It’s not easy to have faith in much of the weight loss advice given today. A multi-billion dollar slimming industry constantly preys upon us with the latest ‘California Beach Babe’ diet that just gets discarded after two weeks of misery! Yet like many others, we were after something that worked. This is how we went about it…

Firstly, we searched for dieticians who weren’t just interested in selling us a repeat purchase item. Authors that could teach us sustainable habits. Expertise, not hype! So a dependence on expensive diet products was out – we simply endeavoured to find solid, practical solutions.

Each program we shortlisted offers real, well-tested advice. We left the ’sensational must haves’ well alone. They’re just the latest gimmick!

The creators of the programs we’re recommending have really got to grips with how it feels to be too heavy. They teach no-nonsense practical solutions on resolving obesity issues for good. As you read through these programs, you’ll start to realise the benefits they’ll give you both now and down the road. Friends will find your weight loss and energy gain hard to believe!

So The Answers Can Be Found? You have our word – disguised as it was under all the hype from the diet industry. Be assured though – there is a workable system for you.

For lots of us, weight problems have troubled our lives for years. Some regimes result in weight loss for a time, but then it all rolls back on again as soon as we stop. The vast majority of diets fail. Sometimes the program just isn’t sustainable, and sometimes we don’t see results.

It’s not widely known, but top performing athletes invest a lot of time in nutritional education. Obviously, we don’t all want to be top sports people – but we can benefit from the research that’s gone into what makes our bodies work best. The findings can be utilised by all of us.

But we have to stop putting things off. It’s very rewarding to see visible changes occurring so quickly. But we’ll get no-where if we always put things off. Read the facts now, and have a go! Be pleased with yourself for starting.

The amount of regular exercise that we take will significantly affect how quickly we lose weight when we’re on a diet. Many would prefer not to exercise, but the rewards are worth it. Exercising not only uses up calories, it also develops muscle.

In terms of metabolic rates, fat is slow, but muscle is more vigorous. So we need muscle to burn a greater number of calories up more speedily. Individuals with more muscles deplete their calorific intake sooner. We’ll also see an improved body shape and tone when our muscle is developed.

It may take time to build up a routine. It’s often easier to get the exercise habit going by being more active in your day to day life. Climb steps rather than taking an elevator whenever possible. If you drive to your job, leave your car at the other end of the parking bay. Get off the bus sooner than you normally do – you’ll quickly get used to the daily mini-hike!

Try to exercise 5 days out of 7. If you do, you’ll soon notice the results – especially if you manage over half-an-hour each session. Maybe vary the exercises on different days. You’ll give yourself a much better chance of sticking with the program then.

Becoming toned and fitter does not need to be a downer! Ask around and see if you can encourage a second person to join you. The easiest exercise that any of us can take is walking. If you build up a good pace, you’ll benefit from more than simply losing weight.

People who are actively fit suffer much less from heart attacks and strokes. Inactive females have a greater risk of breast cancer than active ones. Adult cholesterol is considerably lower in energetic people. Interestingly, many who are depressed and anxious can alleviate their symptoms by taking robust walks. Therefore we can anticipate feeling much fitter as well as looking much slimmer.

Pick out some comfortable items to wear when you go walking. Whether it’s cold or hot, always wear layers of clothing for outdoor exercise. You may need a new pair of walking boots. Do test them out as thoroughly as you can in the store. Do not buy shoes that your feet slop around in – only your toes need to be able to move.

At the start of each walk, run through a quick check on your posture. Distribute your weight evenly, and tuck your tummy in. Relax and drop your shoulders down. Warm yourself up properly before you start your walk. This can be done with some stretches, rolling of shoulders and squats. Then finish the warm-up by marching on the spot.

It’s important to develop a good walking style, so keep your back straight and let any tension go. When you arrive back home at the end of your walk, repeat your warm up in reverse, decreasing the size of your movements. Start with a few fairly short walks, and build up as you go. Brisk walking is generally good for all of us, but if you’re in doubt, consult your doctor first.

