The Best Way To Lose Weight

Posted by Lorna on April 26th, 2008 at 08:50am

The Best Way To Lose Weight - Exercise and Healthy Weight Loss Programs

The best and fastest way to lose weight and remain lean is to exercise, but most of the 70 million Americans who are over weight shun even walking.

A leading health expert points out that a fat person who walks a mile a day will lose ten pounds in a year even if they maintain poor eating habits. By altering your lifestyle to include regular, increased activity and a general reduction of food intake you can do much better than that.

It’s important to emphasize that the exercise program must be a regular one that becomes part of a lifetime, daily routine if permanently avoiding being overweight is the desired goal.

The so-called fad diets have been proven lo be an ineffectual method of long term weight control since they don’t lend themselves to easy adherence, especially by people who frequently eat meals away from home.

To emphasize the value of exercise, even over that of a healthy diet here’s an example of a survey of sets of brothers born in Ireland. In each case one brother emigrated to Boston at age 20 and lived there for at least ten years. The death rate from coronary heart disease was high among the brothers who had moved lo the U.S.

The brothers who remained in Ireland had lower blood pressures, healthier hearts and lower levels of cholesterol in their blood. It was assumed at first that the Americans were suffering from the ‘illness of prosperity’ connected with the consumption of costly, high animal fat diets.

But then it was discovered that the Irishmen ate 400 to 500 more calories a day of mostly the wrong foods - butter, bacon, mutton, milk, cream, potatoes.

The researchers concluded that the difference was in their ways of life – the brothers in Ireland had more physical activity and fewer cars and labor saving devices.

For Americans who get up in the morning and clean their teeth with an electric toothbrush, ride to work in a car, cut their lawns with sit-down power mowers and spend weekends in front of television sets watching football players exercise, their exercise levels are pretty low (even non-existent).

The best form of exercise, and consequently the best way to lose weight, is to incorporate regular activity that puts stress on your heart and lungs. This includes activities like swimming, cycling and jogging. Maintaining a regular exercise regime is by the best, safest, healthiest and fastest way to lose weight.

If you don’t like to bike or swim and the dogs in your neighborhood chase you when you run, try indoor calisthenics, but just make sure you have plenty of daily activity.

When you start on any form of physical fitness and/or quick weight loss program, you should always see a physician for a thorough preliminary checkup and some suggestions of what types of programs are best suited for various age groups and physiques.

Expect lo take several months to lose weight if you’re fat to begin with. Too many people expect to lose weight quickly. They check the scales daily and get depressed because nothing seems lo be happening. This is a sure fire way to get depressed over your weight loss program, and can quickly lead to getting de-motivated.

Because body fluids fluctuate, it would be more realistic to check the scale weekly at the same time of day – so say the same morning each week when you get up.

After you reach a plateau of desirable weight, more frequent weighing may help in determining small gains that can be corrected before they become big problems. Keeping an eye on your weight in this way means you can take small actions to keep your weight in check before it gets out of control again.

And remember, if you’re looking for the fastest way to lose weight, it’s never too late to start an exercise and weight loss program that will lengthen your life and teach you the long term methods for the best way to lose weight permanently.

Tags: best way to lose weight, exercise program, fastest way to lose weight