Neat Trick to Keep Off the Pounds

In weight loss, losing the extra pounds is the easy part and the real challenge is keeping your body from regaining the weight that you loss. This statement isn’t exactly new and maybe you’ve heard of this a thousand times already, but I can assure you that there’s a lot of truth in this. I have already lost track how many times I’ve explained the way the human body reacts to weight loss, but just for the sake of being clear on the issue, here’s a brief explanation.

Your body is genetically predisposed to be on a certain weight range. Your body has a built-in mechanism that stops you from either losing too much or gaining too much weight in a short amount of time. That means your body won’t allow you to stray too far from your natural weight.

Let’s say you were able to lose a massive amount of weight through crash dieting. You can rest assured that after a week or so, your body will bombard your brain with urges to eat. Your metabolism will also slow down, making it harder for you to stop yourself from gaining back the weight through dieting.

That is why, if you want to be successful in keeping off the pounds, here’s something to keep in mind.

Be Realistic

How nice would it be if you could lose a quarter of your current weight? Imagine all those flabby fats from your arms, to your belly and your thigh disappearing in a few weeks. Well, that’s not going to happen. The first reason is that a sudden weight loss could be dangerous for your health. Also, scientific studies have shown that those huge weight losses are almost impossible to maintain. In fact, the number of people who were able to lose a huge amount of weight and who were able to stop themselves from regaining the weight is statistically insignificant.

So, how much weight loss is realistic, five percent? That means if you currently weigh 250 pounds, the highest chance for you to succeed in losing weight is to shed off only 12.5 pounds.

Now, you might be thinking, what difference would a 12.5 pounds make regarding your figure? Actually, it can mean a lot.

Step One To a Flatter Belly: Getting Off the Couch

Often times, I get to talk to people with weight problems. They tell me about their struggle to lose weight and that nothing seems to work for them. So for me to get a better picture of the problem, I asked them a series of questions that’ll help me see where the problem lies. The problem always boils down to two things, a dieting program that’s not tailored for their taste and a lifestyle that excludes the necessary exercise. It could be one of the two, or both.

A diet program can easily be adjusted to suit one’s taste, to make it easier to follow. Exercise on the other hand is much harder to incorporate to certain lifestyles.

“I don’t have the time.” This is the most overused excuse for the people I’ve talked to. It’s a convenient excuse. However, it’s because of this excuse that many are suffering from overweight issues such as a fat belly. While it is true that we don’t have all the time to do all the things we want, there’s absolutely something that can be done to insert the needed exercise to whatever lifestyle we have. Here are some steps to take to be able to add exercise to your life.

Evaluate and create a list of all your daily activities and the time you spend in each one. As much as possible, be accurate with the details. You might find an activity that is not so important yet takes so much of your time.

Let’s be honest here. How many hours do you spend each day sitting on the couch and watching TV? How about the time spent in front of the computer? As you are reading now, how many hours have you spent today browsing through the internet? 

These are just a few of the many things you regularly do that you need to cut some time from. All those hours watching TV shows, following friends on social networking sites or playing video games, cut some time off those things and allocate it to a physical activity.

You could take a jog for 30 minutes around your neighborhood. If you’re bored with jogging, there’s biking and other activities.

If you want to lose weight or lose the belly fat, start by getting off the couch.