Are you aware that our behaviour patterns very often reflect those of our friends? Psychologists have been telling us for a long time that we become like the people we associate with. For the most part this is interpreted as we hold the same belief structure or values; we quite often support the same sports clubs and political parties as our friends, for instance.

However, studies are now also suggesting that having overweight friends makes it more likely that we will be overweight too. According to a recent news article, we have a tendency to consume more when eating with heavier people who we know well. A US research team looked at kids eating habits. They found that the heavier ones ate more when they were with their heavier pals than when they were with their slimmer friends.

The entire group, who varied in weight and were aged nine to fifteen, ate more when they were with their pals. But pairing up overweight friends led to the biggest consumption of all. The research was featured in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It discovered that young teens eating habits are definitely affected by the company they keep.

Frankly, having more relaxed habits when with friends is not a big surprise. We all feel more awkward in strange company. With friends, we gain a sort of unspoken permission for our actions. In a subconscious way, we permit them to define tolerable behaviour.

Young people of all sizes were studied for forty five minutes. They were split into groups of two friends, or groups of two strangers. Then they were presented with a selection of things to pass the time, and food to eat.

Every pair who knew each other ate more than those who didn’t. Nevertheless, by far the most was eaten by the heavy couples who were pals. The results showed as follows:

An average of seven hundred and thirty eight calories was eaten by overweight teens who paired with a friend. Yet the larger kid who paired with a regular weight buddy only ate four hundred and forty four calories. Interestingly, regular weight kids averaged approximately five hundred calories no matter what weight their friend was. The larger kids desire to be like their friends is a common notion. We see this also in relation to smoking at an early age.

Back to the eating patterns – and the researchers concluded that the way children eat is very much tied into the habits of their friends. But this can be argued both ways – if a young person is taught sound nutrition and puts it into practice, they could be instrumental in influencing many others. What better reason for more nutritional training in schools?

My weight has gone up and down all my married life. And I figured that as I approached my fifties, things would only get worse. But I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way! I’m past fifty now, and no longer need to lose any weight.

How can this be? I simply keep an eye on my blood-sugar levels. I used to hanker after something sweet as my energy sapped around late afternoon. And so my solution was to eat a handful of biscuits or a piece of cake. This of course just added more layers of fat to my stomach and thighs.

Not only that, but in addition fat was amassing in my arteries and elsewhere – quite a scary thought. These days, I hardly ever feel drained or half-starved. My husband would say I’m a little easier to live with – seems my moods are more balanced as well! And joy of joys, I can sleep through the night.

The ’secret’ is to eat every couple of hours, but just don’t eat much. Before, I’d skip breakfast or maybe lunch quite regularly, claiming I was just too busy to stop and eat. I’d then stuff myself at dinner, and end up uncomfortable all evening.

I ought to have been taking in modest sized ‘meals’ several times a day. Our metabolic rate peaks around the middle of the day, and slows down rapidly after that. Our important meals then are those eaten before the end of the afternoon – later ones have a tendency to be laid down as fat.

Now each morning I always allow time for breakfast. I don’t keep an ultra close eye on every calorie, I just watch how much I eat at a time. The gut only has a limited capacity it can comfortably take, so I’ve learned not to overfill it.

Lunch is now usually my main meal. I try to restrict pasta, rice and wheat. I still enjoy a bite of something around 4pm, but it’s now light and nutritious as the cravings have gone. I eat protein with every meal, and go for as many colourful vegetables as I can find (as they contain the most antioxidants).

I haven’t cut out fat, though I’m fussy what fats I eat. Nuts and seeds are highly calorific, but great eaten in moderation.

Finally my weight has gone down because my alcohol consumption has gone down – I now just drink a glass of dry white wine a couple of times a week. Instead of wine and beer I drink iced tea and mineral water, which is very refreshing. Has it been hard, after all these years? It’s been a lot easier than I imagined actually. Not only has my weight dropped a couple of dress sizes, but I’m more energetic than I’ve been for years!

