Easiest Way To Lose Weight - Stay Motivated

Motivation is without a doubt the most important factor in weight loss. Whether you're aiming to lose weight for health reasons, or to improve your appearance, you will most likely fail if your weight loss plan is not backed up by strong motivation and determination.

Nutritionally Sound Plan

Find a common sense weight loss plan, one which shows you the basic, practical steps in weight loss. Make sure your plan is nutritionally sound so that you will lose weight naturally and safely over time.

You don't have to waste your money on weight loss programs. Just be sure to prepare your own food, in your own kitchen, using only natural ingredients. Buy only organically produced food products if you can at all afford it.

Avoid Processed Food

Do not use processed foods. These are laden with chemical additives that are not good for you. Many of these chemical substances are banned in most European countries and in China.

Don't rush the dieting process. You need to adopt a healthy lifestyle while you slim down so that you can stay at your target weight level indefinitely once you get to it.

Stay Physically Active

Remain physically active to help shed body fat. Turn off your television and get out of the house. Go jogging, take a walk, or engage in any other physical activity you like. Physical activity of any kind is a sure way to speed up weight loss.

Use a pedometer to lose weight. When you wear a pedometer, it will measure every step you take in a day. Try to get to 10,000 or more. Make this a game by setting a walking goal. Once you reach your first walking goal, set a higher one, and keep increasing your goal over time.

Weigh Yourself Everyday

Many people will advise you to not weigh yourself everyday because your weight fluctuates up and down from day-to-day. This is a mistake.

Studies have shown that people who weigh themselves every day are much more likely to keep their target weight once they get to it.

Weighing yourself everyday keeps you aware of the impact of your eating habits, of how they affect your weight.

If you don't weigh yourself, you can easily put on 10 to 15 pounds before you realize that you are not "just retaining water" for a couple of days. Instead, you have actually accumulated unwanted body fat once again.

Get Back On The Diet Again

If this happens to you, it will be painful to get back down to your target weight. Your mind is likely to rebel at the thought of yet another dieting stint.

Therefore, by the time you finally get back on that diet again, you will probably have 15 to 20 pounds to shed once again. This can be very discouraging. No one can be on a diet indefinitely.

Had you weighed yourself everyday you would have quickly realized that you weren't just retaining water, you were getting fat once again.

You would most likely have put on only 2 to 3 pounds of body fat before you became aware that your weight, your body fat was increasing. You would immediately be motivated to get back to the weight you worked so hard to achieve.

Weight Management

Weight loss is an ongoing battle. You have to keep track of your weight and be ready to correct any transgression that causes your weight to head upward again.

This is especially true during holidays, vacations, travel, or any other special occasion when you are likely to forget to be vigilant about your food intake.

Easy To Stay Slim

Once you have lost all the weight you want to lose, it's easy to stay slim if you stay aware of your food consumption, and the effect it's having on your body fat.

Weigh yourself every day!

The Real Deal About Weight Loss Hypnosis

Obesity is a growing health issue in modern society. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that a third of the adult population in the United States is obese. The search for effective ways to lose the extra pounds is still ongoing, and new and revolutionary methods occasionally make the news. Whether this method is really effective at causing weight loss and in keeping the weight off remains to be seen. Oftentimes, these novel methods do not have adequate evidence. At this time, weight loss hypnosis is not yet supported by definitive results from research studies.

Some people who are beset with health issues brought about by obesity and other weight-related problems willingly go under the knife. However, there are more who decide against surgical intervention for personal and financial reasons. Most people, despite having the means to afford surgery prefer to exhaust non-invasive procedures first before resorting to the last option on their list. One of the most revolutionary and controversial non-invasive methods of losing weight today is weight loss hypnosis.

The state of hypnosis is similar to being in a trance. The hypnotist uses mental imagery and verbal repetition to induce a state of concentration and inner absorption. A person who is under hypnosis is laser-focused and responsive to suggestions. This is the rationale behind weight loss via hypnosis. In conventional methods of hypnosis, a person feels fuller much quicker than before when they start eating. Essentially, hypnosis changes the way that people who carry excess weight think about food on a subconscious level. This approach fits very well with people who have difficulty complying with current dietary programs.

