Thursday, March 5, 2009

Healthy Dieting Tips, How to Lose Body Fat

By Ricardo d Argence

One of the most common mistakes made when a person is trying to lose weight is to skip meals. We naturally think that the less we eat, the more weight we will lose. Actually, the opposite is true. When we don't eat often enough throughout the day, our bodies become low-energy, food-craving, fat-storing machines.

The reason for this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as famine response. Our bodies have no idea when our next meal is going to occur, so when you go for a long period of time without eating, your body begins to adjust accordingly.

Since it doesn't want you to starve to death, the body begins to cling to every little bit of fat you have for dear life. Your fat-burning metabolism slows way down and your energy becomes depleted.

The solution for this problem is to consume small meals every three hours. You may be worried that eating this much throughout the day will cause you to gain weight and it can if you eat the wrong types of food. But eating this frequently will also increase your energy level and help you burn more calories and fat each day.

You eat a lot more frequent so it is OK if your meals are small you won't feel hungry. Make sure that the foods you choose are healthy and boost your metabolism to encourage your weight loss. Some great foods for raising your metabolism are grapefruit, apples, pears, oatmeal, lean turkey, low-fat yogurt, and hot peppers.

Drinking water also increases your metabolism and aids weight loss. Drinking lots of water (at least 9 8-oz glasses) each day can work as a natural appetite suppressant and keep your portions small when consumed before eating. Often when we think we are hungry, it is actually our body trying to tell us that it needs fluids.

Another benefit of drinking water is that it prevents bloating by removing toxins from your system. You can also try green tea if you just can't bring yourself to drink that much water. Additionally, it helps if you're trying to raise your metabolic rate.

Unbelievably, eating more food is able to help you with losing weight. In fact, if you just can't get past that plateau try taking a few more calories for a few days in order to get your metabolism back up to speed.

Soon your body is going to makes changes, using up the additional calories that provide you with more energy. You can use that for some fantastic exercise and workouts. It won't take long and you will find your waist getting thinner. - 15437

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