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Watch what you eat. Keep a watchful eye on every thing that goes in. Sometimes the garnishes can richer than the food itself. Accompaniments too can be very rich. Remember that it is the easiest thing in the world to eat something without realizing that it was something that you should not have eaten. Selective memory you know…

Control that sweet tooth. Remember that sweet things generally mean more calories. It is natural that we have cravings for sweet things especially chocolates and other confectionary. Go easy on theses things and each time you consume something sweet understand that it is going to add on somewhere.

Fix times to have meals and stick to it. Try to have food at fixed times of the day. You can stretch these times by half an hour, but anything more than that is going to affect your eating pattern, the result will either be a loss of appetite or that famished feeling which will make you stuff yourself with more than what is required the next time you eat.

Eat only when you are hungry. Some of us have the tendency to eat whenever we see food. We use parties as an excuse to stuff our selves. Understand that the effect of a whole week of dieting can be wasted by just one day’s party food. Whenever you are offered something to eat do not decline it completely bit just break of a nibble so that you appear to mind your manners and at the same time can watch your diet.

Quit snacking in between meals. Do not fall for snacks in between meals. This is especially true for those who have to travel a lot. They feel that the only time they can get a bite to eat is snacks and junk food. The main problem with most snacks and junk food is that they are usually less filling and contain a lot of fat and calories. Just think about French fries…tempting but terribly fattening.

Snack on vegetables if you must. You might get the pangs of hunger in between meals. It is something that you can very well control, or even better, try munching on carrots. They are an excellent way to satisfy those hunger pangs and are good for your eyes and teeth.

Go easy on tea and coffee. Tea and coffee are harmless by themselves. It’s when you add the cream and sugar that they become fattening. Did you know that having a cup of tea or coffee that has cream and at least two cubes of sugar is as bad as having a big piece of rich chocolate cake?

Try to stick to black tea/coffee. Black tea or coffee can actually be good for you. But personally I would like to recommend tea rather than coffee. The caffeine in the coffee is not really good for you because it is an alkaloid and can affect other functions of your body like the metabolism.

Count the calories as you eat. It’s a good idea to have an idea of the calories that most food items have. If it is a packed thing then the label is sure to have the calories that the substance has.

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Over the past few years the hottest trend in the food industry has been the onslaught of “low fat” and “fat free” foods. They are everywhere it seems.

The cause of their popularity is pretty easy to understand. People think that if they buy fat free foods then they should be able to lose weight because they are eating less fat. That sounds logical, but is it really the case. Do eating low fat and fat free foods mean you’ll lose weight fast?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Here’s why. Your body has no connection between eating fat calories and the fat tissue you have inside your body. It can take a calorie of any type and turn it into fat.

Let’s take a fat free food like white rice as a good example. Now eating a food like rice should help you lose weight, right? Not necessarily. After a while your body will turn the rice into fat tissue and you’ll gain weight.

Take a look at all the different low fat and fat free snacks, cakes, deserts, etc, at the grocery store. Do they make you feel like eating them will be healthier to your body since they are low fat?

The truth is you will still put on weight by eating them if you eat too much. Why is it that we have all these low fat and no fat foods yet as a nation we are fatter than at any time in history? And the trend is only continuing to go higher? That tells you all you need to know about low fat diets and foods.

What happens is that most people hear the term fat free and see it as a green light to eat as much of it as they want and think it will not put on extra weight. And this is exactly what the food companies want you to believe.

The fact is that you really don’t need to be so much concerned about fat calories and total carbs as much as you need to about how you combine all the types of foods you eat during a meal. By getting the right combination of carbs and fat calories you will maximize your weight loss.

How do you do that? With the right type of diet plan. While there are several diet plans on the market, one I have found particularly helpful is the Idiot Proof Diet from Fat Loss 4 Idiots. It is not a low carb, low fat, low calorie type of diet; rather it is a unique and totally different concept. You can read more about my results with the diet in my blog below.

Here is my answer and honestly, I truly tried to keep it short!

“It is wonderful that you are interested in being healthy and strong - losing weight will happen if you eat well and exercise well.

Since you don’t like to exercise, but say that you like to run, I assume you are not a dance student. You are eating the wrong foods, to have become overweight. Since I don’t know how tall you are, or what kind of skeletal frame you have, I don’t know exactly how much you should weigh right now.

Fresh, unprocessed foods are the only foods you should be eating! Is that bad news? That doesn’t mean you can’t have a piece of pizza on the weekend like when you’re with friends, but, daily, you need some lean proteins, (soft cooked eggs, meats, chicken, fish, tofu if you like it –) and fresh vegetables, fruits and salads, at least 50% raw. You can make some yummy dips, from lemon juice and olive oil, grated cheese or sour cream, and add some ranch flavoring, or flavor it as you like with other herbs.

Nuts, celery, fruit and yogurt are great snacks. If you have sweet cravings, you will have to avoid sweets for a couple of weeks altogether to make that go away. You may have headaches and energy highs and lows during that time, but it’s kind of like drug withdrawal. Sugar acts like a drug in our bodies. Our system has to get used to running on real food again, with minimal sugar.

