For many people the hardest part about dieting is not losing weight but keeping the weight off. The reason for this is because many people fall back into their old habits of eating not long after their diets have ended and become afflicted with yo-yo Dieting.

However, successful dieters will tell you that it is important not only to know how to lose weight but how to keep it off for good.

One method that successful dieters use to keep their weight off is by proper planning of their meals and activities.

Planning Your Meals

Meal planning is perhaps one of the single most important steps you can take to keeping the weight off and getting control of your eating habits. As a part of your weight management efforts, you should try to plan your weekly meals so that you stock your kitchen with the healthy and nutritious foods and snacks. Having a healthy choice of food in your pantry and your refrigerator can serve as a preventative measure against binging or snacking on foods that may cause you to fall back to your old eating habits.

Planning Time for Exercise

Additionally, your weekly planning should also include some form of exercise. Keep in mind that research shows that exercise is one of the most important factors for maintaining weight control. Therefore, scheduling exercise into your routine is a crucial step to managing your weight.

Keeping a Food Diary

Keeping a food diary may also be essential to you keeping your weight under control. By monitoring your food and activities in a diary, you may be able to identify any problem areas you might have, before they become major issues.

Additionally, one of the things you can record in your food diary is the times of day that you feel tempted to snack. By writing these times down, you may be able to plan activities for yourself instead of succumbing to your cravings.

Dealing with Cravings

Being prepared to deal with your cravings is another important aspect of weight control. Most people experience cravings at one point or another. However, knowing how to deal with these cravings separates the successful dieters from the unsuccessful ones.

One strategy that you can follow when you begin to experience cravings, is try to outlast your cravings. Research shows that most cravings go away after 20 minutes, so if you can outlast your cravings without giving in, it will eventually pass. Additionally, instead of giving in to your cravings, do something pleasant like taking a relaxing bath or talking to a friend on the phone.

Eating Out

Long term weight management doesn’t mean you can never eat out. What it might mean, however, is that you may need to prepare yourself mentally in advance for the experience. For example, one strategy is if you know you are going out for dinner, maybe you can try to mentally plan out what you might order before you get to the restaurant. Having an idea about what you are going to eat before you get to the restaurant may prevent you from over-eating once you get there.

Additionally, if you know ahead of time that you are going to eat out, try to eat a little lighter, earlier in the day. Also, once you are at the restaurant, try to skip any appetizers and desserts and go with the main meal of the evening.

Although learning weight control can be a challenge for many people, it is important to realize that by being conscious of your habits and by monitoring yourself, success can be yours and you can learn to manage your weight and keep the pounds off for good.

Patricia Zelkovsky
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/beyond-dieting-how-to-keep-the-weight-off-for-good-102368.html

The hallmark of a successful diet is one on which you are able to lose weight, while still feeling as if you are getting enough to eat. While that may sound impossible, making healthy choices about what to eat is just as important as how much you consume. Learning to diet sensibly can help you to lose or maintain your current weight, while getting all the nourishment and emotional satisfaction that your body needs. Following are some expert tips to help you get the most out of your diet.

Diet Tips for Losing Weight
Dieting is never easy, but knowing how to avoid some common dieting traps can help you to stick to your resolve.

1. Eat a Healthy Breakfast Every Day. While many dieters opt to skip breakfast, doing so actually hurts your attempt to lose weight. If you wait until lunch to eat, your bodys metabolism will slow down and any calories you consume for the rest of the day will take extra time to burn. Even a piece of fruit or a slice of whole wheat toast can give your metabolism the boost that it needs.

2. Get a Diet Buddy. If you have a friend who is also trying to lose weight, team up to keep each other honest and provide moral support. Knowing that there is someone else you can turn to for encouragement can help you to stay true to your diet plans.

3. Read About Ingredients. Instead of just finding out how many calories a certain product contains, look at the complete nutritional value of the item. Reading the label can tell you how much sodium, fat and carbohydrates are loaded into your meal. Calories are very important to weight loss, but they are not everything.

4. Supplement Your Diet with Vitamins. When you are trying to lose weight by reducing certain types of Food, you may be unconsciously limiting important nutrients and vitamins from your diet. Adding a vitamin supplement to your plan will help you to keep balanced and healthy.

5. Plan Ahead When Eating Out. Knowing what you want to order before you even arrive at the restaurant can help you to avoid looking at the menu and giving in to temptation. Try to frequent restaurants that have fresh salads and offer a variety of low calorie choices.

