How To Lose Weight The Hard Way

It might seem kind of weird that anyone would write an article on how to lose weight the hard way, but honesty is the best policy when it comes to weight loss. Apart from prescription drugs and surgeries which do not always work, the old fashioned way is still the best. Losing weight is all about eating less and getting at least some measure of exercise. The real weight loss secret is that it does not have be all about starvation and pain.

The first thing to consider when you plan a serious diet is how much weight you want to lose and how serious you will be about losing it. If you are morbidly obese, then you will have to ease yourself into a daily plan that will allow you to lose pounds as quickly as your body will allow. That means starting off by getting your body used to eating a lot less. It will probably take you at least two to three weeks to get into that groove. Why? Because your body has a kind of ‘starvation’ setting which is turned on when you eat a tremendous amount less than you were eating before.

In the starvation mode, your body will not begin to burn off calories until you feed it much less food for a long period of time. After you adjust to your new eating habits, your body will process energy from existing fat cells. Many people say they can actually see and feel that happening after a while. That is just the kind of encouragement that helps you keep up with the program. But, what is the program?

The program for morbidly obese people is to take in far less calories than you need each day. It will take at least a week before your body allows you to stop feeling the pain of starvation, but once you get over that hump you will have it made! What you eat will depend on how fast you lose weight. You will have to immediately switch off sugar, salt and fats. For the first couple of months (or more depending on your weight problem) you should eat nothing more than a matzo or small-sized flat bread sandwich with one piece of lunch meat (like roast beef or a poultry product) with zero fat butter substitute and any type of salt substitute per day. Yes, I said one sandwich per day unless you want your weight loss to take forever!

The longer it takes for you to reach your weight loss target, the more likely you are to fall off the diet wagon and go back to bad eating habits. You can drink things like black coffee or green tea which will help you get over the daily hump of feeling hungry, but using sweetner may cause you to get that sweet tooth back. After you begin to approach an average size, you can prepare and eat low calorie hot meals, but you can never go back to eating like you did before.

If you have less than twenty pounds to lose, you can be a little more generous with your daily eating, but you will have to make that up with more exercise. I am no physician and while I have to say that consulting one makes good sense before starting any diet, I will also say that many physician approved diet programs have people eating four or five times a day. The truth is that does not help people who really need to lose weight, especially those who are morbidly obese. Remember that one hundred years ago medical science suggested bleeding as a primary treatment for most diseases, so doctors do not know it all.

As far as exercise goes, walking is excellent for people who need to lose any amount of weight. Unlike running, it does not put a huge amount of strain on your body or burn so many calories that you feel hungry all the time. Start with short walks of no more than a few yards outside your door each day. Make sure you do as much for yourself as you can around the house and stay out of the kitchen as often as you can. As you begin to lose weight, push the envelope by walking further distances each time until you get into a daily routine which allows you to walk at least a mile or more and back each day.

The key to a successful diet is staying thin once you get there. That is where most of the diet aids like prescription and non-prescription pills, as well as surgeries fail. They help people to cheat without actually going through the process of real weight loss which allows them to properly adjust their eating habits. Too many people gain weight they have lost through binge eating, and most of them do it without actually realizing they are doing it. In the end you have not really been on a diet unless you eat a lot less, regardless of what all those diet wizards and organizations tell you.