A Three Way Assault On Permanent Weight Loss

The American market nowadays is flooded with more and more 'miracle' weight loss pills claiming that you can stuff your face, take their pill, and watch the pounds melt away from your body. In reality, the only thing most diet pills do for your body is set you up for some serious heart problems down the road.

Although there are a few diet pills that do contribute to weight loss, they are extremely ineffective because they allow you to continue the eating habits that caused your weight problems in the first place. As soon as you discontinue the pills, your weight will shoot right back to where it was when you started.

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So if these miracle pills are not the answer, then what is?

There are three key areas to focus on in order to achieve permanent weight loss: you must learn to burn calories, build your metabolism, and gain control of your eating. Each of these things builds on one another allowing you to attack your weight problem and achieve a healthy weight.

The first part of this triangle is fairly straight forward - As I'm sure everyone knows, In order to lose weight, you need to burn calories. The simplest way to do this is to perform a cardio exercise on a daily basis. A cardio exercise can include anything from walking to jogging, to playing tennis or swimming; the more intense the cardio exercise, the more calories burned.

The next step in achieving permanent weight loss is to build up your body's metabolism. Your metabolism is the amount of calories your body burns a day, and is based off of your body-weight. So not surprisingly, if you lose a huge amount of weight, your body will react by using a lot less energy every day; this means that when you are done losing weight, you will not be able to eat nearly as much if you want to maintain your new bodyweight.

Luckily, there is a solution to this problem: strength training. Strength training builds muscle, and that muscle uses five times the calories as fat. Performing strength training exercises three to four days a week will allow you to build muscle without overtraining your body.

Regardless of how well you do the other two parts, gaining control of your eating remains the keystone to this attack. No matter what some pills claim, you can not lose weight unless you learn to control your eating. Weight loss is a numbers gain, so the key to losing weight is to never eat over your metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn that day). You need to throw out all those empty calories and junk food, and start eating fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains. You also need to control any binge eating habits you have - try not to link emotions with food.