6. Stop Eating When You Are Full. It may seem like common sense, but many people feel the need to finish everything on their plate, or eat until they feel stuffed. It also helps to eat slowly since the brain can take up to 20 minutes to register that the stomach is full.

7. Add an Exercise Program. Combining a sensible, healthy diet with even a moderate exercise regime will significantly enhance the results you see on your waistline.

Wendy Wood
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/losing-weight-through-healthy-dieting-118743.html

When did people switch from eating all they could in order to survive to purposely limiting their food intake in order to stay thin/Health? When did people start dieting/counting calories in large numbers(mainstream/when was it common)?

From about the end of WW2 which strangely enough, coincides with the raise in "obesity" aka "da fat!!!".

Dieting does not work.
Fat is a feature not a fault.

Millions upon millions of people each year try to shed unwanted pounds. They try diet after diet and after several of them have failed they are lead to the option of green tea dieting. With all the promises and wondrous diet remedies that are out there it can be really hard for frustrated dieters to believe that green tea dieting actually works. So now we are all left with the question “Can green tea really help me lose weight?” There are been some really productive studies done recently showing the epigallocatechin, which is a chemical found in green tea has actually been shown to offer just a little weight loss magic.

Since unlike black teas which are created with fermented tea leaves, green tea is produced by the steaming of freshly picked leaves and this process allow green teas to retain more chemicals such as the healthy epigallocatechin.

So how exactly does that help someone looking to lose weight?

The suggested reason that green tea is able to assist people in shedding unwanted weight is that it contains the calorie burning capabilities that are contained in epigallocatechin, which is also referred to as EGCG. EGCG can cause the body to increase its overall body heat, which in turn will increase the body’s metabolism. Now this will by no means make you feel as though you are hot after consuming a glass of green tea it does however mean that your metabolism will burn all throughout the day during all the activities that you do. There are many other chemicals that will help to promote calorie burning such as hot peppers however none of them last for the period of time that EGCG is able to. Keep in mind though while green tea can very effectively help you lose weight it is highly unlikely to melt off pounds while you sleep.

So while green tea will help you increase your metabolism and will accelerate the weight loss that is occurring in your body, you also need to incorporate a proper exercise program. Speaking with your health care professional will help get you right on track to the weight loss program that will offer you the best results for your body type.

Jason Lee
http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/green-tea-Dieting-720555.html

When did people switch from eating all they could in order to survive to purposely limiting their food intake in order to stay thin/health? When did people start dieting/counting calories in large numbers(mainstream/when was it common)?

Dieting has probably been around for thousands of years, although not in any structured way. It wasn’t very common until the 1800‘s however, simply because people who were overweight were not very common.
Diets that did exist, whenever a prince or bishop decided that not being able to move around freely was a problem, involved no more than a slight reduction in quantity of the same food.

It wasn’t entirely the health factors of being overweight that first got the modern diet off the starting blocks, as well as health concerns, it was the war against sin! Gluttony no less.

It was around two decades later, in 1918 before the calorie left the world of academia and hit the mainstream.
The idea of counting calories became popular around the turn of the 20th century,

At that time, scientist Wilbur Atwater noticed that if you put food in a machine, called a "bomb calorimeter," and burned it, you could measure the ash and heat to find out how much "energy" was released and therefore how much "energy" was in the food. The idea caught on, and people began counting calories — that is, calculating exactly how many calories were consumed when eating particular Foods, and "burned" when engaging in different activities.

Just two months ago I got down to 178 pounds, and I just weighed myself today and I’m up to 195–my weight fluctuates pretty rapidly and I know that that’s unHealthy. I exercise almost every day and I eat pretty healthy, but what other things can I do to stop the yo yo dieting affect?

Do you eat too little when you are dieting? Severely restricting calories actually prevents our bodies from burning unwanted fat stores effectively – and unfortunately, this means that weight loss slows down. Your body goes into ’starvation mode’. This mechanism, which is thought to have evolved as a defence against starvation, means you become super efficient at making the most of the calories. Yhis is to protect fat stores and instead uou use lean tissue or muscle to provide some of the calories it needs to keep vital organs going.

You can read the rest on the link.
Most nutrition experts recommend never going below 1,000-1,200 calories a day.

For most of us it is not that we aren’t motivated or that we “can’t” lose weight. Instead, it is that we choose the wrong kinds of diets. Highly restrictive diets or diets that don’t give your body the energy and nutrition it needs can sabotage your weight loss efforts and in some cases even make it harder to lose weight. 

