Fast Weight Loss

A key component of our fast weight loss program is the drink. As you are no doubt aware, adequate fluid intake is vital to health and to aid weight loss.

The best fluid is water (H2O). There are many forms of water from tap to mineral, but at the end of the day they are just water which has zero calories.

A couple of lesser known things about water are that it fills you up and if it's very cold, you consume calories warming it up in your body.

Many times you feel hunger when you are in fact thirsty. So drink water first to ensure you really are hungry.

Your body tries to maintain a very constant temperature, so if you consume iced drinks, energy must be used by your body to re-balance the temperature.

Iced Green Tea (without any added sugar) is a great zero calorie drink that has apparently got some properties of enhancing fat burning. I need to check out the research by the Swiss labs to post more on this later.

Of course, many of us like beer and wine. What I suggest is that before you consume alcohol, earn it!

The way you do this is to exercise and burn the equivalent in calories. So if you drink a can of beer. You should have done 15 minutes of vigorous exercise before swilling it down.

You need to eat to survive so there is no avoiding food. To stay healthy you also need a variety of foods to give you all the nutrients your body needs.

Here are all the nutrients you need:
* Carbohydrates
* Proteins
* Fats
* Vitamins
* Minerals
* Water

The best way to get these nutrients is by eating mostly fruit and vegetables. Vary the kind of fruit and veg you eat throughout the week.

When cooking vegetables, try not to boil out all the color and hence goodness from the vegetable.

Then there is the usual tip of reducing your consumption of saturated fat as much as possible since it is the most dense in calories and doesn't offer much nutritional value.

Timing is important. Most overweight people seem to eat more and more as the day progresses e.g. skip breakfast, snack in the day and eat lot's in the evening shortly before going to bed.

For weight control, I suggest you eat a generous breakfast and eat small regular meals for lunch and dinner. Ideally you are hungry before each meal with a tummy rumble.

Your body and brain require feeding most during the daytime and least at night.

When you eat, a good idea is to take your time to actually appreciate the food you are eating. Try to avoid wolfing it down.

An extreme tip is to buy food that is not your favorite. Then you will find it hard to overindulge yourself.

In the evenings, try and involve yourself with clubs or classes that keep you busy and away from snacks and food.

So to summarise: eat a variety of food comprised mostly of fruit and vegetables. Eat regularly but only when you are hungry. Avoid going to bed bloated. Find ways to take your mind off comfort eating.

So now you are drinking and eating well, what next?

Yep, you guessed it, putting on a backpack laden with bricks and jogging around the block 10 times.

Well, no "sigh of relief"! But it is worth adding extra exercise to your daily routine. The reasons are:

* greater life expectancy and a less painfull death - you get back more hours than you put in and are more likely to drop dead all of a sudden when the time comes rather than dying slowly from gradual deterioration of body relacement parts and reduced effects of a daily intake of prescribed medicines from your local doctor.

* looking younger - your muscles will be tighter, your body will have less fat and you will have more fitness so you will appear to be younger than your actual age.

* your metabolism will be faster so you will naturally burn more calories.

* your arteries will be kept flexible due to the pumping of blood during exercise and the lower pressure when you are relaxing. So blood clots and hardening of the arteries should not be a problem.

* you will get more sex drive and be better in bed. At least that is my opinion. Hopefully your partner can take it ;-)

To be continued. Stay tuned....

At the top of my lens you can see me struggling to complete a 10Km road race. This is a great way to burn 1,000 calories if you weigh 98Kg like I used too!

However, as you may notice from the look on my face it is hard. I did it in just under 1 hour over hilly terrain.

But gentle jogging for say half an hour at a time is a great way to stay in shape and burn extra calories.

Before you engage in jogging, you could try "power walking" which is simply walking fast to elevate your heart rate and build up a sweat for say half an hour at a time.

To alleviate boredom with training, do it with a friend so you can chat and help each other push harder than when you are on your own.

Exercise in this way every other day to give your muscles 48 hours to recover and re-build between work-outs.

Other exercises include cycling and swimming. If you want to build upper body strength and tone up, consider weight training with dumbells, a mat for the abs and maybe even a bench.

If you are really keen, join a gym and get involved in their circuit training and aerobics classes which may even be free for gym members.