What really gets me is that these short term diets really don’t prepare you to keep the weight off even after you lose the 9 pounds. Maybe you do lose that weight and the jeans fit better. But most of us need to lose more like 35 pounds or more. Do you run through the program again and again to get it all off? OK. So, now what? How do you keep it off? And what about taking advantage of your body’s natural fat buring mechanism – muscle?

No, let me tell you the only way you will take off fat is to regulate your food intake and build muscle. We have to eat a balanced amount of good fresh foods MINUS the “junque” food forms like white bagels, cookies, donuts, desserts, fried foods. What we are looking at is more fruits and veggies, naturally raised meats, wholesome dairy, a few grains, nuts and seeds. And no, by fruits and veggies I don’t mean catsup and french fries!!

You can practically gorge yourself on fruits and veggies – you’ll get a belly ache before you eat more than is good for you (unlike fried foods, icecream and sweets of which you can eat thousands of calories before you get sick). Lightly steam the veggies if you like and add a dab of real butter. No margarine. Bad stuff. Drink good raw milk if you like milk. Eggs are good for you despite all opinion to the contrary. Whole eggs – whites and yolks are meant to be eaten together.

OK. One thing the quickie weight loss plans leave out is real honest to goodness, heart pumping exercise! Your body was designed to move; to work hard. By sitting for hours at a time, you are setting yourself up to die a long slow death. I know this because I am acting as caregiver to two 70 something year old people that have led sedentary lives and both are crippled by their weight and a misuse of their bodies. They should still be walking but neither one can go about without a walker – just to get to the toilet!!!

Please, listen to me! You need to do daily exercise. Even if you do Turbulence Training like I recommend here, you should be doing something on the “off” days.

So this rant started out picking on a quickie weight loss plan and ended up preaching to you about exercise but do take heed. Don’t fool yourself into thinking a sound diet and daily exercise just isn’t for you.  Stay active. Use it or lose it!!

Law #2 – Eat as closely to natural as is practical.  Now, remember, a law is something that is fundamentally true.  It is established science that our bodies function best eating the foods that are closest to the way the Creator made them.  Even from an evolutionary standpoint, our bodies still function best on nature’s best for all of recent history.  No, we have not developed a way to subsist on biscotti and Caramel Macchiatos and live, long strong lives.  Sure we can go for a while but sooner of later our body says, “where’s the beef? – veggies, grains, fruit, etc…

So, where does that leave us?  The bare facts:

Raw or lightly steamed veggies. Fresh fruit. Get used to shopping your local produce department. Better yet head to the organic produce section. Learn to do without anything canned or industrially processed (sorry, Marie Callender pot pies are a thing of the past if you want to get well and lose weight)

Minimally processed/cooked meats and animal products. Naturally raised beef, chicken, fish, etc. and their by-products, milk and eggs. Learn to walk past the bologna and lunch meats, yes, and that lovely roasted rotisserie chicken, too.

Raw dairy products and whole eggs. Bring on the butter and whole RAW milk! Yes, you can lose weight while eating butter and whole eggs. Just make adjustments to overall caloric intake. You are missing out on some of the most “real food” when you pass up butter and eggs. It may be difficult to swallow (pardon the pun) but current medical advice is not necessarily sensible nor is it truly backed up by scientific research. More often than not, current medical convention is motivated by other things besides helping you to get and stay well (hint: the almighty dollar).

History shows otherwise. Man has eaten whole eggs and butter for millennium without a problem. So why do we have heart disease and other illness associated with modern man? Look at how our modern diet has changed to get a clue. The only logical conclusion is: processed man-made food forms.

Cereal grains like oats, barley, wheat, rice. Oatmeal with raisins. Brown rice with butter and veggies. Whole grain bread from freshly ground grain. This makes sense. Brownies, candy bars, Captain Crunch cereal, frankly, are misuses for grain and grasses (most sugar comes from a grass, by the way – sugar cane).

When a race horse is given a diet, the trainer goes out of his or her way to make sure it gets just what will feed the animal as healthfully as is practical. Nothing pre-bagged or cooked for it, either. Fried? Sugar coated? High pressure processed? No, if the trainer has any sense will he or she give this animal only the BEST and closest to how the animal’s fodder is found in nature.

What makes us think we can get by on anything less? Do we think somehow we can endure highly processed foods – that we somehow have “evolved” to a higher ability to digest man-made fats, chemical sweeteners and food forms? I’m here to tell you, no. Our bodies treat processed foods, fats, and chemical additives like any other toxin we ingest – our livers go into hyper-drive to deal with everything we throw at it. Often it is neutralized and carried away in the blood stream, through the kidneys or bowels and out.

