Need To Lose Weight But Don't Know How? Learn How To Lose Pounds With This Free Weight Loss Advice!

How much are you looking to lose? What is your occupation? (It may seem like an odd question, but someone whose occupation involves prolonged sitting or repetitious bending and lifting will have different approaches towards their goal.) Do you know what your current body fat percentage is? Do you have a past medical history that should be considered before starting a weight loss program?What is your current fitness level? What is your current knowledge of proper exercise? How much time can you allot for exercising per week?Are you mentally prepared and excited to start a weight loss program?

These are the questions that must be answered before beginning any weight loss program to increase your odds of success.

1. To lose weight you have to consume less calories than you expend. Weight gain is generally a slow process where people find themselves consuming more calories than their bodies need to perform daily functions.

2. Inactivity combined with consuming too many calories is the main culprit of weight gain. Both can be controlled by you. You make the choices to do or do not. Your previous decisions in years past has brought you to where you are today. It's all cumulative.

3. Determine your current average daily calorie intake (also known as your maintenance calorie intake). You need a reference point of where you are currently so you can determine where you need to go (regarding calorie intake).

4. If you've determined that your average daily intake (without losing weight nor gaining weight) is 2500 calories, you may want to start by consuming 500 calories less, or 2000 calories.

Find out what your daily maintenance calorie intake is at my other Squidoo Lens The Free Weight Loss Diet.

Prepare your body for exercise? That's right. Probably the biggest mistake I see with people is that they jump right into an exercise program with full effort like they've been working out for years! Their enthusiasm is high and they push hard for each rep. [The exact opposite can also be true. Less motivation and minimal effort in attempting to learn and execute the proper form for exercises.]

What you have to remember is that if you're just beginning a weight loss program (or re-starting a weight loss program) it's very likely that you're coming off weeks, months or even years of physical inactivity in relation to specific resistance training and/or body conditioning. You shouldn't automatically follow a program blindly without taking the proper steps to prepare your body for exercise.

First and foremost, you must learn how to perform exercises properly. Doing so will speed up your results while also minimizing injury to the joints and muscles.

1. Determine the amount of resistance (weight) you can handle for each exercise while still maintaining proper form with a minimum of 12 repetitions.

2. Track your progress. Write down the sets, reps, and resistance used in all workouts. [Most beginning trainees do not do this. Be different. Do this and speed up your success rate.]

3. Progressively increase your resistance training intensity. You can do this by increasing the amount of weight you use in exercises, increasing the number of reps per set, or even increasing the number of sets. There are numerous ways to progress your workouts, but these are the main three techniques to do so.

4. Understand that resistance training is progressive. You should be stronger in two months from now than you are today. Do not "settle in" with a workout routine using the same amount of weight for extended periods of time. Soon enough, the resistance you started off with in a given exercise will no longer challenge your muscles. If you don't increase the resistance at this time, your workouts will become less than optimal and your results will slow down or stop. Progressive resistance is the key.