Lose Weight Insider

So congratulations! You’ve lost some weight! Now, how do you keep it off?

When you’ve spent weeks or even months striving and sacrificing, you don’t want to have your spirits sink as you see the scale start to go up. For most of us, regardless of our weight loss method, weight regain is a real possibility. But is it inevitable?

Follow these five sure tricks, and your scale will stay put:

If you gain a pound, lose it! People who are successful at maintaining a weight loss weigh themselves at least twice a week. Pick regular times of day, and regular days of the week, to weigh and keep a chart. If you find you’re up a pound or two, follow a healthy and structured food plan until the extra weight comes off again.

Have planned snacks instead of grazing. To combat rampant, spontaneous snacking, plan a couple of balanced snacks every day that you can measure out and enjoy. Be sure to include some protein and complex carbohydrates in your snack. If you feed yourself a bit more frequently, you will be less likely to graze mindlessly.

Balance your treats with healthy choices. You can have an occasional treat, but you can also have an occasional healthy choice. Keep the treat small so that you don’t get a big sugar or unrefined carb rush. And if you must eat sugar or an unrefined carb, eat a little protein with it so that your blood sugar doesn’t crash and cause cravings for more of the same.

Admit your trigger foods and avoid them. All you have to do is look at certain foods and you know you’ll eat them. Don’t keep any snack foods in plain site around your house. Put them away. If you find yourself going to the cupboard or refrigerator to peruse the snack items, you’ll need to keep the trigger foods out of your house altogether.

Experiment and use the tools that work for you. Many dieters hate the act of writing down what they eat. Some dislike exercise. Others abhor weighing and measuring their food. Still others will not give up sugar and unrefined carbs. You need to be honest with yourself, though. These tools are proven to work. So, experiment with all the tools available to you and use the ones that work.

Weight regain is not inevitable, but you need to take action to avoid it. Apply these solutions to your life and you will find weight maintenance to be simple and satisfying.

The best way to lose weight is by consuming fewer calories than you expend or conversely, by expending more calories than you consume.

Experts have discovered that certain foods can actually help you to lose weight without the stress of dieting or exercise. The down side is that many of us have a tendency to dress these foods up with cheese, sour cream, butter or other calorie-laden flavor enhancers. This causes the weight loss effect to be lost. It may be difficult to not add extra calories to these foods but with a strong will power it can be done.

A negative calorie food can be defined as a food that results in a slimming effect for the body. In other words a carrot (without anything else) will cause your body to use an increased amount of energy when digesting it and other foods, this can lead to an overall reducing effect on the body. This is partly from the amount of energy it takes to digest the carrot or other negative calorie food and partly from the elevation in metabolism that these foods naturally create. The overall effect is a net loss of energy, which is measured in calories. It should be understood that ‘negative calorie’ doesn’t mean that the food has zero calories in it, nor does it have an anti-calorie or a negative calorie.

Here is a partial list of negative calorie foods: apples, cranberries, grapefruit, lemon mango, oranges, pineapple, raspberries, strawberries, tangerines, asparagus, beets, cabbage (green), carrots, cauliflower, hot Chile peppers, cucumbers, endives, garden cress, garlic, green beans, lettuce, onion, papaya, radishes, spinach, turnips and zucchini. There are more and you can learn about them from a medical doctor’s very popular book.

In his book, Foods that Cause You to Lose Weight, Dr. Neal Barnard explains the effects these foods have on the body. A quote from Dr. Barnard’s book reveals some startling facts, “They found that those who ate foods that were very low in fat and high in carbohydrates, lost weight steadily, without limiting how much they ate. But those on high-fat diets could not effectively lose weight even if they ate skimpy portions.” Dr. Barnard is referring to the published results of an experiment conducted at Cornell University and published in the May 1991 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

A book reviewer posted on a website how he lost 30 lbs. utilizing the information from Dr Barnard’s book. It is important to exercise caution when dieting because there are certain things that your body needs to remain healthy including proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that are necessary for the body to function at its optimum level. You cannot remain optimally healthy by eating the negative calorie foods alone.