This is a common excuse everyone makes.. It takes a lot of courage to submit to a strict regime of exercise and diet control so to attain the fat loss desired. If you are not ready to make a life style change, you cannot escape the clutches of the life style diseases.

How does one start on this fat loss and exercise journey?

1. Think realistic. It is very important to set a realistic goal when trying to lose weight because losing more weight by starving yourself would only lead to more harm than good. A target of losing two to four pounds a week is reasonable.
2. Plan. Plan every activity and diet change that would lead you to your goal. The plan should be one you can follow regularly, or else it would not be effective.
3. Make the necessary diet changes. Decrease the intake of salt, sugar, processed foods & colas. All of the above mentioned items are just calories and no nutrition. Reducing the amount of unhealthy calories would inevitably result in more fat loss.
4. Eat more fruits and vegetables. The minimum requirement of fruits and veggies of a day is five servings. Check on the number of servings of fruits and veggies that you take on an average day and you would be surprised. Most people tend to ignore the healthy foods and gorge on white processed foods adding to their fat troubles. When you make a conscious effort to take at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, you would soon see you have more energy in addition to other positive effects, like the glow on your face.
5. Count your calories. Keep a food journal and count every morsel of food that goes in. you would be surprised to see how many calories you take. Aim for a calorie deficit of 500 per day to lose one pound in a week. The deficit of 250 calories should come from diet and the other 250 from exercise.
6. Move more during the day. Be as active as you can. If you are at a sedentary office job, get up every 30 minutes. Get a glass of water, make a quick round in the office and come back. A break of 5 minutes is enough to perk you up for the next hour reducing the need of coffee. And also it increases your physical activity through out the day.
7. Exercise. Exercise is the most important component of weight loss regime. Cardio exercises, strength exercises as well as flexibility exercises are all good aides in burning calories. Burning all the excess calories is the trick to getting a leaner and fit body.
8. You feel you are so overweight that you cannot exercise. This feeling is just in your mind. There are some or the other exercise form which you can always do and not feel the strain on your knees or feet. If you are overweight, start with walking slowly and gradually increase the pace and time. If you feel you cannot walk, try swimming. Swimming is a cardio exercise that burns as much or more calories as any other cardio exercise, but lacks the stain on your body. Water supports the frame of your body and reduces the strain.
9. Develop an interest for a physical game or activity. If you are interested in games like tennis, badminton, squash or other activities like dancing, take up these on a regular basis. These are fun activities burning an unbelievable amount of calories per hour. So your passion can be your fat loss device as well.
10. Add strength training to your exercise regime. Strength training would not increase the bulk, as is a misconception, but rather aid in defining the muscle mass and add to the lean muscle. It would help you get a leaner look even when you are not exactly at the target weight. Also addition of lean muscle would aid in improvement of metabolism, burning more calories in a day.

In short, fat loss is a life style change. Make small changes in your diet and fitness regimes and when you are comfortable with one change, add another. This is a sure shot way to attain the leaner and fit body you intend to have.

Weight loss seems a Herculean task for so many people. People attempt all sorts of measures to cut the calories they take in, by limiting the food intake or starving themselves, surviving on liquids etc to achieve the dream weight loss.

Starving yourself would lead your body into a famine mode, your body tends to store all possible energy as fat, and you gain weight instead of losing. So this is not a good method of losing weight. And if you limit your food intake, you always feel hungry and the only thought that is on your mind is food. This is also not good for weight loss.

There are some things I follow. If you do follow these tips, it is easy to lose the extra pounds without starving yourself.

1. Eat breakfast. A healthy breakfast gives you enough energy to last you till lunch time. Include proteins, whole grains and fruits in your breakfast. Breakfast being the first meal after a long fast time through the night replenishes the body. This is essential also because if you skip breakfast, either you tend to eat unhealthy snacks or a high calorie lunch.
2. Eat smaller meals frequently. When you have three square meals a day, you tend to be sluggish immediately after the meal and lack concentration to do the other activities of the day. If you eat smaller meals four or five times a day, you space it at regular intervals so that your body metabolism is high throughout the day. Also, you feel less sluggish.
3. 

   easy-to-follow-diet-tips-for-weight-loss_fruits

   Include a serving of fruit and vegetables in every meal of the day. There are several benefits of this trick. This would keep your fiber intake high, help you meet your daily target of five fruits/ veggies, and it will give a feeling of fullness for a longer time. You can keep your snacking off for a longer time.

