Ways to Lose Weight

Even though there are many ways to lose weight, some are more harmful than others. There are also some dangerous measures that many people take to shed the extra pounds such as starvation diets or weight loss surgeries. Many times people will turn to weight loss aids when they just don’t have the willpower to lose weight on their own and some of these products guarantee to provide them with ways to lose weight quickly. These are the four basic types of diet aids and supplements that you will find in the stores.

Stimulants– Before it was banned by the FDA for causing life threatening side effects, Ephedrine was an prime example of an herbal stimulant for weight loss and was at one time used in a number of products. The basic idea behind stimulants is raising your metabolism in order to burn calories. You should know that this cannot be accomplished without increasing your heart rate as well.

Fat Burners– These weight loss aids are designed to dissolve your body’s fat. Although this sounds like one of the easier ways to lose weight fast, they have shown very little success.

Fat Blockers– These diet aids actually do work the way that they are supposed to but only if you are consuming a lot of fatty foods. If you are eating high amounts of other macronutrients, proteins and carbohydrates, then they don’t work at all.

Appetite Suppressants– As the name says, these diet aids keep your appetite down or make you feel fuller sooner. Some people use fiber supplements as appetite suppressants because once ingested, the fiber expands and makes you feel full while at the same time giving you the fiber that your system needs.

Many of these diet aids are a combination of all the above ingredients which provides you with ways to lose weight fast. As an example, the supplements which have an appetite suppressant which will slow down your eating which will be combined with a fat blocker which helps to dissolve the fat from the food that you eat.

It’s very easy to become disillusioned with products which make such loud noises about “melting fat off” but never do the job by themselves. No matter what kind of diet aids you use, making direct changes to your diet itself and incorporating an exercise routine are the only real way to lose the extra weight. You won’t find the answer in a bottle.

If you are serious about finding an actual working way to lose weight fast, you need to find both a diet and an exercise plan that will help you to burn fat. Once you do that, you can use the diet supplements as an extra support to help you stick to your plan more effectively. Don’t think of these diet aids as the only way to lose weight fast but more of a tool to be employed in addition to diet and exercise.

Lose Stomach Fat

If you have always dreamed of having perfect six-pack abs but have fallen short of your desires no matter what you do, then you might have to learn how to lose stomach fat before the muscles can even be seen. The bad news is that the stomach area is where fat seems to accumulate. For women, the cause is usually age which makes the metabolism slow down and this slows down even more after menopause. How to lose stomach fat really isn’t rocket science though.

What most people aren’t aware of is that stomach fat that is visible isn’t the kind of fat that has to be lost. It’s the deep layers of fat, or visceral fat, that has to be done away with. This is the fat that is dangerous to your health and increases your risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even certain types of cancer. While it is important to lose this deep fat, this isn’t the fat that covers the abdominal cavity. Happily, this visceral fat does respond well to exercise and diet so that you can lose both types of fat at the same time.

The steps that are needed to lose stomach fat and develop the six-pack abs that you’ve always wanted are:

Exercise. Sit-ups and crunches are a waste of time since they do not help you burn fat. If done alone, they will not help you produce the abs that you want. You need a more balanced exercise routine which include cardiovascular workouts which burn fat as well as strength training exercises which will work all of the abdominal muscles. Moderate intensity is all that is needed for the cardiovascular exercises but these should be done daily.
Revamp your eating habits. Don’t cut fat entirely from your diet. Replace saturated fats with better and healthier options. Substitute complex carbohydrates such as are found in fresh fruits and vegetables for the simpler carbohydrates which are found in white breads, pastas and sweets. To lose stomach fat, you will also need to cut back on your calories by making lower calorie selections and reducing portion size.

Work to tighten and strengthen your core muscles. These are located in the torso just above the abdomen. This workout will also strengthen your support muscles as well. This will also help you to perform the necessary exercises correctly and with good form so that they are more effective.

Don’t grow dependent on using exercise machines. Retrain yourself to do exercises independently. These machines have a limit of only a couple of movements. Repetitive movements are not enough for those who want six-pack abs.

Find an exercise routine that you can actually enjoy for your cardiovascular workout. Monotony is the basis of failure with any exercise routine. Whether it is a thirty minute walk or a few laps in the pool, consistency is the key to a good workout which will help you lose stomach fat successfully.

Lose Leg Fat

Many women who are trying to have a fit and trim body are having a problem trying to lose leg fat. The legs are a particularly hard area to lose weight in. Sometimes it is a person’s genetics which determine the amount of fat that is stored as well as where in the legs is stored. For some women, the thighs is the target storage area of fat, for others it is the entire legs which store fat. Losing leg fat can be very hard for some but not for others.

No matter how much leg fat that you have or where on your legs it is located, you can’t just reduce your legs in spots or to lose the fat in just the desired spots. Just like losing weight in other areas of your body, you have to lose the body fat in order reduce the fat of the problem area.

Even though some women try to lose leg fat through diet and exercise, there are a few common mistakes many of them make which keep them from reaching their desired goals. Some of these mistakes in trying to lose leg fat are:

Do the improper type of exercises for the leg area that you are trying to slim down. If your leg fat is in your thighs and you do strength training alone without aerobic exercises to burn calories and fat as well, you will only make the thighs larger by adding muscle mass.

No exercise at all. Women are afraid of having muscular legs from exercise instead of losing fat in the leg area. What they don’t realize is that strength training tones the leg muscles and increase muscle mass while the aerobic exercises burn the fat and calories off the legs. It takes both types of exercises to produce trim and well-toned legs.

Use only exercise to lose leg fat. You have to cut fat from your daily diet just like when you are trying to lose total body fat. It makes no difference how much or how hard you exercise to burn the fat, if your calorie intake is higher than your burn off output, then you will never see any result. The basic point here is that you have to reduce calories, refined carbohydrates and limit your fat intake.

Do the same exercises over and over again. It takes a few different exercises for strength training. This will create and overall toned look once the fat is finally gone. You can’t lose weight in just one area with fat burning exercise. As an example, you can’t lose weight in your legs with just an exercise bike workout. It takes a more balanced approach to exercise to get the slim toned legs that you want. In fact, using just an exercise bike will put added stress to your knee joints.

Concentrate on only losing leg fat instead of overall body fitness. The core muscles are located mostly in the torso, or middle region of the body. These help to support the rest of the body’s muscles. They are also necessary for normal functions when performing everyday tasks. What you should be doing is sculpting your body into the lean, toned up machine that you want it to be. This means more muscle mass which will help you to burn more calories for continuous weight loss. Remember for every pound of muscle you need to burn 30-50 calories daily.

In order to have those leaner legs that you want you have to take an overall approach to fitness rather than just concentrating on losing leg fat. Exercising for at least thirty minutes five to seven days a week , with a rest day in between working out any major muscle group will get you the most benefit overall.