a skill that augments the usual approaches to weight loss, such as dieting, counting calories and limiting portion sizes. Adding yoga practice to a standard weight-loss program may make it more effective."

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. www.fhcrc.org

Source  http://www.newswise.com/articles/six-tips-to-jump-start-weight-loss-in-the-new-year

6 Tips for Finding a Weight-Loss Program

If your health care provider has advised you to lose weight, research your options before settling on a weight-loss program. Good ones should encourage healthy behaviors and should include:

• Healthy eating plans that reduce calories but do not forbid specific foods or food groups.
• Tips to increase moderate-intensity physical activity.
• Tips on healthy behavior changes that keep your cultural needs in mind.
• Slow and steady weight loss. Depending on your starting weight, experts recommend losing weight at a rate of half a pound to two pounds per week. (Weight loss may be faster at the start of a program.)
• Medical care, if you are planning to lose weight by following a special diet, such as a very-low-calorie diet.
• A plan to keep the weight off after you have lost it.

Source http://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/weight-management/tips/finding-a-weight-loss-program.aspx

FDA clears first new weight-loss pill in 13 years

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade.

Despite only achieving modest weight loss in clinical studies, the drug appeared safe enough to win the FDA's endorsement, amid calls from doctors for new weight-loss treatments.

The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. The drug should be used in combination with a healthy diet and exercise.

Obesity Society President Patrick O'Neil said he's encouraged by the drug's approval because it underscores the notion that lifestyle changes alone are not enough to treat obesity.

"This is good news because it tells us that the FDA is indeed treating obesity seriously," said O'Neil, who teaches at Medical University of South Carolina and was the lead researcher on several studies of Belviq. "On the other hand, it's not the answer to the problem — or even a big part of the answer."

Even if the effects of Belviq are subtle, experts say it could be an important first step in developing new treatments that attack the underlying causes of obesity.

"The way these things tend to work is you have some people who do extremely well and other people don't lose any weight at all. But if we had 10 medicines that were all different and worked like this, we would have a real field," said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the weight loss program at Weill-Cornell Medical College.

The FDA denied approval for Arena's drug in 2010 after scientists raised concerns about tumors that developed in animals studied with the drug. The company resubmitted the drug with additional data earlier this year, and the FDA said there was little risk of tumors in humans.

Arena and its partner Eisai Inc. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., expect to launch the drug in early 2013.

With U.S. obesity rates nearing 35 percent of the adult population, many doctors have called on the FDA to approve new weight loss treatments.

But a long line of prescription weight loss offerings have been associated with safety problems, most notably the fen-phen combination, which was linked to heart valve damage in 1997. The cocktail of phentermine and fenfluramine was a popular weight loss combination prescribed by doctors, though it was never approved by the FDA.

In a rare move, the FDA explicitly stated in a press release that Belviq "does not appear to activate" a chemical pathway that was linked to the heart problems seen with fen-phen.

The FDA said the drug acts on a different chemical pathway in the brain, which is believed to reduce appetite by boosting feelings of satiety and fullness.

Belviq is one of three experimental weight-loss drugs whose developers have been trying for a second time to win approval, after the FDA shot them all down in 2010 or early 2011 because of serious potential side effects.

Vivus Inc.'s Qnexa is thought to be the most promising of the drugs, achieving the most weight loss. But the FDA has delayed a decision on that pill until July.

Shares of San Diego-based Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. jumped $2.54, or 28.7 percent, to close at $11.39. Shares of Mountain View, Calif.-based Vivus rose $1.94, or 7.4 percent, to $28.33. Shares of Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., the third drugmaker with an obesity pill before the FDA, rose 20 percent to close at $4.92.

Arena's studies showed that patients taking Belviq, known generically as lorcaserin, had modest weight loss. On average patients lost just 3 to 3.7 percent of their starting body weight over a year. About 47 percent of patients without diabetes lost at least 5 percent of their weight or more, which was enough to meet FDA standards for effectiveness. By comparison, average weight loss with Qnexa is 11 percent, with more than 83 percent of patients losing 5 percent of their weight or more.

