Weight Loss - The Ultimate Guide

This is the place where I will be outlining the main topics of successful weight loss. I will be posting advice on nutrition, exercise, and everything else. This will serve as an overview to the process of weight loss, while I will provide links to other hubs where I will go into detail on these topics.

Feel free to use the comments to ask questions or give suggestions for additions to this hub or future hubs. I also look forward to your feedback.

There are two very basic components to a successful weight loss program--diet and exercise. Everyone knows this, but not everyone acts upon it. Some people try to lose weight by cleaning up their diet while maintaining a sedentary lifestyle. Others spend a great deal of time and effort in the gym, but don't change a thing about their diet.

Diet can be broken down into several phases and stages and is generally best improved in a gradual manner. I always advise my clients, however, to start off their efforts with a jumpstart diet to remove toxins that have accumulated from years of improper food choices.

Exercise can be broken into two major components--resistance training and cardio. These two pieces are critical to any solid weight loss program. BOTH resistance training and cardio are necessary for ideal results. The type of cardio I recommend, however, is not your typical type of cardio.

There are a number of other things that can be done to ensure weight loss success. This will all be discussed in greater detail in other hubs.

Nutrition for weight loss can be a very controversial subject. It seems as if there are more diets than there are foods. Some people claim that Adkins' is the best thing since the sliced bread that they can't eat. Others swear by the value of the Weight Watchers program. Some say both of these are ridiculous and don't work in the long run.

I say, they're all right and they're all wrong. Adkins' works great for some people (if they can stick with it), but it won't work for me in the long run. Weight Watchers has produced some dramatic results for a number of people I know, but it's not for everybody. And that's just it.

No diet is for everybody. Everybody's body is different. We all respond differently to different types of foods. There is a timeless classic in the field of nutrition by Roger J. Williams, PhD called Biochemical Individuality that introduced this concept to the scientific community back in the 1950s. Still, most scientists and nutritionists ignore this concept. Hence, we have the hundreds or even thousands of different diet books on the market today.

While determining how to find out what type of diet would work best for your body is a bit beyond the scope of this article, I can provide some general nutrition principles that work for just about everybody.

1. Drink a lot of water.
2. Eat a quality source of protein with each meal.
3. Eat when you are hungry but not to the point where you are stuffed.
4. Start as many meals as possible off with vegetables.
5. Limit starchy carbs and avoid sugars (there are actually some people who do well with occassional starchy carbs).
6. Listen to your body, it will generally give you good signs as to whether or not you should have eaten something.

I will go into these subjects and more in future hubs. I will also cover the topic of detox/elimination diets, which are quite popular among today's diet books but must be done properly to have any real lasting impact.

For more info, here is a little further exaplabation on weight loss nutrition basics.

While exercise for weight loss is a much less controversial topic than nutrition, there still are many misconceptions regarding it. Most people still believe that cardio is best for weight loss. While the benefits of resistance training are starting to surface in the media, they are still overshadowed by the idea that cardio will burn more fat. Thus, people spend 80% of their workout time on the treadmill and 20% of the time working with weights for "toning".

Ah, the good ol' 80/20 rule in action. 20% of the things you do make 80% of the difference. That doesn't mean to do those things 20% of the time!

Let me provide a very brief explanation as to why resistance training is superior to traditional cardio for weight loss. It all comes down to intensity. Resistance training, when performed properly, is typically going to be done at a high intensity. This forces the body to work much harder than it is used to for a short period of time. Then, when the workout is over, the body enters recovery mode. All the processes that were turned up a notch to account for the abnormal effort, have to work to return to resting levels. This requires energy. Thus, additional calories will be burned while the body is recovering from a high intensity workout. It has been shown that the magnitude and length of the recovery mode is significantly greater for high intensity exercise when compared with low-to-moderate intensity exercise.

This means that, if your goal is weight loss (or more specifically, fat loss), you better make it a point to feature resistance training prominently in your workout program. It also means that High Intensity Interval Training is a superior form of cardio to traditional lower intensity work, but that is for another article.

I have no problem coming right out and saying that most people are mentally weak when it comes to weight loss. That is why so many people start a program and stop it shortly thereafter when things get rough. That is why most people do not do the things that will challenge them the most and give them the most benefit. That why people are inconsistent. That is why people make excuses.

Excuses are easy! Weight loss is hard! This is why you hear more excuses than success stories.

But this is great because it opens the door for you to make a significant accomplishment. You can do something that most people cannot. You can lose weight the right way and begin a new, healthier lifestlye!

This is an area that most weight loss "gurus" do not delve into. I think most are afraid to touch on this subject. Either that or they feel that people will not buy this hokey mindset mumbo jumbo.

Well, I don't care! I love it! I'll work with people's mental approach to fat loss all day because it is simply that important! In fact, it is so important that I will be devoting many more articles to the subject in the future. (Oh yeah, and I wrote a book on it, too :=)

Feel free to go ahead and explore my other hubs regarding weight loss. I have tried to provide links in an organized and conveniet way for you. Also, go ahead and explore my other sites if you wish. I have lots of great stuff out there for you. In the end, though, it all comes down to you. You can find lots of people that can help you lose weight, but you have to put in the effort to actually get it done.

• Weight Loss Nutrition - The Basics