How many times have you looked in the mirror and said to yourself, “I need to lose weight?” Is this a trick question? Seriously, how many minutes are there in a day? That’s probably how many times you have said these words to yourself just yesterday as a matter of fact.

Those little words, “I need to lose weight” can bring on a stress level and intimidation that is hard to get around and hard to understand. We all know for a fact that if we want to lose weight that there is no magic pill that we can take when we go to bed and we will be thin and beautiful when we wake up.

Too bad there isn’t but we all know that to lose the weight we need to lose will take some hard work on our parts and we are not sure we can sustain that level of commitment for the long haul. Maintaining motivation is difficult and most human beings are inherently lazy. I’m not dissin’ anybody, I am the same way, and I will be the first to admit it.

What we do not realize is that with just a few little adjustments we can change our lives and our weight with very little effort. If you follow a few simple suggestions and guidelines then you will be on your way to having a new body to show off to all of your friends and family.

The first thing is to eat sensibly. Go to your kitchen right now and throw out all the junk food. This may be the hardest thing you have done in a long time but it needs to be done. Ok, I will let you save one item for your first weeks reward. Pick one and put it away.

Next, when you go shopping make a list beforehand and stick to it. Start by buying fresh foods, fruits, and vegetables. Or go to a local farmer’s market on Saturday morning to get some really fresh stuff from local growers. You might have to spend a little more but the quality is well worth it.

If you really do not know where to start find a cookbook and choose several recipes that you think may be good and good for you. Make your fresh food list from the recipes. Buy only what you need for the recipes, if you want to be successful then make sure you have all the ingredients you need for the dish you want to make. I find that nothing is more frustrating than starting to make something and then finding out that I don’t have all the ingredients.

Most importantly here, drink plenty of water. Try this, put a cup (or more to taste) of fresh or frozen berries into a gallon jug and fill it with water. Let the berries infuse their juices for a couple of hours and then strain the berries off through a fine mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth to catch the pulp and seeds. This will help with the mundaneness of water and add some vitamins and minerals, too. If you feel the need to sweeten it then do so with an artificial sweetener to keep the calorie count down. Following these suggestions will change your statement from, “I need to lose weight” to “I need to go buy some new, smaller clothes”.

Tags: Cookbook, Fresh Food, Fresh Foods, Fruits And Vegetables, Hardest Thing, Human Beings, Intimidation, Junk food;, Long Haul, Long Time, Losing Weight, Magic Pill, Maintaining Motivation, Matter Of Fact, Mirror, Recipes, S Market, Saturday Morning, Simple Suggestions, Stress Level, Trick Question, Vitamins And Minerals —

If you have been struggling to lose abdominal fat you are one of many. People in the US have become increasingly obese at every turn of a year. Why? Too may bad carbs and far too less exercise. Fast food joints are more prevalent than ever and it is just too easy to say the heck with it and pick something up on the way home instead of taking the time to cook a nice, healthy meal.

The first step in being able to lose abdominal fat is to change your mindset. No one can do it for you and there is no magic pill that you can take when you go to bed so you wake up thin in the morning. Losing weight takes dedication and perseverance.

Basically, you have to change your mindset and then reset your body. Our bodies work on a schedule and if you mess with that schedule then your body gets confused and because it is confused then it just stops working for you altogether and you gain weight.

If you are stuck on carbs then you need to quit them or change over to healthy carbs. Get the heck away from breads and all the processed foods you find on the shelves of your grocery store. Start eating fresh, whole foods. Get your carbs from fruits and vegetables and eat lean protein like fish, eggs and chicken.

Trim the calories you take in everyday, too. Settle on a 1200 or 1500 calorie per day eating plan. Did you know if you lose just 20% of your body fat you cut your risk for heart disease and diabetes almost in half? That’s right. It is never too late to start losing weight.

Part of resetting your body comes in the form of resetting your insulin pump. When you eat carbs, especially bad carbs, your body is ready to burn that energy you have given it up by converting it into simple sugars. When those simple sugars are not burned up the insulin that the pancreas has pumped into your system converts the simple sugars into fat and deposits that fat around your middle.

Since insulin stays in your system for a lot longer time than the simple sugars then anything you eat after that also gets immediately stored as fat around the middle. Resetting your insulin pump is the most important thing to do when you want to start losing weight.

We have all heard this one before, quit drinking pop and other sugary drinks and just stick to water. Half of your body weight in ounces every day. If you think water is boring and can’t stand to drink it, try this.

Take about a cup of frozen fruit, a berry mixture works very well, and let it sit in the bottom of a pitcher of water for about an hour. When the hour is up strain the fruit off and chill the water. Basically you have made your own type of smart water and the best part is you won’t need any sugar in it. With these tips you will not have to wait very long to lose abdominal fat.

