And to add to that, there's a very good book out there called French Women Don't Get Fat and I don't have the author's name and I'm too lazy to hike downstairs to find it (love the irony!), but in it she explains that there is a whole cultural attitude toward food that should be considered. Yeah, it's easy for me to tell you that your weight is like your bank account and that you should live below your means and you'll save up money, if you eat fewer calories then you burn, you'll loose weight. But there's way more to it than that. French and many of their EU cousins' lives revolve around food. They plan their whole days around meals and they sit down and make the meals social occasions with cheese and red wines. And I'm not talking the dead cheese Americans like to eat, I'm talking about actual living organisms, made from RAW milk with live enzymes. You see, Americans and Western nationals in general eat dead food. One way or another, through pasteurization and other heat processes, we kill our food to the extent that it's no longer beneficial for us to consume it. You want to know how to eat without counting calories? Eat real, whole, natural, and alive food. Seek out the cheese that's made from RAW milk. Seek out the organics and develop a taste for social, responsible, healthy red wine. Read that book and you'll see what I'm talking about. Plant a garden and eat the produce you grow. Don't use chemical herbicides or insecticides. Let the earth worms multiply and bring in beneficial insects like ladybugs.

So much is said, a lot more done and yet more waiting to be done...all for loosing weight!
Unfortunately it is not as easy as adding some extra pounds , alot of care goes in getting the weight down.

Attitude,Preparedness,Will are very important in this combat.
Consuming a lot of water is one good way to start and keep Healthy.
However, you must know the required amount of calories you need and how much you burn; a serious weight loss program must take care that you burn more than you eat, but be prepared for some bad news alongside.

Healthy way to stay fit and reduce weight one has to excersice regularly, cardio excersises importantly.
Stay on a proper balanced diet, sleep sufficiently and eat at proper intervals.

With all this said, one most important thing is to have a mind frame to retaliate any "extra pounds" that tyr ro add on you.

Happy Weight Loosing

Just eat the right foods, like vergies and things like that. Cut down on soda, and anything that is really sweet. Also try and excersse as much, try walking home the long way so you burn extra calories or decide to go to the mall and powerwalk with friends so it fell less like excersise. Don;t do the atkins diet and all those fake excerise things they do not work. THe best thing is to burn more calories then you consume. Doing that and you will sure lose the etra fat around you whole body

The #1 factor to losing weight is eating less. This can take a lot of self control, but it's the most important thing. Try not to drink alcohol either, because alcohol can reallllllly make you fat really fast. Don't eat more than you have to and don't feel compelled to clean your plate at meals. And don't snack in front of the TV. I'm not saying exercise isn't useful, too, but you'll lose weight faster by eating less than you will by exercising more.

OMG, I don't think I've read a forum more full of crap (other than the religion discussions ) than this one! Don't do anything, just eat healthy food, don't eat junk food, I lost 10 kgs and didn't do anything, eat less.... jeepers! You're all WRONG!

Some people have snippets of what is good and others are just down right B.S.!

(This is a lot to read but I am writing a book on correct diet, so I'm not talking through a hole in my behind)