Dieters don’t want to feel like they’re missing out all the time, or they just become demoralised. It’s especially bad if we’re the one who cooks for the family – with one meal for ourselves and another for everyone else! So how can we put the two together and cater for one and all?

Let’s start with portion sizes – whatever’s on our plate, if we want to lose weight we should eat less. So find yourself a plate that’s about two-thirds the normal size. You won’t feel so deprived, because you can still fill the plate when you serve up. Wait until the rest of your family or friends have started eating before you start. Then slowly savour every mouthful you take. (Not only will this prevent you from finishing much sooner than the rest, it will also leave you feeling more replete.)

It should be possible to eat the same dinner as everyone else for several days of the week. Just make sure you eat lots of vegetables, and only serve yourself a small amount of carbohydrate. Also, restrict any side portions of bread and butter! If the family like their puddings, prepare ones that you can have a taste of. Check any tinned fruit you have is in juice, not syrup.

But you can also sneak in the odd diet meal for the whole family. Delicious low calorie meals can be created without anyone suspecting a thing! Fresh herbs make a great addition to spaghetti dishes – and add plenty of mushrooms and courgettes. Instead of oil, use tinned tomatoes and olives for juiciness.

At the supermarket or store, always choose low fat meat and dairy products. After a while, your family will get used to these healthier products and enjoy them just as much. Breast of chicken or turkey is a good choice, especially if you eat it without the skin. Boil or steam potatoes rather than frying. Maris Piper is one variety that has a good waxy consistency. There’s no need to add high calorie spreads or butter then.

Watch out for breakfast cereals – some are loaded with sugar so always read the ingredients before buying. Cereal bars are best avoided too – they look like a healthy snack, but most are incredibly sweet. We also probably consume a load of hidden calories in our drinks. Choose sodas with artificial sweeteners, and make them last longer than usual by adding ice.

Alcohol contains a lot of calories, so when you’re socialising it’s good to find some alternatives. Try drinking tomato juice with ice or spring water. Watered down apple juice makes a passable wine lookalike if you don’t want to be different from the crowd.

Naturally, we have to change our habits if we want to shed the pounds. But with a few little tweaks here and there we can seriously cut back on the calories.

For more efficient weight loss, try eating more slowly. Because it’s currently been shown that how fast we eat affects how much we eat. Speedy eaters have a tendency to eat bigger meals than slow eaters, according to recent research. This was proved when diners were asked to eat until they felt satiated.

Have a try yourself – for dinner, speedily eat a carbohydrate based meal. On a different day, enjoy the exact same dinner, but this time spend at least twenty seconds with each forkful in your mouth. The chances are you’ll eat more of the first meal than the second. Overall you’re likely to feel more fulfilled and comfortable after your second dinner, both at the end of the meal and for a good while afterwards.

We often eat too much when we’re speed eating, because we haven’t given the food time to reach our stomach. The bloated feeling we can get is a consequence of this behaviour.

But there is another reason to keep food in the mouth for longer. When food has been chewed up properly, the digestive juices flow and all the elements are processed efficiently. This helps with losing weight.

The amount we eat is affected by the way we eat. For optimal digestion, we should sit in a dining chair and eat at the table. That way we observe better table manners, and tend not to scoff the food down! Interestingly, we’re more likely to leave unwanted food on the plate when we’re sitting at the table.

Maybe it’s also because sitting at the table makes dining more of an occasion, so we don’t rush things so much. Certainly sitting on the sofa scoffing food in front of the TV is the least effective way to aid digestion.

If it’s been several hours since we last ate, we’re also vulnerable to speed eating! To avoid this eat frequent small meals, which consist of slow release nutritional food. Sugary drinks and chocolates give us a quick burst of energy, but it can be very short-lived. For many of us, eating more meals on weekdays isn’t practical. So plan ahead and take a piece of fruit, some mixed nuts or oatcakes to your workplace and have a snack every couple of hours.