Packaged diet foods with artificial flavors are full of unhealthy chemicals. Do you know that when medical researchers want to quickly fatten mice up for an experiment they give them artificial sweeteners? The same kind of food chemicals that are in diet sodas, which make you crave carbs!

If you have true energy problems, ask your parents to take you to your doctor for a general physical. It’s good to know that your body is okay. Most medical doctors would say I’m too strict on the diet part, but I am a dancer and that’s what works. I do not think you should ever be hungry or feel deprived - but what you choose to snack on stores as fat, or not. Carbs like chips, crackers, and breads are useless calories. They do not build your bones and muscles, or brain cells.

“Protein Power” by the medical doctors Eades and Eades, is an informative book. It explains how the body metabolises efficiently - that is, creates energy for you. The body can do this without any sugar at all! In fact, meats and vegetables have carb content, and that is enough for us.

Oils and fats are extremely important to eat - but, choose the healthy ones. Flax seed oil and olive oil are the most common oils to make salad dressings from. Most store bought salad dressings have heavier oils in them, and nearly always sugar. (And chemicals).

Butter is good for you, and so is the fat in eggs, but keep the yolks soft. Not eating any fat is BAD for you. Just don’t eat too much, and how much is not too much, is relative to how often and how hard you exercise.

Here’s a book you might like: “Slow Burn” by Stu Mittleman. He is a champion runner. He talks about the right shoes, the right diet, the right training routines, in a lot of detail. http://www.worldultrafit.com is his web site.

This is an overview. You need to read about health and diet and explore what will work for you.

Finally, a web sites about ballet:Deborah Vogel’s http://www.thebodyseries.com is an excellent site with many technical articles, books about ballet and anatomy, and instructional DVDs.

I hope this is helpful.

Dianne”

When working to lose that fat that hangs on the obliques, commonly called love handles, we often resort to the latest fad diet. But, diet alone is not enough to remove those nasty love handles. Regular exercise is not only beneficial for fat loss but also for your overall health. Eating correctly and exercising regularly work hand in hand to burn the ab flab quickly and permanently.

When it comes to diet we should limit processed foods and empty calories. Substitute vegetables from the Brassicaceae family also known as cruciferous vegetables. They are broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussel sprouts etc. Its also good to include citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruits, and pineapple. Raw nuts and seeds help your body function its best.

Exercise does not have to be extreme. What is important is that exercise must be regular and consistent. It is best to include exercises that work the major muscle groups. Three good exercises for the midsection, which do not require special equipment, are;

Leg Raises - excellent for the lower abdominal region. To perform the leg raise properly, lie on your back on an exercise mat. Raise one leg about a foot off the floor. Now slowly try to raise it further while contracting your abdomen. If you want to increase the intensity you can lift both legs together. Please save your back and do this slowly. Each set is between one to five repetitions. Increase the sets as your abs gets stronger.

Crunches with a twist - really targets the love handles. Again lie on the exercise mat. Put your feet flat on the floor a little separated. Cross your arms gently across your chest, this is so you do not pull your head up causing neck strain. Now exhale and slowly raise your upper body as far off the floor as you can. At the top twist to one side then slowly return to the floor. Repeat this twisting the other way on the next repetition. Do this five to ten times for a set.

Next is an interesting exercise I learned many years ago. My swimming coach taught it. It worked both the upper and lower abs. I can not remember what he called them. Exhale and then suck in your stomach as far as you can, making a crater look. Hold that for a few seconds then as you inhale push your stomach out as far as you can.

There you have just a couple of ways to answer how to lose love handles. These by no means are all the things you can or need to do to burn the fat but every little bit helps.

I have finally managed it, to reach my ideal weight. It has been a long wait but the wait has been well worth it, I feel amazing. Now I am planning to spread the word, to tell the rest of the world how I managed this weight loss success. I am hoping that other people can feel as good as I do by also managing to lose their excess weight. In this article I am going to be writing about these top weight loss tips, tips that worked for me.

I will never forget those horrible years at school, the seemingly constant mental bullying by some of my other class mates. The word mates hardly seems appropriate but I am unsure as to what else to call them.

I went home in tears on more than one occasion, I so wanted to be a normal weight. Looking back I am unsure as to why I was so over-weight, I presume it was due to my eating habits as I did participate in sports from time to time.

At the time I did not think or realise that I was eating a huge amount, for me it was just an average amount of food. My family did however seem to have some sort of pudding/desert after each meal. This would be something like an apple crumble or ice-cream. Over the months this can soon result in an increase in weight.

To lose the weight I went on a strict low calorie diet. I had to be very disciplined but realised that I would only need to do this for about eight months. Eight months of pain and sacrifice is nothing after twenty-five years of abuse.

During the most difficult periods I would just imagine how good it would feel to finally reach a weight that I was happy with. Yes it was not easy but hard work pays off.