But more often than not, these undesirables get immobilized and stowed in the nearest place it can find. How about, hmmmm, let’s just stick it in this fat cell over here – that’s a nice out of the way place to stick it. Or worse, stick it in the joints (gout? arthritis pain?)

No, like the race horse, we must eat as close to nature as is practical if we intend to have a healthy, trouble free life.

Next time…eating smaller meals.

No, I guess not. Not just because diet is such a nasty term either. Nowadays “diet” means “confusing” to me. What do you do? Do you eat high protein diet or low protein? Do you eat high carbs or low carbs? Can you have fat and what fat is good for you? Artificial sweeteners – poison? Drink water but don’t overdo it… Exercise or not to exercise.  See what I mean?

How are we to muck through the mire of weight loss facts and recognize fiction. Who do you believe? After all, Dr Soandso did years of research to prove his diet. This other Dr. prescribed her “one and Only BEST” Diet plan and saved countless lives.

Well, I am here to tell you it’s time to go back to school. It’s time to do a little research ourselves – dig into this general topic of how to lose weight safely. In case you wanted a bit of a head start, this is what I am learning in my own digging. I have broken this down into Laws for Sensible Eating.  I call them laws because for the past 10,000 years of human history they have not changed.  How man and woman converted food to fuel for their bodies has not changed.  So, we can make some assumptions based on that.  I will take these “assumptions” one at a time.

#1 Law – Eat Less.

That seems like a “duh!” But let’s think about how our bodies have behaved in the past 10,000 years of human history. This amazing “machine” is designed to stay alive even the most dire circumstances. Man has had to be resourceful for most of recorded history in getting his food. There were times of feasting after killing a deer or a young goat which may have been eaten with the roots and greens that were gathered for the occasion. More often than not man has had to go from one feast to another with several weeks in between.

Before domestication there was hunting and fishing, foraging and gathering. Wandering was a way of life for most peoples. Yes, some folks gathered into villages and cities but these were places of trade for the nomadic peoples. There were frequent hard times – times of famine. Assuming people ate when there was plenty, thus stored body fat, they could carry through a long time before true starvation set in.  Some cultures still exist today that exist on this means – whole tribes in Africa, for instance.

As we became more “civilized” we learned to tame certain animals to be raised on purpose: for food and clothing. Purposely planting and raising certain crops made it easier to stay in one locale and therefore people stopped moving on. It became easier to get more food. Meat was more accessible. Produce was plentiful. Life became easier – no more feasting/famine cycles. Starvation was getting to be less of an issue.

Nevertheless, the design of the body didn’t change – hasn’t changed in some 10,000 years, experts say. It was designed to work efficiently while eating less more sturdy exercise. It was designed to store up excess food (in the form of fat) during times of feasting in order to carry through to the next feast.

Is it any wonder that our intelligent body is only doing what it is designed to do? Store fat in times of feasting. It makes sense, right?

Did you know that no one ever, EVER died of undereating.  Think about that one.  Now I am not talking about starvation – the complete absense of food or water.  I am talking about eating less, even very little will not kill you. 

On the other hand, over eating is the #1 cause of death today, if you account for diabetes, heart disease and cancer as by-products of poor lifestyle and eating habits. 

So, eat LESS – live longer!!

I’ll give you a “taste” of what is to come… just what to eat!

Our body has no idea why the stress is caused it only knows that certain hormones are signalling “trouble” which tells hypothalamus to slow down metabolism. Yikes! You can’t win for losing, can you!

And where does this emergency fat get stored? In your waistline!!

It seems, too, that we can directly relate belly fat with stress hormones. Again, any kind of stress will signal “danger” to the body. Whether running from a bear, watching an accident happen, severely changing your eating habits, getting tense over a deadline,  getting a late start in the morning … your body just knows that you have danger and will respond accordingly.

So, relax. Take your new eating plan one step at a time. Learn to forgive your transgressions. Begin each day anew. So what if you had an extra cookie or two. Just purpose to walk a little further. Work out a little longer. Eat less next meal.

But do yourself a favor and learn to let it go. Stress can kill a diet faster than anything. Hey, don’t look at it as though it is the end of the world. Just a bump in the road.

 Often you hear this person saying something like “I am skeptical about XYZ diet. I have tried so many diets and am tired of getting burned.  Tell me this one is for real”.