So just to re-cap – the time we take to chew our food now seems to have a direct bearing on the length of time we feel replete. Relishing each mouthful could be a helpful contribution to losing weight.

We can easily jump to conclusions about the best way to shed a few pounds when we decide to get serious about weight loss. Take this idea for starters: There’s a belief in society that if we succumb to temptation and snack throughout the day, we’ll just get heavier and heavier! Is that actually the case?

The purists would have us believe that sticking to three nutritious meals a day is the way to drop the pounds. And yet this thinking is now being turned on its head by some. How can this be?

Surely eating more meals will just increase the number of calories we consume, not reduce them? Mentally we associate hunger with weight loss. The truth though is interestingly more complex.

Not eating for many hours will leave us feeling starved. Which means that our appetite is massive when the next meal eventually comes. And we go on to eat more than we really need. An especially vulnerable meal for this is the evening meal. Then we’re in a position where we’re sitting down to relax but we’ve got a gut full of ‘fuel’.

If instead we altered our day and prepared six small ‘meals’, that hungry feeling never develops. Our body appreciates the regular food input. This means it knows it can send food efficiently through our system and dispose of waste.

If it’s not fed on a frequent basis, it has to retain fat in case it needs an energy reserve later on. Hence we can struggle to lose weight despite the fact that we’re starving ourselves.

By eating several meals before the end of the afternoon, our calorific intake is geared towards the earlier part of the day. This allows the body to use food to effectively power our system, and not retain excess supplies of fat. If we start a meal feeling starving, we are also tempted to eat the wrong things.

When we are ravenous, it’s a lot more difficult to resist ‘junk food’ or less healthy food. We usually go for filling foods that are high in carbohydrates like bread, pasta and rice. These are fine for the quick hit to satisfy, but are not going to help with a weight loss program. So in conclusion, eat small frequent meals throughout the day. This will leave you feeling satiated and help with your weight loss program.

Writing notes in a diary is a great way to keep an eye on what you’re eating. For seven days, stick to your usual pattern of eating. Put all the items you eat and drink into your food diary – bar none! When a week has passed, analyse the contents of your diary. Try to identify any patterns where poor food choices are more evident.

Patently if your record shows a higher consumption of alcohol or fatty foods than you’d realised, you might begin by reducing those initially. However, if you’ve only written healthy food and drink down, then it’s probably just a case of decreasing the portions. Whether it’s the first or the second situation, you’ll be able to see how to adjust your intake from the entries in the diary.

Make notes about how you intend the following seven days to pan out. Put everything down relating to exercise, food and drink. Write down different food categories to list what’s banned and what’s restricted. In a different section, make a list of the different foods you are allowed to have.

As far as alcohol is concerned, keep it to a minimum. Write down when it’s not allowed, and when and how much it is allowed. Cans of soft drinks containing sugar are out. Next look at exercise. Decide what you are going to do each day and write it down.

Early in the morning on the first day of your diet, take an accurate reading of your weight. Every seven days, look at how it’s going and then plan the next week. And write down how heavy you are at the beginning of each week.

With a plan like this, you’re in complete control. Little illustrations of what’s gone well and what hasn’t will encourage and remind you once you’re several weeks in. Also enter the exercise you’re doing, to make sure this isn’t getting left out. It’s amazing how much easier it is to stick with something if it’s all written down.

It’s important not to expect too much too quickly. In the beginning, a few pounds off probably won’t look much difference. You should soon start to feel less pull on your clothes though. Remember patience is a virtue! Keeping up your motivation is sometimes tough, so try to dwell on the end result and the joy it will bring!

If you do get demoralised with your results, analyse what’s been happening. It could be that you should look at altering your diet. Adding more exercise might be the thing. A brisk walk several times a week can be done at any time of day.

Celebrate your achievements along the way. Quantifying the results you achieve makes dieting a great deal easier to maintain long-term. A whole new wardrobe isn’t a good idea until your desired weight is achieved. However, there’s nothing wrong with a theatre trip to celebrate a milestone.