Here are some tips for finding easy diets that really work so that you can get off the weight loss rollercoaster once and for all and get the lean, healthy body you have been wanting.

One of the most common mistakes people make when choosing a diet is to follow one that doesn’t give your body enough calories. These low calorie diets or “starvation” diets cut way back on the number of calories you eat each day. Now, logically it would seem that the more calories you cut the faster you are going to lose weight.

The truth is, though, that when you cut out too many calories your body can go into “starvation mode”. Which means, essentially, that your body starts to think that you are starving. Since it doesn’t know when your next meal is coming and wants to keep you alive as long as possible, your metabolism will actually slow down to conserve energy. 

A slower metabolism means that it will be harder for you to lose weight. Not only that, but when you do go back to eating normally it will be a lot easier to gain back any weight you may have lost. That is why so many of us wind up yo-yo dieting for so many years.

Besides the fact that extreme low calorie diets screw with your metabolism, the fact is that they are really hard to stick with, too. Anytime you don’t give yourself enough calories or cut out entire food groups (like with low fat or low carb diets) you are going to feel hungry and deprived. That makes it a lot harder to stick with a diet for any length of time and is another reason that so many people think that dieting is hard.

Starvation diets, low fat and low carb aren’t the answer to losing fat. The problem is that most traditional diets focus on losing weight rather than losing fat, and that means you can lose both lean muscle and water weight along with fat.

Instead of a weight loss diet you should follow a diet specifically designed for fat loss. An easy fat loss diet will help you to melt the excess fat off your body and expose the toned, sexy muscles underneath. Fat loss diets tend to be very easy to stick with because they allow you to eat more than 3 times a day and actually work with your body rather than against it.

Learn more at http://www.fatlossforidiotsreview.com

Beth Larson
http://www.articlesbase.com/weight-loss-articles/easy-diets-that-work-forget-the-struggle-make-Dieting-a-breeze-708028.html

Almost everywhere you turn, fad diets are appearing. They often deliver results, but at what cost? Is there a healthier but still effective option?

You’re joining your friend for lunch. She looks great. She’s shed the extra twenty pounds that she’s been carrying since college, and she’s dressed in a slinky black outfit that makes you a bit envious. When you question her about it, she tells you she’s been on the Atkins diet. She proceeds to recount how she ate a pile of bacon for breakfast, and some pork rinds for a midmorning snack, and you feel your eyes widen in shock when she orders a double cheeseburger off the menu. Is this really a smart diet?

“Are you really going to eat that?” You stare in awe at the size of the two monster hamburger patties. She quickly peels the bread off her burger, discarding it on the side of her plate.

“Sure,” She quips. “I can eat all the meat I want, cooked anyway I want.”

With all the fad diets circling around, it’s important to evaluate a diet before signing on. Is it really a smart diet? Sure, your friend looks amazing, but can it really be healthy to eat a pound of bacon and greasy burger meat every day? It doesn’t sound like a smart diet. The fact is that your body needs carbohydrates for energy, and people on the Atkins diet have reported fatigue and even experienced high blood pressure.

The same is true of low fat diets. While you may drop weight fairly easily by limiting your fat grams, it’s not really a smart diet. Your body actually needs some fats. These fat-free foods are often loaded with extra sugar to make them taste better.

There are literally too many current fad diets to list. Most of them include loading up on a particular type of food while depriving yourself of other foods. In the case of diets like Atkins diet, you are not allowed to eat carbohydrates. What you aren’t being told is that this is not a smart diet. Not only does your body need carbohydrates, it also shifts into carbohydrate starvation mode when you finally splurge on one, storing it as fat. Your body doesn’t know when it will get this type of fuel again.

Most physicians will tell you that a smart diet consists of a variety of different food groups. This means incorporating every group (even carbohydrates) in moderation.

The bottom line is that to lose weight, you simply have to cut calories. Although most people acknowledge this would be a smart diet, they often crave the immediate results that some not-so-smart diets offer.

Perhaps you’ve tried smart dieting. You’ve selected the proper Foods, you’ve even developed an exercise plan, but you’re miserable. The weight isn’t coming off all that quickly, and quite frankly, you’re just starving. That’s the reason you binged on the pizza from Dominos last night, and it’s probably the reason you thought you deserved that extra helping of mashed potatoes. If only you could stick to a smart diet without feeling deprived.

