Weight loss seems to be on almost everybody’s mind these days. For some people it is just a matter of toning up and losing a few pounds in order to get themselves ready for beach and bikini season. Others may have gained a few pounds during the holidays, or perhaps you’ve just had a baby and are anxious to get yourself back into your skinny jeans. Still others are struggling with morbid obesity, which has become more and more of a problem world wide. Whatever your particular situation, there are a variety of ways to lose weight that have been proven to be successful. Whether you choose just one of these approaches or a combination of a few, if you stick with it you will find the pounds melting off.
Calorie Intake/Output
Counting the number of calories that you take in versus the calories that you burn is the most basic approach to losing weight. Calorie intake and output is really just a matter of simple math and science. Humans burn a certain number of calories over the course of each day regardless of what they are doing; if you are just sitting and breathing you are burning calories. Every thing that you eat has a specific number of calories in it. If you take in the exact number of calories that you burn you will remain at exactly the same weight. If you take in more calories than you are burning off, you will gain weight. And if you burn more calories than you take in you will lose weight. In order to lose a pound of weight, you need to burn thirty five hundred more calories than you take in. People have been very successful in their weight loss goals by simply calculating how many calories they burn in a day on average and taking in fewer calories. The more calories that you cut, the faster you will lose weight, and if you add exercise to the equation you will burn calories even faster.
Exercise
Exercising is not only good for your cardiovascular system and your body strength, but it also burns calories. For people who exercise regularly, counting calories is not necessary because they are burning so many calories in a day. If you are trying to lose weight, adding exercise to counting calories speeds things up dramatically. Not only does the exercise itself burn calories, but when you exercise you are also toning your body and building muscle, and muscle burns calories at a higher rate than fat. The more you exercise, the more calories you burn, even when you are at rest.
Diet Pills
Many people take diet pills in order to help them lose weight, and there are a few prescription pills that are available for those whose weight have become health concerns. The way that diet pills work is to either suppress appetite or to prevent your body from absorbing fat. Most diet pills carry a certain amount of risk, so they are not meant to be taken for extended periods of time.
Liposuction
Although liposuction does remove fat from your body, it is not really a weight loss method. It is a cosmetic surgery treatment that removes fat surgically, and its goal is less about reducing how much you weigh than it is to improve the way you look by removing areas of fat that are unsightly. It is done by a licensed physician, who inserts a suction tube under the skin that vacuums fat out of targeted areas. Liposuction is generally done under anesthesia, and may require an overnight hospital stay depending upon how extensive the area is that is being treated. Recovery takes some time, and the procedure often involves bruising and pain.
Stomach Stapling and Gastric Bypass
For those whose weight issues represent serious medical conditions, one solution that is available is stomach stapling or similar bariatric surgery. These procedures are often preceded by extensive psychological counseling, as it is important that people who undergo such serious surgeries understand the root of their eating problems to prevent them from reverting back to the habits that caused their obesity in the first place. Following this counseling, the surgery involves a variety of different methods that all aim at reducing the size of the stomach itself,thereby limiting the amount of food that the surgical patient is able to eat in the future. Unfortunately, many people do go back to their old ways, eating enormous amounts of food and slowly stretching their stomachs back to its original size.
Maintaining Weight Loss
The real key to losing weight and keeping it off is to adopt healthy attitudes that you stick with for life. If you view losing weight as a short term project, you are very likely to quickly return to your old ways and gain the weight back. It is important that you understand the way that food works, adopt healthy habits such as regular exercise and eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains. If you view your food as fuel and keep your body healthy through regular exercise, you will achieve the proper balance that will help you maintain your desired weight.