The hypnotist needs to prepare for each session. They need to determine very specific information about their weight loss clients when the client communicates with them. For instance, hypnotists must learn about the things that lead the person to overeat. This helps them induce a mental state that primes people to losing weight effectively.

Despite the lack of research studies, many people are opening their minds to this option. In many cases, hypnosis has proven quite effective in keeping the weight off for good. However, this approach is not performed in isolation. Instead, it is typically implemented with other interventions, including weight loss counseling, exercise, and a dietary program. Moreover, the effect is more pronounced after a certain period of time has elapsed. Some studies have shown that the magnitude of the effect is directly related with the duration of treatment.

Some hypnotists are skilled in making a person believe that they have had weight loss surgery. In one technique called virtual gastric band, a person can lose as much as 50 pounds in just a period of six months. During hypnosis, a person is walked through a simple procedure-the virtual gastric band surgery. The hypnotist makes the experience more realistic by setting up the environment such that the person being hypnotized experiences a convincingly realistic experience. The proponents of this program report immediate weight loss in their clients, especially the ones that are 100% committed to leading a healthier lifestyle.

Losing Weight To Increase Power

As a nutritionist, I hear many clients say they want to lose weight - to look better, have more energy, improve their health. But losing weight can also help you increase your power on the bike.

Ratios intrinsically provide two ways to improve the ratio - by manipulating either variable. The results of improving both variables can be dramatic.

As covered in a previous article, efficiency - the ratio of work output to expended energy - can improve with increased work output or decreased energy expenditure (or both).

In the same way, your power-to-weight ratio on the bike (measured in watts per kg) can improve with increased power or decreased body weight, or both.

Power is itself another ratio, of work to time. If work increases or time decreases, the result is greater power.

So that provides 3 variables in the power-to-weight ratio: increase your strength (work), increase your speed, or decrease your body weight.

Why Lose Weight?

Even if you're not overweight, weight loss may improve your power-to-weight ratio. It need not - and shouldn't - involve a strict "diet" that leaves you hungry most of the day.

It does involve careful monitoring of your numbers - how many calories you burn (using your power meter or, preferably, a wearable calorie counter 24 hours a day), and your calorie intake.

The goal is to eat fewer calories per day than you burn, but not by much, just 150 to 300 calories. If that feels too restrictive, drop the deficit to 100 calories. The result would be a slow decrease in weight that you can stop or reverse at any time.

These days, the general recommendation for weight loss is rapid loss. (Is that to match up with HIIT and the shorter-and-harder approach to fitness, I wonder?) Rapid weight loss is said to keep the "loser's" motivation high.

Yet gradual weight loss - while also training for power - has the advantage of maintaining fat-free mass (FFM) so you won't lose strength, an important variable in the power ratio.

Holding On To FFM

Weight loss often decreases muscle mass, especially rapid loss. But in the long-running (13-plus years) weight-loss program for which I was both the nutritionist and a training coach, we typically saw steady or increased FFM while the participants lost weight at a slow, sustainable rate.

That helped them maintain strength and power so they could do the training, which was frequently high-intensity. The intense training, of course, was designed to increase strength and power.

Maintaining FFM also prevented participants from having to drop calorie intake more and more (and more) for continued weight loss.

Don't Bonk

Make sure you don't restrict calories on the ride itself. Whether you're riding outdoors or doing tough power training in the studio, under-fueling before or during the ride could cause you to bonk.

Even without bonking, you may still feel week and have difficulty working up to your capacity - the power you're trying to improve. Fuel as usual while riding.

Keep the calorie restriction small. Cut back a little more on days that you're not training hard, or at least save the restriction for after the ride. If your power ride is late in the day, early A.M. calorie cutbacks may work. Just keep your pre-ride meal about the same as usual, and eat or drink whatever you need on the bike.

Be strict about refueling within 30 minutes after training so you can train well the next day.

Technique and Efficiency

In all of this, don't forget that better technique on the bike will help you waste less energy by reducing the energy needed for pedaling, reducing energy lost as body heat, and retaining more energy for your next pedal stroke. Your functional strength, a power variable, will increase.

Combining good technique, power training and gradual weight loss will help you dramatically increase your power-to-weight ratio on the bike.