4. Snack healthy. Snack on fruits (fresh, canned or dry) so that your diet remains healthy.
   
5. Cut your coffee or tea. There are several ways of doing this. Instead of running to the coffee machine, try munching an apple when you feel tired. You might forego the coffee. If you must have a coffee or tea, try it without milk. Also control your sugar intake. A common mistake of people following a controlled diet is that they tend to drink more coffee or tea, not that it is bad, with a lot of sugar in it. Now that is bad for your body. Sugar just adds calories without any benefit. Having limited amount of sugar in coffee or tea, or even having it without sugar is just a habit which you can build on.
6. Limit the number of times you eat out in a month. Every visit to your favorite restaurant would only add calories. Most of the restaurant portions are oversized and loaded with calories. Share the dish with your partner, or get a part of the dish packed, so that you don’t load yourself with calories at one meal. People often think ‘let me have this meal, I’ll control later’. This thought never works. Controlling your portions is for every meal.
7. Eat a light dinner at least two or three hours before bedtime. This would give your body time to digest the meal before you hit the bed.

Following some simple tricks, the need for you to constantly starve to control your weight is eliminated. And keep in mind, making the changes in your dietary habits is a life style choice, not a fad diet. Fad diets never help you lose weight.

Food is the source of energy required for all the activities. After utilizing the energy for all the physiological and physical activities, any excess of energy is stored as glycogen in liver as well as fat in fat cells.

Fat deposits have a crucial role to play in the normal body function. It acts as a back up of energy in case there is a famine situation occurring in the body. Body fat also plays an important role in keeping the body temperature regulated. The fat stored in a female body plays a role in the hormonal regulation of the reproductive organs

What happens if the minimum amount of fat is not available in the body?

It is very difficult to eliminate all the fat from your daily intake. And it is even more difficult to survive on a diet low in fat. After a while on no- fat diet, you would start to crave for something fatty. If you continue on low fat diet, body weight drops.

How can you lose the excess fat stored in the body?

Though fat is required for the normal functioning of the body, excess fat is bad too. A lot of medical problems occur due to the weight gain. Losing weight takes a lot of effort and patience. And many people experience difficulty in losing the excess fat. There are some small measures you can adopt as to promote the loss of fat instead of muscle.

1. Limit the intake of high sugar and fat rich foods. It does not mean you cut out fat and sugar completely from your diet. Take in fat and sugars but control your portions. Also be sure the fat you are taking are good for your body.
2. Eat fiber rich foods. Fruits have low glycemic index, they would be converted into glucose very quickly after intake and the body would start giving hunger signals very quickly. When you increase your fiber intake, by means of raw or cooked vegetables, it stays in the stomach for a longer period of time and you have a feeling of fullness for a longer period.
3. Eat frequently. Small frequent meals would keep your metabolism at a constant high level. Improved metabolism would start burning the stored fat for energy.
4. Eat slowly. It takes 20 minutes for your brain to sense fullness and satiety. Eating slowly would not only aid in digestion, but also gives time to your brain to register fullness.
5. Be more physically active. Include physical activity in your daily life. It is not necessary that you spend one hour at a stretch doing cardio exercises, if you do not wish to, but move frequently. Take walks all through the day, for a smaller period of time. For example, 10 minutes walking three times a day would give you 30 minutes of exercise.
6. Include strength training in your daily exercise regimen. It is not essential you lift weights for strength training of your muscles, rather you can use the body weight for strengthening exercises.

When you follow a balanced diet and be physically active, the fat build up on the body will be utilized. It takes time, but achieving a perfectly sculpted body is not impossible.

After pondering on this and doing some research, I realized my mistake. I had concentrated on losing weight, and neglected the toning up of the body. When I revised my exercise plan and started working in a new pattern, I attained the desired body shape I desired.

Here are some things I followed regularly.

1. Strength training with weights. Women neglect strength training thinking it would bulk them up. This is a misconception and on the contrary, strength training aids in toning of the muscles and slimming you. The more toned your muscles are, the slimmer you would look. There are other benefits of strength training with weights as well. Strength training also aids you in burning calories for a longer period of time after the work out. So after you have done the training for an hour, even though you are not working out as hard, your body would be burning calories at a faster rate. Strength training workouts also helps in building the lean muscles of the body, which burn much more calories. The increased power of the muscles happening as a result of strength training would also improve your tolerance to exercise.
2. Eat protein. Increase the amount of protein. An easy way to achieve this is to include protein in every meal including snacks, of the day. Try to take lean protein like chicken and turkey (skinless), fish, egg whites etc.
3. Eat smaller meals at frequent intervals. Instead of sticking to three square meals in a day, eat three smaller meals and include two or three snacks.
4. Drink water. Water is the best fluid you can take. Soft drinks are fully loaded with sugars and nothing else. These are empty calories and would not aid you with your efforts of weight loss in any way. Taking fruit juices is also an option of increasing your fluid intake, but ensure that the juices are freshly prepared.

With these tips I am sure you would be able to lose fat in no time.