NaturalFatBurn

Being overweight has become such a common problem that we sometimes don't even notice it. But we should, especially if we are one of those 65% of Americans who are overweight or worse, obese. Without realizing it the weight has crept up on us and now we are so far gone we get puffed out just climbing the stairs. We know the solution, but if you are like me you are spending as much as 12 hours a day working or commuting to and from work and the time available for preparing a good home-cooked meal for our families just isn't there. It's so easy to pick up some takeout on the way home and the cooking is done. We feel guilty about doing this (sometimes) but what's the choice?

So I hear you ask "Is there anyone out there who can help me?" Can I find easy diets that my whole family can follow to lose weight and where we can still enjoy or food? After all a lettuce leaf and some sprouts is hardly going to cut it. The answer is an emphatic "YES". Not only is it possible to make meals from scratch in the limited time you have available, but they taste better, they are better for you and they cost less than junk food, both in the short term and the long term. Remember the upfront cost of junk food doesn't include the price of health treatment in the long term, and you will surely need it when you develop diabetes, erectile dysfunction, heart disease and cancer. The Internet is just a wealth of great information just waiting for you to log on and download.

It just happens that there are websites where someone has done all the hard work for you and reviewed the many options available and picked out the plum choices for you. Now remember that the owners of the websites want to sell you something but that's OK. It doesn't man their work isn't valuable. You just need to exercise a little discernment to find the best and with 99% of the rubbish eliminated the job is much easier. Now here are some guidelines to separate the sheep from the goats, figuratively speaking.

1. If you read a diet or weight loss plan that feels weird, strange, extreme or just plain too complicated to follow, dump it. Common sense should be a good guide and the stranger it is, the less likely it will be that you will stick to it long term.

2. If a diet requires you to spend hours weighing food, keeping diaries of every mouthful you eat, and looking up books to count calories, reject it. I promise you will drop off the program sooner rather than later.

3. Look for moderation in the food plan. All the food groups should be balanced and represented.

4. Be very wary of programs with outlandish claims promising unrealistic weight loss overnight.

5. If the program seems to make sense, offers a balanced diet with a sensible mix of proteins (animal and vegetable), fats and carbohydrates, you are on the right track. A good diet isn't rocket science. Much of it is common sense.

6.Finally reject any diet that focuses heavily on calorie limitation. The moment you start feeling uncomfortably hungry you will most likely drop the diet. They don't work for "normal" people like you and I.

If we consider these points above we will quickly see that the fad diets like the Israeli Army Diet with its severely limited range of foods are extreme and unhealthy. They don't offer a balance of minerals, proteins and fats for good health or carbohydrates for energy. These diets lead to food cravings and binge eating which very quickly undermines all your hard work.

Secondly the more weird or complicated the higher the likelihood of you falling off the dieting wagon. The same applies to the second point where you need a PhD just to work out the diet. If you spend endless time obsessing over food - what you can eat, what you can't eat, how you have to cook it, how much you can have etc your focus will be on food, not dieting. Your focus needs to be on creating a healthy lifestyle with a healthy diet, not wondering about the next meal all day every day. This will lead to overeating.

A good diet should stimulate your metabolism and create a long term weight loss. Once your optimum weight is reached a good diet should then maintain that weight. Your weekly weight loss should be steady and reasonably painless and it should be fat you are losing, not just fluid. Fad diets dehydrate you, good diets burn fat. Over the period of your weight loss your energy levels should increase, not decrease and you ability to exercise should grow, not diminish. Because the weight gain was slow and steady the weight loss should be slow and steady. Don't ask for instant gratification because you will be disappointed and any weight loss will just be water and not fat.

In conclusion there are some easy diets to follow. They are there and hundreds and thousands of people just like you have used them successfully. Read the reviews on the web, look at the comparisons between the various weight loss programs and pick one that works for you. Then stick to it. Just stick to it and remember - Never give up!!