The good news is that you can. I’m not talking about diet pills because you’re probably smart enough to know the dangers of those products. I’m talking about a vegetable… an all natural cactus-style plant literally changing the way people look at dieting. If you missed the specials on the Today show and 60 Minutes, let me fill you in. Hoodia Gordonii is a plant from the South African desert. Bushmen used it for centuries to ward off hunger. It tricks your body into thinking that you’ve eaten, limiting your consumption by up to 2000 calories a day.

Remember that a smart diet is one that limits calories, not one that tells you to avoid certain food groups entirely. With Hoodia Gordonii, you will have the extra willpower you need to commit to a smart diet. It’s easy when you’re not hungry. Best of all, this isn’t a drug. It’s a vegetable, so it’s healthy and safe. Say goodbye to fad diets and give something smart a try.

Martin Stanwyck
http://www.articlesbase.com/advice-articles/the-dangers-of-fad-dieting-41163.html

Whether you eat fewer calories or burn them off through exercise, the effect on body composition and fat distribution is the same.

Researchers found that dieting alone is as effective as a combination of diet and exercise at cutting weight and fat – as long as calories consumed and burned equal out.

Adding exercise to a weight-loss program doesn’t change body composition and abdominal fat distribution. That challenges the theory that specific exercises can reduce fat in certain areas. For example, some exercises are supposed to specifically target abdominal fat.

It’s all about the calories. So long as the energy deficit is the same, body weight, fat weight, and abdominal fat will all decrease in the same way.

The researches conduct a study. They divide people into three groups: One group went on a diet that reduced their caloric intake by 25 percent (550 to 900 fewer calories a day); the second group reduced their caloric intake by 12.5 percent and increased their physical activity to burn 12.5 percent more calories.

The people in the third group were put on a healthy diet designed to maintain their body weight.

After six months, the people in both the calorie-restricted and the calorie reduction/exercise groups had lost about 10 percent of their bodyweight, 24 percent of their fat mass, and 27 percent of their abdominal fat. However, their distribution of body fat remained the same.

The inability of the interventions to alter the distribution of fat suggests that individuals are genetically programmed for fat storage in a particular pattern and that this programming cannot easily be overcome.

While dieting alone can reduce weight, the researchers noted that exercise also improves aerobic fitness, which has many other Health benefits.

For overall health, an appropriate program of diet and exercise is still the best.

sunshine
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/dieting-and-exercise-have-the-same-effect-on-body-fat-distribution-704135.html

Let’s face it, not everyone enjoys breakfast. While most early-to-rise types are ready for food early in the a.m., many who consider themselves night owls cannot stomach the thought. Unfortunately for the night owls, skipping breakfast has many negative consequences, especially when you are trying to lose weight. While theoretically the idea of eating less food by skipping breakfast sounds like a useful idea, practice has shown skipping breakfast sabotages your Dieting successes made later on in the day. How could that be? By missing breakfast one would most likely forgo between 300-400 calories. In fact, 10 days of going without breakfast would cause you to lose over a pound, by those counts. Unfortunately, your body knows that it is running without its morning fuel, and finds other ways around the loss.

First of all, by going without breakfast, we leave our body without fuel for nearly 12 hours or more. Sure, you may not be hungry early on, but by lunch or later in the afternoon when you finally give in, you are sure to over eat by more than those calories you missed at breakfast. This is because your blood sugar has dropped so low by that time that you begin to feel shaky, ravenous and irritable. You are far less able to fight temptation when you are caught in the midst of such a strong physical need for food, and much less likely to heed the signs of satiety when it has been so long since you havefed your body. Perhaps you are one of the few that possess an iron will? Maybe you are sure that you will not overeat or choose unwisely. Unfortunately, even with your will of iron, you will still not gain (i.e. lose pounds) by pushing away breakfast. Your body is a remarkably smart machine. If you have not fed it in more than 5-6 hours, but are still requiring it to keep up with your physical tasks, it will respond by slowing down your metabolism. Who would have thought that by eating you would raise your metabolism? Turns out it is true. The process of eating and digesting burns some calories by raising your metabolism. So, how early do you want your metabolism raised?

Finally, choosing to eat in the morning does not just get your metabolism going, studies have shown that women have greater amounts of calcium and fiber intake on the days that they choose to eat breakfast. Both calcium and fiber have been shown to be associated with successful weight loss, so you really do want more of both of those nutrients. Also breakfast eating in children is associated with greater cognitive skills, better moods and better grades. It is not too hard to believe that those same benefits are available to you, and when dieting, do not we all need something to help us with our moods?

Kerry-Ann Crawford
http://www.articlesbase.com/weight-loss-articles/why-breakfast-is-so-important-when-dieting-340952.html