Tags: Atkins, Bad Carbs, Breads, Calories, Eating Habits, Eggs And Chicken, Fish Eggs, Food Joints, Fruits And Vegetables, Gain Weight, Grocery Store, Heart Disease And Diabetes, heart disease;, Insulin Pump, Lean Protein, Losing Weight, Magic Pill, Mindset, Pancreas, Perseverance, Processed Foods, Simple Sugars, Whole Foods —

Have you been looking for the quickest way to lose belly fat? There is a program that can give you a flat stomach in just two weeks. This program doesn’t include shakes, pills or potions and the only cash outlay is $30 at your local sports store. This article isn’t about trying to sell you some magic pill; it’s simply showing you how you can lose that excess fat around the tummy.

This routine does require a stability ball that costs around $30 and you can get one from your local sporting store. These balls come in various sizes between 18 and 26 inch and you will need to choose the right size for your height. Studies have shown that people who work out with a stability ball build twice the muscle fibers as those who do regular crunches without a ball. Using a stability ball for your exercises will definitely help you to lose that excess belly fat much faster.

When you purchase a stability ball it will come with an instruction manual that will outline various exercises that you can do with the ball. The exercise instructions usually come with diagrams to illustrate how to do each exercise. In this article I will outline a couple of exercises that are great to do with the ball to help lose that fat around the stomach area.

The first exercise is called the Ball Curl. Sit on the stability ball with your hands behind your head. Next you want to roll your body down until your bottom is just off the ball and your lower back and middle are on the ball.

The next exercise is called the Pike and is a bit more complicated. Lie on the top of the ball with your legs together and the ball should be under your thighs. Keep your legs straight and then contract your abs and lift your hips up toward the ceiling, rolling the ball to the shins. Hold this for one second and then lower.

The ball is important in the plan to lose fat around the stomach but it isn’t the only tool that you need. If you really want to lose fat fast then you also want to do some cardio workouts at least three times a week. With a cardio workout you should warm up for three minutes, follow this with three minutes of regular paced exercise and then two minutes of high paced exercise. Repeat the three minutes regular and two minutes high exercises for a total of 45 minutes finishing with two minutes cooling down exercises. Cardio workouts might include running, brisk walking, cycling or a cardio machine.

Lastly, you need to reduce your intake of calories. You can exercise all you want but if you continue to eat too many calories then you’re not likely to lose any weight. You need to eat 500 fewer calories than you would to maintain your weight. So if the required calories to maintain your weight are 2700 then you should only eat 2200 to lose weight. The required amount of calories to maintain your weight will depend on your sex, height and age.

If you follow this program for two weeks you will see a remarkable difference in your stomach fat. You should lose at least an inch from your weight and lose around five pounds.

This really is the quickest way to lose belly fat!

Tags: Calories, Cardio Workouts, Cash Outlay, Crunches, Exercise Instructions, Fastest Way To Lose Belly Fat, Fat Stomach, Flat Stomach, Hips, Local Sports, Losing Weight, Magic Pill, Muscle Fibers, Potions, Quickest Way To Lose Belly Fat, Shakes, Shins, Sporting Store, Stability Ball, Stomach Area, Stomach Exercise, Thighs —

If you are asking yourself, “How do I go about losing weight the right way?”, you are asking a very good question. Losing weight is a process that takes time and dedication. too may people think there is, or should be, a magic pill for losing weight and that they won’t have to work at it.

Some things you may already know about stress and gaining weight, stress makes the body produce a hormone called Cortisol. Cortisol increases fat stores around your mid-section putting you at risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Learn some techniques to decrease the stress in your life. Meditation is a good technique to use to decrease stress. Yoga is another good way. Actually, just getting some regular daily exercise will go a long way to decreasing your stress level.

Try to think more positively about your life and your weight loss. If you do then the extra pounds will disappear in no time.

Getting enough sleep at night is also a big part of losing weight the right way. If you are always tired and dragged out then try getting an extra hour or two of sleep at night. The human body needs 7-9 hours of sleep per night and when you do not get it your metabolism slows down to a not so steady crawl and your body does not work the way it should. Those of us who work the night shift really have screwed up metabolisms. Working nights is very stressful on the human body. We were all meant to sleep at night not during the day.

OK, so, you have done all the things listed above and find you still cannot lose the weight. Are you drinking enough water? If you think that you drink enough fluids every day then let me ask you, do you drink regular pop, diet pop or other sweetened drinks? If you do you need to stop. Regular pop, diet pop and other sweetened drinks are called empty calories because they have absolutely no nutritional value. The only thing they do is increase the amount of fat you have. Did you know that if you do nothing else but stop drinking pop you can lose 38 pounds in just a year? No, I am not kidding!

Hold on, back up, did you say diet pop? Yup, diet pop is ‘sweetened’ with artificial sweeteners and is basically considered poison by the medical community. Diet pop actually tricks your body into staying fat. When you drink diet pop the brain expects nutrition and when it realizes you were only joking, the brain signals the stomach that it is still hungry and you end up eating more to compensate the empty calories you just put in your body.

Stick with the water and maybe some green tea. The green tea gives you an added benefit of antioxidants that are so important for your health and it tastes great, too.

So try to decrease the stress in your life, divorce it if you have to, get more sleep at night, exercise and give up the pop. This should help you in losing weight the right way.

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