Copyright (c) 2008 Karen Sessions

The number of fast food restaurants is on the rise, and so is our waistline. You would think with the number of health clubs and carb-friendly foods available, there shouldn’t be a weight issue at all.

Obesity is growing faster than a weed. There are millions of diet programs and diet pills to choose from. Turn on the television at any given time and you are bombarded with infomercial’s marketing the latest exercise machine, guaranteeing you overnight success.

Sure, the idea of all those ads focus on weight loss, but they fail to mention how to go about attaining true and permanent weight loss. True weight loss is a combination of health and wellness, and it is created in a balance of nutrition and exercise, not a pill or a piece of aluminum that gives you ‘washboard abs’. True weight loss is the reduction of body fat and the maintenance and even building lean muscle tissue.

The majority of the population is completely confused about how to actually rid their body of fat. Magazine ads and commercials keep you in the dark. The more confused you are, the more likely you will buy into their latest product. Doesn’t that make you angry? Aren’t you tired of being lied to?

Successful, true, and permanent weight loss is not that difficult, once you understand a few basics and implement them correctly. The basics are nutrition and exercise. Yes, it’s that simple.

Nutrition is what nourishes our bodies to function, to build muscle, and to lose fat. If your nutrition is not in order, then you will never be successful at true or permanent weight loss.

Nutrition for Permanent Weight Loss

Nutrition is not the new low-carb wrap or carb-friendly sandwich at the corner drive-thru. As mouth watering, eye pleasing, and tasty as these low-carb goodies may seem, it’s merely a fallacy of real nutrition. I can personally guarantee that you will not rid a substantial amount of body fat by consuming carb-friendly items on a continual basis. Such goodies are fine once in a while, but don’t make them the staple of your nutrition program. Choose real food. Eat what Mother Nature intended for you to eat.

Exercise for Permanent Weight Loss

Exercise is the second aspect of true and permanent weight loss. This is not merely sporadic exercise, but a precise plan of what you will do on a continual basis. This does not have to be long, drawn out, or hours of extreme intensity. The key to exercise is consistency, variety, and progression.

Exercise comes in two forms, aerobic and anaerobic, and both should be incorporated for true and permanent weight loss. By including both forms, you will be able to increase your metabolism, build lean muscle, burn body fat, and drop inches, hence fitting into those sexy summer shorts.

Conclusion to Permanent Weight Loss

In conclusion, don’t neglect the basics and rely on short cuts to meet your goals. You get out what you put into it. Make a decision, write down some goals, and set a deadline. Focus on progression and keep pushing through and you will come out a winner!

The greatest problem when it comes to diet and weight loss programs is for many people weight loss is not permanent. It could be a matter of days, weeks or months; the simply fact is that most people during this time put back most or all of their lost weight. This can cause anxiety, anger and frustration at the time and effort put towards following a weight loss program that has not delivered the desired results.

So whose responsibility is this far this lack of permanent weight loss; is it the person doing the diet or the diet plan that is being followed itself?

To answer this question fully; involves firstly looking at the psychology of many dieters, as well as the choice of diets available out there.

Most people think weight loss programs have to be complicated to fit in with age, sex and body type. As I am about to reveal many weight loss programs on the face of it look complicated, however this unnecessary complication is mainly to differentiate it from the competition. It can be very confusing to know which diet plan to follow with so much choice out in the marketplace.

Many weight loss programs out there make themselves different from the competition, by using different daily calorie ratios for the 3 main nutrients found in food. The three main nutrients are proteins, fats and carbohydrates. So for example, what you can have is high, medium, low and zero daily calories of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. There is so many different combinations you can with these 3 main nutrients use to make a weight loss plan. There is little wonder that there is so much competition out there with a vast number of different weight loss plans.

So why do so many diets fail people and why isn’t there one diet out there that has proven to consistently achieve permanent weight loss.

The real answer is to turn the first question around; instead it should read why do so many people fail in their dieting. This leads to answering the second question; there isn’t a diet that guarantees permanent weight loss, because it depends very much on the individual who is carrying out the diet.

So instead of recommending which diet you should follow, you need to understand why people fail diets in the long term, this can lead to stopping the cycle of putting weight back on when lost, thus achieving permanent weight loss.

Generally almost all diets work by using the different combinations of fats, proteins and carbohydrates for your daily calorie intake. In the short term by burning up more calories than you intake you will lose weight.

Recent studies back this up; when the popular commercial diets were compared against other over a 6-12 month period, they mostly showed similar weight loss results. One major study concluded that the person adhering to the diet, rather than the diet itself was the main indicator of whether the weight loss program would work or not.

So what this shows clearly that, the most likely way to succeed in achieving permanent weight loss depends on how well you adhere to a weight loss plan in the long term. So how can this be achieved?

A solution to achieving permanent weight loss lies in looking at making lifestyle changes; developing new positive habits that involve following weight loss programs in the long term. The simply fact changes like this simply do not happen overnight and take weeks, sometimes months to become an integrated part of a persons life.

The sad fact is most people there are looking for a magic wand to end their weight loss problems. Many turn to drugs and surgery for an immediate result. Unfortunately drug use and surgery can have side effects or unknown long term consequences.

So the safer and more effective way to permanent weight loss is to reduce your calories and do your diet program for the long term. By developing these habits over weeks, months and years you ensure that weight loss will become permanent for you.