 OK.  Let’s get one thing straight right now.  It takes Two to Tango.  Number 1 – a sound weight loss plan which includes regular sturdy exercise, but, more importantly than that, Number 2 – a person with commitment!!

 I have addressed the Number 1 issue throughout my site here.  I recommend several weight loss plans in my reports.  There are several highly rated diet programs – any of which will serve the purpose to help you lose weight.

 But folks, it’s time you STOP trying a diet.  It is time to commit to sound health and fitness for a lifetime.  Weight loss is a by product to long term, lifetime commitment to living right.

 When we approach weight loss as our goal we tend to give up.  We fuss that we didn’t lose 5 or 10 or whatever pounds so XYZ diet doesn’t work! 

What really needs to be our goal is better health with weight loss being a by-product to better eating and exercise.  It should be the result of better living choices.

 It is time to take charge of the over all problem that got us fat in the first place – bad habits!  Choose a weight loss plan that encourages smaller portions, 4 to 6 meals/snacks a day, made with fresh food.  Make sure it includes exercise, the kind that makes your heart pump and your muscles get a work out.

 You don’t have a disease that makes you fat.  You have some badly formed habits – that of too much of the wrong stuff.  And then doing it in front of the TV or computer.

 Stop trying to lose weight.  Stop blaming a diet plan.  Take charge of your own health by taking charge of what goes into your mouth and what you do with your body.

 Yoda told Luke, “Do or do not.  There is no try!”  Just do it!

Sound all too familiar? We don’t fuss as we indulge and slowly pack on the pounds over months or years. But one day we wake up “fat” and decide we have to lose weight and so we go on a hunt for the best healthy weight loss diet we can find. Oh, I slipped that word “healthy” in there, didn’t I. Pity.

You see, when it comes to weight loss and dieting, we cannot expect fast results. When we get anxious, we set our expectations too unrealistically and when we cut our food intake and eat rabbit food for a week or two and find that we only lost 8 pounds, we whine!

Mind if I talk straight? You cannot expect to lose it any faster than you gained it. As a matter of fact, it will be tougher to lose it as your body sort of got “stuck in” at the current intake of calories and when it feels that intake is threatened, it will sense when you change gears and adjust downward.

So, eating less is not the only factor here. What will help your body to kick in gear to the new plan so to speak is to give it a jolt. What kind of jolt? Exercise!!

[moans and whines] Yes, my friend, good stout, sweaty exercise is the only thing that will tell your bod to jump out of storing fat to burning fat.

Which bring me to the point of this article… there is some waiting involved while you lose weight. No two ways about it. BUT the wait will be shorter and more efficient when you add regular, internal training and resistance exercise.

The great thing is that it doesn’t take 4 hours a day to achieve some significant results. In as little as 15 minutes a day you can see great changes. Holly Rigsby makes a point that 15 minutes of resistance workouts every other day alternating muscle groups with interval training daily is enough to make big changes in your dress sizes, for you ladies.

And guys, Tom Venuto of Burn the Fat, advocates longer workouts.  As long as they are regular, daily sessions, you can notice huge differences in how your pants fit.

Weight loss is a waiting game, let’s face it. But you can see those pounds melt off almost as quickly as they came on when you add regular, sweaty exercise to your day.

We are on the brink of information overload collapse!  Face it, there is just so much you can read and study and digest and ponder on any one subject.  Don’t you just wish there was a Control Center that oversees the vast Internet and filters the good stuff from the junk.  I do.  When you type “healthy weight loss diet” into Google — WHOA!  How can there possibly be so many programs out there and which one is the best??

Well, fo rone thing there is no BEST weight loss diet.  Oooooo, I heard some of you groan.  And some of you got all head up – of course there is a “Best weight loss diet”.

Nope.  But there are some things you can count on being true about a healthy weight loss program.  The usual:

#1 regular sturdy exercise

#2 controlled eating – both quantity and quality

#3 which is one we don’t think of much as a part of a balanced weight reduction program, lifestyle factors.

When looking at a weight loss plan, all three should be part of it.

So, which ones are the best?  Well, our team has investigated dozens of plans and programs and have come up with quite an interesting  collection of great and not-so great plans.  Take a look at the sidebar for the plans we have written up

Oh, and I might add the best part of this evaluation hinges on “Peer Reviews”.  Look for the yellow box on each report where we cite customer feedback from all over the ‘net.

So, no there is not an easy one size fits all weight loss plan out there.  There are a lot of really great ones though.  Ultimately, you will need to decide which plan will suit you best.  But here is where you will get the straight scoop from those who have already been there, done that!

Glad you stopped by!