Here's the real deal - it will work for pretty much anyone so long as you don't have any medical conditions that would inhibit weight loss or exercise (even then, I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and that doesn't stop me!)
The biggest contributing factor to weight gain or lack of weight loss is carbohydrates and lack of sufficient exercise. STOP! Do not rush out and read every book you can on 'low-carb' diets and absolutely DO NOT cut 'carbs' from your diet. Here's the the secret - sugar is a carbohydrate, a very simple carbohydrate. Yes, there are complex and simple carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are high-GI (Glycaemic Index) and complex carbohydrates are low-GI. Sugar for example as a GI of about 77. So does white bread so when you eat white bread, you may as well be chuggng down pure sugar. What you want to do is minimise your simple carbohydrates (sugar, white bread, plain pasta etc) and eat complex carbohydrates like wholegrain/wholewheat bread, basmati rice, brown pasta etc - the lower the GI, the better. Even with complex carbs, you can still go overboard. Throughout the day, you only want complex carbs to make up about 1/3-1/2 your entire food intake. And by no means completely eliminate simple carbs - your body still needs them as instant energy but you need to keep them to an absolute minimum - like one glass of apple juice a day (in the form of fructose sugar) or a teaspoon of brown sugar in your cup of tea/coffee etc. (Just as a note - Xylitol is a really good natural sugar alternative that's actually *good* for your teeth and it has a GI of only 4 to boot!).
Next is protein - the Atkins diet - more bs. You may lose weight fast but you'll f*** up your kidneys and heart doing it and to me that isn't a solution to weightloss. Protein (like meat, nuts, eggs etc) is important for hormones, muscles etc so you need it. Just make sure that you have healthy sources of it. Nuts and seeds is a very good source of vegetable protein and a great snack during the day as it helps stave off hunger. Humans need red meat because it contains chemicals necessary to the body. Haem-iron (only found in meat) is much more easily absorbed by the body than iron from veges so I recommend having red meat twice a week but not more than that because it has been linked with bowel cancer making the quality of red meat you eat all the more important (a burger patty from McDonalds counts towards that limit but isn't good quality so will be lower in iron). You will want to then have pork/chicken 3 times a week (for dinner), a fish dinner at least once a week and then a vegetarian dinner to give your digestive system and kidneys a break from all the protein. Which brings me to the next part.
Veges and fruit. These should make up *MOST* of your daily intake. On your plate for dinner, you should see near on half to half your plate filled with veges, about 1/3 complex carbs and the rest protein. These are the things that are going to give you most of your vitamins and minerals. And yes, stuff like vege juice does count but bear in mind it has lower fibre which is important for digestive health.
Portion control is important. It doesn't mean you starve yourself! What I call 'starvation diets' such as calorie counting etc will only result in you losing weight and then putting on even more when you stop dieting. This is because while you restrict your intake, your body goes into 'starvation mode' thinking that you are lacking for food. So it slows down metabolism making you store more fat and making it difficult to lose what fat you have. Once you start eating normally again, your body goes wohoo and starts to store as much fat as possible just in case it gets starved again.
One portion is about the size of your palm. So for dinner, one portion should be protein, 2 carbs and at least 3 veg. Breakfast and lunch should be scaled down accordingly. Which brings up another point - do not miss breakfast! You will actually put on weight if you miss it (if you eat like most people) for the same reason as above (the starvation mode).

Drink LOTS of water. It aids in weightloss and detoxifies your body (as you lose fat, a lot of toxins in your stored fat are released so it's really important to cleanse them out of your system).

Food is just half of it - exercise is the other half. Now, you don't have to be working out at the gym to get sufficient exercise. 20 mins a day of doing something, anything that gets your heart rate and breathing up is sufficient for a normal healthy weight. If you are trying to lose weight, the more exercise you do, the faster you will lose weight. Now for people who make excuses about not being able to exercise - try Vibration Training - it's excellent! 10-20mins per session and you do the equivalent of 1-3 hours at the gym. I couldn't recommend it more. The only other thing I would really recommend in the way of daily exercise is go hard on the house work! It's sound nuts but you can lose a lot of weight doing speed-housework. Plus you get the cleaning and tidying done so much faster

Get enough sleep! What does this have to do with weight loss? People who don't get enough sleep are more likely to put on weight and/or have more trouble losing weight. The minimum is 8 hours though sleep specialists recommend 9. Plus you'll be all the more productive and less stressed for it.

One of my pet hates - milk. Avoid it. I know it sounds crazy but when you've studied it as much as I have, you come to realise it's not good stuff. In fact it contributes to weight gain in a BIG way amongst other things!

Really, this is all just common sense. The only other piece of advice is something a doctor once told me - "Eat like a caveman". i.e. eat foods that are as natural and unprocessed as possible.

If you follow what I've said, you'll not only lose weight but you'll be healthy and so long as you stick with eating properly and exercising at least 20 mins a day, you'll stay that way for the rest of your life!

I was fit and fine untill i went through a nose operation and didn't eat much for few weeks, and after that till today i've gained so much and became somewhat fat and i hate it, i get tired very fast... i try to avoid soft drinks and fast food and even junk and it's helping but it's a slow process, since im very lazy to exercise...

One way not to do it, although they work, is to use slimming pills called 'bangkok pills'. They are easily available if you put your mind to it, but they have very bad side effects. To cut a long story short, I ended up in hospital twice because of a seizure which cost me the equivalent of 1000 dollars us each time. They made me delirious and hallucinate very badly for 2 days, and there was little the doctors could do to stop it.

Xenical work if you adjust your diet appropriately, but they can have some messy side effects too (the oil you eat is not digested and creeps out on its own)

I have tried may methods, but you have to use them with a fitness routine to make anything stick and work properly

eat lots of organic foods, miso soup, organic rice, etc...and go to the gym every week simple

and dont eat mcdonalds

This post has been edited by mojoman: Mar 17 2007, 06:27 PM