The FDA said patients should stop taking Belviq after three months if they fail to lose 5 percent of their body weight. Patients are unlikely to see any significant weight loss by staying with the drug.

Side effects with the drug include depression, migraine and memory lapses.

In May a panel of expert advisers to the FDA voted 18-4 to recommend approval of Arena's drug, concluding that its benefits "outweigh the potential risks when used long term" in overweight and obese people.

Experts say the challenge of weight loss drug development lies in safely turning off one of the body's fundamental directives: to eat enough food to maintain its current weight.

While several drugs are available for short-term weight loss, until Wednesday there was only one FDA-approved prescription drug for long-term weight loss: Xenical from Roche, which is seldom prescribed because of unpleasant digestive side effects and modest weight loss. Belviq is the first new prescription drug approved to treat obesity since Xenical's approval 13 years ago.

Other safety failures for diet pills have continued to pile up in recent years.

Four years ago Sanofi-Aventis SA discontinued studies of its highly anticipated pill Acomplia due to psychiatric side effects, including depression and suicidal thoughts. In 2010, Abbott Laboratories withdrew its drug Meridia after a study showed it increased heart attack and stroke.

10 Tips to Help with Improving Your Nutrition

There are so many books on nutrition and so much information on how to eat well. Hopefully these 10 tips will help sort out the best information out there and direct you towards books that focus on the type of information you truly seek about healthy eating. But there is one fact that you can not get around if you want to continuously make good decisions about what you put in your mouth. You must do meal planning.

Planning your meals is critical to a healthy eating program because it places you in fewer situations where you eat desperately. When we eat in a desperate state - we eat too much and not the right foods (primarily fast foods). Meal planning is essentially like a teacher preparing their lesson plan for the next day or upcoming week. Look ahead a day or two and figure out your schedule and when you are going to fit nutrition into your day. If you know you have a lunch date then plan for a healthy dinner and think through your lunch suggestions so you can avoid restaurants that offer too many unhealthy choices.

1. Do not skip the grocery store and learn to make 5-10 dishes that you enjoy and fit the health bill This is an essential part of meal planning.

2. Do not be intimidated by the process, embrace and look forward to the positive changes it will have on your mental focus and your performance while training.

3. The problem with high protein and fat diets like the Atkins is that it may help you to lose weight, but it sacrifices your health.

4. This program is intended to improve your overall health. This type of eating program poses problems because of its lack of carbohydrates.

5. Without carbs, the fat that you eat is broken down for fuel. This process is called ketosis, which can cause dehydration and those who take medications for hypertension.

6. Glycemic Index (GI) refers to the degree a food increases your blood sugar which can increase your weight gain. Therefore, foods with a high GI are not best for several reasons: they leave you feeling hungry, they cause food cravings and they contribute to weight gain.

7. Studies show that people who suffer from heart attacks due to a high fat diet also had very low intakes of fiber in their diet.

8. Breakfast is a critical meal because it balances out your cravings through out the day and helps to prevent hunger spells. When you do not eat breakfast, you are also more likely to crave carbs.

9. Fat is a good part of the your diet. You want higher unsaturated fats than saturated fats. A low fat diet does not satisfy the body overall. When the good fats are part of your meals, i.e. olive oil, nuts, avocado etc. is helps to make you feel full sooner than a low fat diet. It is not uncommon for more calories to be consumed by a low fat meal than a meal that is high in fiber and complex carbs - for example, sweet potatoes with butter and grilled chicken with a slice of mozzarella cheese).

10. Insulin resistance does often occur in overweight people. It is the inability of insulin to properly process fuel, fats or sugars. So a balanced diet will also increase the proper digestion and absorption of foods in the body to keep you energized and your blood chemistry balanced which affects your skin, hair, nails, ability to train efficiently, feel sleepy, grumpy etc...

Source http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/katalin-fitness-health-driven/2011/03/10-tips-to-help-with-improving-your-nutrition.html