Doctors talk about our body mass index when they refer to weight issues. A healthy index is anywhere between eighteen and a half and twenty five. Above twenty five, and we have a problem with our weight. Furthermore we’re defined as obese and morbidly obese respectively if we rise above first thirty and then forty.

To work out your own index – Use a metric rule to measure your height. Then record your weight in kilograms. Start with a multiplication sum – your height times itself. Then take that answer and divide it by how much you weigh.

For example if your height is 1.6 metres and your weight is 78 kilos, your BMI is 30.47 (1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56 then 78 / 2.56 = 30.47). As a BMI of more than thirty has been classified as obese, action would definitely be required in the above example.

If we persist with eating fatty and sugary calorie-laden food, we’ll never get a grip on our weight management. By making healthier choices and eating smaller quantities, our bodies can use up our existing stores of fat and hence we will lose weight.

However, it’s not advisable to go full out on the latest fad or crash diet that is likely to simply depress you. A crash diet is any eating programme with less than 1200 – 1500 calories a day. Such ‘instant remedies’ may produce some results, but it’s likely the weight will flood back on.

It takes re-education and time to achieve lasting results. Cut back your calorie consumption to 75 percent of what you eat now, and you should see a few pounds come off every month. So not the un-realistic promises fed to you from the instant remedy brigade, but a real solution to help you stay out of the danger zones.

Foods which contain the most calories tend to have a high fat content. Lower your intake of saturated fat then, and you achieve a noticeable reduction in calories. Substitute fat with whole grains, vegetables and fruit. It’s amazing how quickly you’ll start to notice improvements in your health.

Don’t miss out on meals in an attempt to reduce the amount of calories you eat. By the afternoon, you’ll be so hungry you might be tempted by chocolate or crisps. In point of fact, eating at least 4 small meals every 3 hours or so will prove much more satisfactory. It’s in fact more difficult to lose weight when you starve yourself. Your body can metabolise more productively when it knows it’s receiving small regular intakes of fuel. This allows it to get rid of excess fat more easily.

A stressful lifestyle with not enough sleep is now thought to add another problem – it could be the reason for our weight problems. We find it hard to say no, and so end up rushing around doing far too many tasks – often skimping things instead of taking the time to do them well. There always seem to be so many things to get through – small wonder we become tense and fraught! At this time, our natural inclination is to eat.

But it could be there’s a connection between food that’s laden with calories and feeling stressed. Stress-related weight gain does exist. The process is thought to be something like this – Cortisol, a stress hormone is exuded by the body at particularly stressful times.

As a result, this stimulates the release of insulin in an effort to make our blood-sugar level stable. This insulin release makes us feel hungry- particularly for carbohydrate and fat-rich foods. So we eat carbs and fats, and pretty quickly feel more energised.

A moment or so later the stress is appeased and we feel happy again. But very soon afterwards, our energy boost plummets! To explain – the glucose now in our bloodstream is captured by the insulin and transferred to the fat deposits around our body.

Therefore we should aim to simplify our lives first if we’re planning a weight loss program. Alongside this concept, think about how much sleep you’re getting. We used to get around 8 hours of sleep a night, but it’s over an hour less than that now on average.

Respectively, the level of obesity in our society has risen. There could be a hormonal link to the two factors. If we’re not sleeping for long enough, we develop an appetite for more food. This is because our body thinks it must be daytime when we’re awake, so it’s time to eat.

Clearly the more tired we feel, the greater our desire to re-fuel. Yet again, this leads to a craving for high fat and carbohydrate food. Weight gain problems therefore could be helped by simply taking a full eight hours sleep.

In conclusion – a simpler life could be just the spur our weight loss program needs. Have a go at delegating some of your domestic chores, and organise more reasonable work schedules. Then whatever the day has brought, why not put a few minutes aside for reflection before easing yourself into a good night’s sleep?