If you’re overweight, you are not a bad person. You’re simply overweight. But it’s important to lose the extra pounds so you’ll look good, feel healthier and develop a sense of pride and self-esteem. Once you’ve lost the fat, you’ll need to maintain your weight.
In
this blog, you’ll discover how to lose 10 pounds a month – a nice, safe loss
of about two or two-and-a-half pounds a week – painlessly. You’ll feel
satisfied and more energetic than in the past without feeling deprived.
Most
Americans pack on those extra pounds by eating the wrong things. Changing these
poor eating habits is the key to long-term success. Knowledge – along with the
right food – is the key.
When
humans lived in caves, they didn’t know anything about preserving and storing
food. They spent all their waking time and energy hunting and gathering food.
When they had it, they gobbled it down fast. Instead of storing food in
pantries or cupboards, they stored energy in their bodies in the form of fat to
burn during periods when there was little or nothing to eat.
Each
year, it was absolutely vital for them to put on a good layer of fat during the
warm sprint and summer months. That was the only way they could guarantee their
survival during the lean and mean winter months.
And
since women bore the young, they needed more energy to sustain themselves and
their babies, and that meant they were usually heavier.
Even
though we no longer live in caves, we have inherited and maintained this basic
mechanism for fat storage from our hunting and gathering ancestors.
Each
one of us is born with a certain number of fat cells. How many of these fat
cells you possess depends on genetics. If you have a lot of fat cells, maybe
your ancestors were the biggest people in the tribe, which was a good thing
because they had the best chances of survival.
You
can never get rid of fat cells, but – unfortunately – you can add to them.
Depending upon what you eat, your body will manufacture new far cells. And like
those you were born with, they never go away.
That
doesn’t mean you’re doomed to be fat once you put on extra pounds. It is possible
to shrink fat cells. That’s what happens when you lose weight. You burn up the
fat stored in those big fat cells. Think of them as balloons. Burning off the
fat inside them has the save effect as letting the air out of a balloon.
A
good weight loss program requires a certain amount of intake restriction – the
consumption of fewer calories. You burn off the fat by eating less fat and
becoming more active.
To
guarantee a lifetime of weight-control success, you have to change the type of
foods you eat, so that you ingest less fat and still get the vitamins,
minerals, trace elements, protein, fat and carbohydrates your body needs to
thrive.
Extremely
low-calorie diets may help you shed pounds quickly, but they’ll lead to failure
in the long run.
That’s
because humans are genetically protected against starvation. During food
shortages, our bodies slow down our metabolisms and burn less energy so we can
stay alive.
A
part of our brain called the hypothalamus keeps us on an even weight keep by
creating a “set point.” That’s the weight where we feel comfortable. The
hypothalamus determines this point based on the level of consumption it’s used
to. It seeks to keep our weight constant, even if that point is over what it
should be.
When
we drastically cut back our food intake, the brain thinks the body is starving,
and in an effort to preserve life, it slows the metabolism. Soon the pounds
stop coming off. Consequently, we grow hungry and uncomfortable and then eat
more. And then the diet fails.
How
can you compensate for this metabolic slow-down? The answer is that you have to
change the nutritional composition of the foods you eat. You will have to cut
down on total calories – that’s absolutely basic to weight loss. More
important, however, is reducing the percentage of total calories you are
getting from fat.
That’s
how you’ll avoid starvation panic in your system. At the same time, you reduce
the amount of fat in your food, replacing it with safe, low calorie,
nutrient-rich plant foods. This will convince your brain that your body is
getting all the nutrition it needs.
In
fact, you’ll be able to eat more food and feel more satisfied while consuming
fewer calories and fats.
Plant
foods break down slowly in your stomach, making you feel full longer, and they
are rich in vitamins, minerals, trace elements, carbohydrates and protein for
energy and muscle-building. This allows your body to burn off its excess stored
fat.