Advice And Information To Help You To Lose Weight

More and more people are looking into ways of losing weight. Obesity is an ever increasing problem and being over-weight can cause many different health problems. This article gives free advice to help people in their fight to lose weight.

There are many different diets out there which try to help people to lose their excess fat, these can be very difficult to follow as the whole reason we are over-weight is because of our love for food. The diets themselves normally recommend us to eat healthy but uninspiring foods. These diets have never really worked for me, mainly because I have possibly not got the right attitude but mainly because I find it hard to stick to them. A month maybe, six months certainly not.

In my opinion exercise is the best way to lose weight. Going to a gym is certainly not for everyone and is somewhere I feel out of place and exposed. I always feel that people are looking, talking and laughing at me behind my back. Maybe I am just too paranoid.

I personally would recommend hiring a personal trainer. Now you might think that only the rich and famous could possibly do this but you would be wrong. There are many personal fitness trainers who are either connected to a gym or who advertise locally in newspapers or magazines.

These are specially trained people who are willing to come to your house to show you how to correctly exercise and they do not cost an arm and a leg.

If you have attempted this route before but have had a negative experience do not despair. It may well be because you just did not hit it off with your personal trainer. I have been using a personal trainer for the last five months and only plumped for him after trying out four others first.

My personal trainer is very good for me. He keeps me on my toes, is very good at making me continue to work hard when all I want to do is quit. He is also very fair and seems to understand how far to push me. Together we have worked out and agreed a program which includes various goals for the future. He seems to also understand about the types of food which I should and should not be eating. I am happily still able to eat a lot of foods which I like and he has also introduced me to a number of other ideas which are healthy but also very tasty.

Hiring a personal trainer was the best thing I have ever done with regards to losing weight and I would recommend it to other people. I have now lost the beer belly and still continue working hard, it is now more as a fitness thing rather than to lose even more weight.

The trainer has even stated that I am likely to actually gain weight in the future as certain muscles grow. I will not be fat though, I will be toned and a little but muscular. I look forward to the future and can also now for the first time in a number of years enjoy shopping for clothes.

Are Atkins Diet And Low Carb Diets Safe?

Are low carb diets safe? How safe is Atkins diet? Are low carb and Atkins diets dangerous to your health? These are burning questions for dieters all over the world.
I have personally tried low carb diets and Atkins diet and these diets made me lose weight very quickly. However not only did I lose body fat weight, I also lost muscle weight. I had very obvious muscle and fat loss because I can visually see my reduced muscle mass in the mirror.
This certainly isn’t healthy. Furthermore, the more muscle mass that you lose, the less toned your body shape is. The end result is that you will end up thin and yet looked flabby with lose skin.

The frustrating part will be that after you are off the low carb or Atkins diet, you will very probably gain back all the weight that you have loss and even more. This is because your muscles are active and they continuously burn calories. Since you have less fewer muscle mass now, your body’s metabolism or capacity to burn calories slows down tremendously.

In other words, when you put on weight again, you are putting on body fat instead of muscles if you do not exercise. You will be fatter and less healthy than before you went on the low carb or Atkins diet. To compound matters, because of lesser muscle tissues resulting in lower metabolism and thus lesser calories being burnt, you are going to get fatter.

Since then I have stayed off both low carb and Atkins diet. Both types of diets are almost similar as they require you to cut down drastically on your consumption of carbohydrates. Atkins diet went a step further by advocating almost no carbohydrate consumption for 2 weeks before adding some carbs to your meals gradually thereafter.

Besides losing muscles, how safe are low carb diets? This is what Dr Lyn Steffen and Dr Jennifer Nettleton from the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health commentated in a Lancet report, “Low carbohydrate diets for weight management are far from healthy, given their association with ketosis, constipation or diarrhea, halitosis, headache and general fatigue to name a few.”
The doctors warned that the diet increases protein load on the kidneys and alters the balance of acid in the body. This also results in loss of minerals from the bone stores and affect bone strength. The doctors went on to say that, “Our most important criterion should be indisputable safety and low carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark.”

Dr Atkins, the creator of the Atkins diet died in 2003 after he was alleged to have slipped on an icy road and hurt his head fatally. However his medical report stated that he had a history of heart attack, hypertension and congestive heart failure.

Were Dr Atkins medical conditions related to his low carbohydrates diet is anybody’s guess. Do you want to take the risk by going on a low carb diet? I don’t think I will. If I ever want to lose weight again, I will rather go on the proven method of healthy eating and regular exercises instead of jumping on any fad diets.